will find pride nethermost. Other vices excite one's pity; pride makes
us shudder.



CHAPTER X.
COVETOUSNESS.

"WHAT is a miser?" asked the teacher of her pupils, and the bright boy
spoke up and answered: one who has a greed for gold. But he and all the
class were embarrassed as to how this greed for gold should be
qualified. The boy at the foot of the class came to the rescue, and
shouted out: misery.

Less wise answers are made every day in our schools. Misery is indeed
the lot, if not the vice, of the miser. 'Tis true that this is one of
the few vices that arrive at permanent advantages, the others offering
satisfaction that lasts but for a moment, and leaves nothing but
bitterness behind. Yet, the more the miser possesses the more
insatiable his greed becomes, and the less his enjoyment, by reason of
the redoubled efforts he makes to have and to hold.

But the miser is not the only one infected with the sin of avarice. His
is not an ordinary, but an extreme case. He is the incarnation of the
evil. He believes in, hopes in, and loves gold above all things; he
prays and sacrifices to it. Gold is his god, and gold will be his
reward, a miserable one.

This degree of the vice is rare; or, at least, is rarely suffered to
manifest itself to this extent; and although scarcely a man can be