Читать книгу The Astral World—Higher Occult Powers. Clairvoyance, Spiritism, Mediumship, and Spirit-Healing Fully Explained онлайн

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The miser, in every age, has been trying to obtain happiness by getting gold. A French miser, who, like a great mass of mankind, thought wealth would make him happy, sought for it, and was so successful as to obtain it. He possessed his untold millions, and yet desired more; and he found that the more he possessed the more he desired. He also perceived that his wealth did not gratify his wants. The moment he possessed it, he found he could not take care of it to his liking. He could not trust it in banks, for the banks might break; and he did not like to invest it in stocks, for stocks were liable to depreciate in value; so he made up his mind that he would convert it into money, and keep it continually in his sight; and accordingly he had it placed in heaps, and stood and watched it. But then he was unable to sleep because he feared burglars and assassins, whose plottings for his life and money constantly rung in his ear. As he stood and watched those shining heaps, he reflected that although he had obtained wealth he had derived no satisfaction from it, but that every dollar added to his possessions added a new pang to his sorrows; and he determined to kill himself, and accordingly proceeded to the banks of the river Seine, for the purpose of drowning himself. Upon arriving at the river’s bank, happening to put his hand in his pocket, he found four guineas. Thinking they would thereafter be of no use to him, he concluded that rather than have them lost, he would, before he sought his watery grave, go and find some needy person to whom he might give the money. He accordingly went to a miserable hovel close by. As he approached it, he heard cries of agony and distress within. He entered, when he beheld a most heart-rending sight. There lay a poor, sick, distressed widow on a pallet of straw, with a few rags for covering; and there were four hungry, dirty, naked children crying for bread, while the sick mother had no bread for them, or the means of obtaining any. The miser stepped up to the bed, and placed the four strayed guineas in her hand, and told her they were hers. She looked wildly at the money, and then at the giver, and then at the guineas again. She seized his hand, pressed it, blessed him, and called upon God to bless him; and the children thanked him. The thanks, and blessings, and tears which were showered upon that miser’s heart caused it to break, and for the first time in his life a pulsation of pleasure, delight, and satisfaction beat through his soul, and as he stood and witnessed the joy, and thankfulness, and hope of that family he exclaimed, “What! is happiness so cheap? then I will be happy.” Then he went away, not to drown himself in the Seine, but to seek out other similar cases of suffering; and after that he had no occasion to kill himself, for he had found what was the canker that had so long been gnawing upon his heart. He found that he possessed a moral nature that had needs, and that that nature was calling upon him to perform certain moral duties; and that the moment he obeyed the demands of that nature, he silenced that clamoring within, which had all his life long rendered him unhappy and discontented; and at a good old age he testified that the way to be happy was to be good and useful.