It is not prosperity so much as advertising, not wealth so much as poverty, that stimulates the perseverance of strong and healthy natures, rouses their energies and develops their character. Indeed, misfortune and poverty have frequently converted an
indolent votary of society into a useful member of the community and made him a moving power in the great workshop of the world, teaching men and developing the powers which Nature has bestowed on them.
It can’t be too often repeated that it is not the blessings of life, its sunshine and calms, that make men, but its rugged experiences, its storms and trials. Thousands of men are bemoaning present indigence who might have won riches and honor had they only been compelled by early poverty to develop their manhood. Poverty does more, perhaps, than anything else to develop the energetic, self-reliant trait of character, without which the highest ability makes but sorry work of life’s battles.
Of all poverty that of the mind is the most deplorable, and is at the same time without excuse. Every one who wills it can lay in a rich store of mental wealth. The poor man’s purse may be empty, but he has as much gold in the sunset, and as much silver in the moon, as anybody. Wealth of heart is not dependent upon wealth of purse.
Thus the evils of poverty are much exaggerated, and the evils, if evils they be, are often all for our own ultimate good. [7] ]Poverty is the great test of civility and touch-stone of friendship. It is one of the mysteries of our life that genius, the noblest gift of God to man, is nourished by poverty.
THE VICE OF SELFISHNESS DISPLAYS ITSELF IN MANY WAYS.
The selfish person lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world, to take in everything and part with nothing. Unselfish and noble acts are the most radiant epochs in the history of souls, when wrought in earliest youth, they lie in the memory of age.
Selfishness contracts and narrows our benevolence and causes us, like serpents, to infold ourselves within ourselves, and to turn out our stings to all the world besides. As frost to the bud and blight to the blossom, even such is self-interest to friendship, for confidence cannot dwell where selfishness is porter at the gate.
Selfishness is the bone of all life and dwarfs all the better nature of man. It takes from him that feeling of kindly sympathy for others’ good, which is one of the most pleasing traits of manhood, and in itself sets up self as the one whose good is to be chiefly
sought. These withering effects are to be seen not only in the high road and public places of life, but in the nooks and bylanes as well. Not alone among conquerors