And his wealth consisted not alone in the possession of a clear
conscience and a sustaining trust in Providence. There was the love of
many hearts to bless him. In real household treasures few were as rich
as he.
But, in home treasures, how poor was Leonard Jasper! Poor to the
extreme of indigence! The love of his children, reaching toward him
spontaneously its tendrils, he rejected in the selfish devotion of
every thought and feeling to business as a means of acquiring wealth.
And as to the true riches, which many around him were laying up where
no moth could corrupt nor thieves break through and steal, he rejected
them as of no account.
With such a man as Leonard Jasper, holding the position of head of a
family, how little of the true home spirit, so full of tenderness and
mutual love, is to be expected! Had Mrs. Jasper been less a woman of
the world; had she been capable of loving any thing out of herself,
and, therefore, of loving her husband and children, with that true
love which seeks their higher good, a different state of things would
have existed in this family, spite of Jasper's unfeeling sordidness.
But, as it was, no fire of love melted the natural perverseness
inherited by the children, and they grew up, cherishing mutual
antagonism, and gradually coming to regard their parents only as
persons with power to thwart their inclinations, or as possessing the
means of gratifying their desires.
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