Wealth is a curse to nine men out of ten

We go on through life building up habits that tend to impede our progress in the life to come. Thus, we may unconsciously cultivate feelings of pride and selfishness, which will have to be surmounted in the next life and we need hardly be reminded how exceedingly difficult it is to subdue feelings and change habits of thought that have been fed by a lifetime of indulgence. It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven is an expression that illustrates this familiar truth most forcibly, for it is chiefly, if not altogether, through riches that one is encouraged to form these habits that are his curse in the afterlife. If a man is poor, he has very little outlet for his pride and selfishness. It is true he may form selfish habits and make himself disagreeable to all around him but they are much more independent of him than those who surround the rich are of them. Consequently, in the one case, the delinquent is snubbed and ostracised by his acquaintances; whilst the latter perceives no signs of disapproval. Hence, wealth is a curse to nine men out of ten and, unless a man has had a severe early training—such as will break him off all bad habits of this kind and make him proof against the temptations of wealth, he had better have had a millstone hung round his neck and be thrown into the sea than become the inheritor of a large fortune, if he values his happiness in the spirit world.