A Sermon on Wealth

Wealth is not virtuous.

Wealth is virtue.

Does gold have value?  Does silver, or polished kal-gems, cogs or brights or stones or staves, bars or bills, serren-shells or scrip, shares of stock or notes of hand?

Can shining metal feed you?  Can a mound of scrip build a home?  Will all the kal-gems in the world purchase an ounce of honor?

The worth of wealth is not in its substance, but in ourselves; for each bar and coin and note is a frozen promise, a claim on the goods or works of he with whom you choose to redeem it.

And only the finest of our goods and works may sustain our wealth, for none but a fool will purchase ash-crystal in the place of true fireglass; thus wealth is harmony.

And those who deal falsely find themselves shunned by those who give true value to wealth and their markets emptying around them, as those who enrich themselves by fraud and theft find their false profits will not serve them; thus wealth is integrity.

And those who hoard the symbols of wealth for their own sake find nothing but stagnation; thus wealth is right action.

Therefore honor those through whose hands wealth flows most, for in supporting this virtue, they are those who have served us best.

– Word of Covalan, Commentaries