Such labor lifts us above the happiness external
possessions can give, and bestows upon us a wealth that the world cannot
take away. He who wishes to serve God acceptably, cultivates all his
capacities to the best of his ability, in order to increase his power
of leading a useful life, and is therefore constantly adding to
himself possessions that can never leave him;--rational and spiritual
possessions which, in relation to our internal life, correspond to
worldly possessions in relation to our external life, and were therefore
signified in the parabolic language of the Lord.
When the philosopher of old lost the library he had been all his
life-long collecting, he exclaimed, "My books have done me little
service if they have not taught me to live happily without them." He had
made their contents his own by diligent study, and no power could take
this from him, and they had made him wise by their instructions, so that
he could possess his soul in patience under external losses of any kind.
The man who studies books, though he may not own a volume, makes them
his own far more completely than the bibliomaniac who spends a fortune
in filling his library with choice editions of works life is not long
enough to read. So it is with works of art. He who can most truly
appreciate them is he who really owns them. One man will fill his house
with pictures and statues and all beautiful works of art, because the
possession of such things gives distinction in society.
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