Show EGOTISM AND selfishness egotism belf pride selfishness the one or the other or ill three find a large place in the hearts of most people and in bome form or another influence to a bory great degree the acts and thoughts of the majority of mankind A country timers in the states sold his farm and took all that he bad with him arrived in the city a plain honest and experienced citizen met him and when the fanner had freely un bosomed himself of hk desire to purchase a home and invest his tn a way that might be at once both bufe and profitable the honest citizen cit izen experienced in city life observing the guiltless and unsuspecting frankness of tho countryman plainly told him thai he did not know enough of the traps of city life and would likely be cheated out of all that he had but thu instead of serving as a warning to the countryman hia egotism and his f aud he left the honest citizen in high dudgeon by and by the same countryman met a great nua the great rogue quickly detected tho anso and unsuspecting buix guix le asness and simplicity of the coun tryman whom he approached with a ahland smile believing that he had found the right kind of a friend and sympathizer sympathiser the countryman speedily un bosomed himself tj the rogue as he had to the honest citizen just before the rogue was very humble and very complimentary he told the coun tryman that his determination to cleaye the country and buy n home in the city was an indication of his wisdom and good taste the declared him elf a clergyman the more effectively to blind suspicion and consummate an an swindle the countryman ended by believing the rogue to bea be a clergyman and the countryman moreover held it as a self evident truth that the council of a clergyman must be purely good perceiving the advantage which his assumed pious character gave him the soon succeeded in inducing the countryman to entrust all his mcana to his care why said the bogus clergyman 1 I happen to know just at this moment of a method of investing your money so that it will double yea triple in a few months and as you are an honest man and will doubt less so apply your acquired millions that mankind will be blessed by your possessions I 1 am disposed to give you the especial opportunity to make a huge fortune if you will permit me to invest your means for you with all my heart respond the country manat the same time hand ing his purse containing nearly all that he had to the rogue alter agreeing to meet the countryman the nest day and deliver over to him caplain bonds and chattels the rogue disappeared and the countryman has never bince been able to find the impostor who played upon the country mans innocence no cence his egotism and his selfishness so this example shows us how our own self esteem and cupidity combined with simplicity and innocence lays us liable to the sophistry of and cheats |