[4] i.e. The old Jesuit mission in Romney Terrace, afterwards Horseferry Road, now absorbed in the Cathedral parish. The letter was written on October 27, 1852.
[5] Book I, xix. 3.
[6] Ibid., xv. i.
[7] Eternal Priesthood, p. 81.
[8] Ibid., p. 104.
[9] Ibid., p. 58.
[CONFERENCE III]
POVERTY
THERE is nothing new in the remark that Christ at His coming sanctified the state of poverty in a manner totally new to the world. In this relation we look upon the circumstances which surrounded His birth as a very special Providence. The life of the Holy Family at Nazareth was indeed one of ordinary but apparently not extreme poverty. The question "Is not this the son of the carpenter whom we know?" "Is not this the carpenter?" show us that our Lord and St. Joseph practised a trade in the ordinary way, like any other Jews would have done, working no doubt day by day for their living, but not in a state of destitution, or in want for the necessaries of life. By a combination of circumstances however, which we believe to have been brought about by God for this express purpose, His birth took place away from His home and from the friends of His mother and St. Joseph, in surroundings which were without what may fairly be considered as the necessaries of life. It was under these circumstances that He preached His first sermon on the dignity of Poverty.
It was a new idea to the people and one of which the world had never before heard. The poor have ever formed the vast majority of mankind; yet the instinct has always been to look down upon them. The ancient Romans looked upon the needy and the afflicted as the object of the malediction of the gods. A story is told of one of the Emperors sending a whole shipload of them to sea, and having the vessel sunk, so as to rid the city of their presence. The Jews had indeed learnt something less opposed to the truth; but even they looked upon Poverty as a misfortune. A promise of an earthly reward was necessary as a stimulus to lead them on to do their duty. "I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." "Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee." A modest competency was to them the minimum that was put before them to deliver them from care and anxiety. "Give me neither beggary nor riches: give me only the necessaries of life." [1] Yet they knew that if the poor were faithful to God, He would protect them; and indeed that one of the attributes of the God of the Jews was His providential care of the poor. "He shall judge the poor of the people, and he shall save the children of the poor, and he shall humble the oppressors. . . . He shall deliver the poor from the mighty, and the needy that had no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy; and he shall save the souls of the poor." [2]