" Let us shake off this fatal weakness. That man is a coward
who, from whatever reason, keeps up the expenditure of a rich man a
moment longer than his income will warrant it.
"POVERTY IS ONLY CONTEMPTIBLE
when it is felt to be so," says Bovee. "That man," says Bishop Paley,
"is to be accounted poor, of whatever rank he be, who suffers the pains
of poverty, whose expenses exceed his resources; and no man, properly
speaking, poor, but he." "The poor are only they who seem poor," says
Emerson, "and poverty consists in feeling poor." Doubtless you are
familiar with the story of the unhappy Sultan to whom the Magi,
traveling from the East to his relief, could give no hope unless he
could get and wear the shirt of a happy man. Proclamation went forth to
all the lands of the empire, offering glittering rewards for a happy
man. At last learned doctors and experts, who had gone out into the
outer regions, brought in a shepherd, who was vowed to be an entirely
happy man. But lo! when he came before the Magi, it was found that
HE HAD NO SHIRT!
The men who have caught this circling planet in the palms of their
hands, as God grasps the inconceivable universes, were born poor and
struggled in adversity; the men who have throttled the fiery lightning,
and chained the fire and the water into willing servitude, were poor
boys; the men who have developed the human imagination into a thing
almost perfect and unapproachable were poor boys; the men who have led
millions of their Maker's feet, were poor both in youth and age.
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