Our Brooklyn philanthropist, the late Mr.Charles Pratt, once said to me: "There is no greater humbug than the idea that the mere possession of wealth makes any man happy.

I never got any happiness out of mine until I began to do good with it." To the faithful steward there is a perpetual reward of good stewardship.
No investments yield a more covetable dividend than those made in gifts of public beneficence.

When Mr.Morris K.Jesup drives through New York his eyes are gladdened in one street by the "Dewitt Memorial Chapel" that he erected; in another by the Five Points House of Industry, of which he is the president, and in still others by the Young Men's Christian Association and kindred institutions, of which he is a liberal supporter.
Mr.John D.Rockefeller is reputed to have an annual income equal to that of three or four foreign sovereigns; but his inalienable assets are in the universities he has endowed, the churches he has helped to build, the useful societies he has aided, and in the gold mines of public gratitude which he has opened up.
Many of our most munificent millionaires have been the architects of their own fortunes.

It is most commonly (with some happy exceptions) the earned wealth, and not the inherited wealth that is bestowed most freely for the public benefit.

The Hon.