Speaker 1: Poverty. Many of the greatest men through all ages have
abandoned riches and adopted poverty to better enable them to
accomplish their lofty purposes. Why then, is poverty regarded as
such a terrible evil? Why is it that this poverty,
which these great men regard as a blessing and adopt
as a bride, should be looked upon by the bulk
of mankind as a scour, riche, and a plague. The
answer is plain. In one case, the poverty is associated
with a nobility of mind which not only takes from
it all appearances of evil, but which lifts it up
and makes it appear good and beautiful, makes it seem
more attractive and more to be desired than riches an honor,
so much so that, seeing the dignity and happiness of
the noble mendicant, thousands imitate him by adopting his mode
of life. In the other case, the poverty of our
great city associated with everything that is mean and repulsive,
with swearing, drunkenness, filth, laziness, dishonesty, and crime. What then,
is the primary evil? Is it poverty or is it sin?
The answer is inevitable. It is sin. Remove sin from poverty,
and its sting is gone. It has ceased to be
the gigantic evil that it appeared, and can even be
turned to good and noble ends. Confucius held up one
of his poor disciples as an example of lofty virtue
to his richer pupils. Yet although he was so poor
that he had to live on rice and water, and
had no better shelter than a hovel, he uttered no complaint.
Where this poverty would have made other men discontented and miserable,
he did not allow his equanimity to be disturbed. Poverty
cannot undermine a noble character, but it can set it
off to a better advantage. The virtues of this man
shown all the brighter for being set in poverty, like
resplendent jewels set in a contrasting background. It is common
with social reformers to regard poverty as the cause of
the sins with which it is associated. Yet the same
reformers refer to immoralities of the rich as being caused
by their riches. Where there is a cause, its effect
will appear. And where affluence the cause of immorality and
poverty the cause of degradation, then every rich man would
become immortal, and every poor man would come to degradation.
An evil doer will commit evil under any circumstances, whether
he be rich or poor, or midway between the two conditions.
A right doer will do right howsoever he be placed.
Extreme circumstances may help to bring out the evil which
is already there, awaiting its opportunity, but they can not
cause the evil, cannot create it. Discontent with one's financial
condition is not the same as poverty. Many people regard
themselves as poor whose income runs into several hundreds and
in some cases several thousands of pounds a year. Combined
with light responsibilities, they imagine their affliction to be poverty.
Their real trouble is covetuousness. They are not made unhappy
by poverty, but by a thirst for riches. Poverty is
more often in the mind than in the purse. So
long as a man thirst for more money, he will
regard himself as poor, and in that sense he is poor.
For covetuousness is poverty of mind. A miser may be
a millionaire, but he is as poor as when he
was penniless. On the other hand, the trouble with so
many who are living in indigence and degradation, is that
they are satisfied with their condition. To be living in dirt, disorder, laziness,
in Swinish, self indulgence, reveling in foul thoughts, foul words,
and unclean surroundings, and to be satisfied with one's self
is deplorable. Here again, poverty resolves itself into a mental condition,
and its solution as a problem is to be looked
for in the improvement of the individual from within, rather
than of his outward condition. Let a man be made
clean and alert from within, and he will no longer
be content with dirt and degradation. Without having put his
mind in order. He will then put his house in order. Indeed,
both he and others will know that he has put
himself right by the fact that he has put his
immediate surroundings right. His altered heart shows in his altered life.
There are, of course, those who are neither self deceived
nor self degraded, and yet are poor. Many such are
satisfied to remain poor. They are contented, industrious, and happy,
and desire nothing else. But those among them who are
dissatisfied and are ambitious for better surroundings and greater scope,
should and usually do, use their poverty as a spur
to the exercise of their talents and energies. By self
improvement and attention to duty, they can rise into the fuller,
more responsible life which they desire. Devotion to duty is
indeed not only the way out of poverty, which is
regarded as restrictive. It is also the royal road to affluence, influence,
and lasting joy, even to perfection itself. When understood in
its deepest sense, it is seen to be related to
all that is best and noblest in life. It includes energy, industry,
concentrated attention to the business of one's life, singleness of purpose,
courage and faithfulness, determination and self reliance, and that self
abdignation which is the key to all real greatness. A
singularly successful man was once asked, what is the secret
to your success? And he replied, getting up at six
o'clock in the morning and minding my own business. Success, honor,
and influence always come to him who diligently attends to
the business of his life and religiously avoids interfering with
the duties of others. It may here be urged, and
is usually so urged that the majority of those who
are in poverty, for instance, the mill and factory workers,
have not the time or opportunity to give themselves to
any special work. This is a mistake. Time and opportunity
are always at hand, are with everybody at all times.
Those of the poor above men mentioned, those who are
content to remain where they are, can always be diligent
in their factory labor, and sober and happy in their homes.
But those of them who feel that they could better
fill another sphere can prepare for it by educating themselves
in their spare time. The hard worked poor are above
all the people who need to economize their time and energies.
And the youth who wishes to rise out of such
poverty must at the outset put aside the foolish and
wasteful indulgences of alcohol, tobacco, sexual vice, late hours at
music halls, clubs, and gaming parties, and must give his
evenings to the improvement of his mind in that course
of education which is necessary to his advancement. By this method,
numbers of the most influential men throughout history, some of
them among the greatest, have raised themselves from the commonest
poverty A fact which proves that the time of necessity
is the hour of opportunity, and not, as is so
often imagined and declared, the destruction of opportunity. That the
deeper the poverty, the greater is the incentive to action
in those who are dissatisfied with themselves and are bent
upon achievement. Poverty is an evil, or it is not,
according to the character and the condition of mind of
the one that is in poverty. Wealth is an evil
or it is not. In the same manner, Tolstoy chafed
under his wealthy circumstances. To him, they were a great evil.
He longed for poverty as the cavechuous long for wealth. Vice, however,
is always an evil, for it both degrades the individual
who commits it and is a menace to society. A
logical and profound study of poverty will always bring us
back to the individual and to the human heart. When
our social reformers condemned vice as they now condemn the rich,
when they are eager to abolish wrong living, as they
are now to abolish low wages, we may look for
the diminution in that form of degraded poverty, which is
one of the dark spots on our civilization. Before such
poverty disappears altogether, the human heart will have undergone, during
the process of evolution, a radical change. When that heart
is purged from covetuousness and selfishness, when drunkenness, impurity, indolence,
and self indulgence are driven forever from the earth, then
poverty and riches will be known no more, and every
man will perform his duties with a joy so full
and deep as is yet excepted a few whose hearts
are already pure unknown to men, and all will eat
of the fruit of their labor in sublime self respect
and perfect peace.