People moan about poverty as a great evil; and it seems to be an accepted belief that if people only had plenty of money, they would be happy and useful and get more out of life. As a rule, there is more genuine satisfaction in life and more obtained from life in the humble cottage of the poor man than in the palaces of the rich. I always pity the sons and daughters of rich men, who are attended by servants, and have governesses at a later age, at the same time I am glad to think that they do not know what they have missed.
It is because I know how sweet and happy and pure the home of honest poverty is, how free from perplexing care and social envies and jealousies-how loving and united its members are in the common interest of supporting the family that I sympathize with the rich man's boy and congratulate the poor man's son. It is for these reasons that from the ranks of the poor so many strong, eminent, self-reliant men have always sprung and always must spring. If you will read the list of the "immortals who were not born to die you will find that most of them have been born poor.
It seems nowadays a matter of universal desire that poverty should be abolished. We should be quite willing to abolish luxury, but to abolish hones, industrious, self-denying poverty would be to destroy the soil upon which mankind produces the virtues that will enable our race to reach a still higher civilization than it now possesses.
