“The Price of a Soul” is an address delivered by Mr. Bryan, first at the Northwestern Law School Banquet in Chicago, then as a Commencement Oration at the Peirce School in Philadelphia and, in 1909, extended into a lecture.
gs of the rich," and it was this condition that inspired Charles Wagner to write his little book entitled "The Simple Life," in which he entered an eloquent protest against the materialism which makes man the slave of his possessions and presented an earnest plea for the raising of the spiritual above the purely physical. I repeat, there is a limit to the amount a man can wisely spend upon a home.
But a man can give his money away. Yes, and no one who has ever tried it will deny that more pleasure is to be derived from the giving of money to a cause in which one's heart is interested, than can be obtained from the expenditure of the same amount in selfish indulgence. But if one is going to give largely he must spend a great deal of time in investigating and in comparing the merits of the different enterprises, and I am persuaded that there is a better life than the life led by those who spend nearly all the time accumulating beyond their needs and then employ the last few days in giving it away. What t
