THE RICHES OF POVERTY

Evening Star, Issue 20053, 19 December 1928, Page 5

THE RICHES OF POVERTY

A CHRISTMAS REFLECTION [Written hy Quack Fox, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] Ruskin, in one of his minor works, ‘ A Joy for Ever,” pleads for endowments for the- nation’s talented youth, and his powerful plea may well have helped to inspire the Rhodes, scholarships, and may yet inspire future ones. Ho opens with a long paragraph in praise of the modern world for what he calls “ the just and wholesome contempt in which we hold poverty.” Poverty has also a hard time among our popular proverbs and sayings: “ When poverty comes in at the doou, love flies out at tho window;” 11 as poor as a church mouse;” “as poor as Job.” In one’s young clays one also understood “ moss ” meant “ money ” in the proverb, “ a rolling stone gathers no moss,” and one was too “ well brought up ” to question any of these sayings. As for tho rolling stone, its gathering of moss scorns a poor thing to one now, compared with the advantage to it of having its corners knocked off by rolling about. True, there is one proverb that favours versity! ”—hut an unbelieving laugh generally goes with the quoting of it nowadays. “ Tho riches of poverty ” is an idea as foreign as any idea of “ tho poverty of riches.” To riso up and call poverty blessed is about as unusual a thing to do as in tho days when Quo who was born in a manger dared to say, after thirty years of poverty, “ blessed are tho poor.” Poverty is a Christmas tiling to think about; to bo “ born in a manger ” was probably equal to being “born in a workhouse,” and so poverty lias its Christmas place in our thoughts, quite apart from our Christmas thoughts _ and doings in relief of poverty. Tho riches of poverty arc not for all,, but for those who accept it with a good grace, and (specially) with humour, who dare to treat it as a welcome and honoured guest, who would regret its departure, who take it with them in their human intercourse, and are then surprised witli tho surprises of joy it brings them. Poverty is full of “surprise packets,” it is liko having perpetual “Christmas stockings!” Honrs and hours of amusing fun can be got out of “ necessity is tho mother of invention.” It gives one the chance of “ going one better ” than old Robinson Crusoe did on his desert island. Some of us learn by it that wo have hands for uso as well as ornament. It jolts some of ns out of life-long ruts into new ways and new lives; it gives one the doctor’s specific, “ a complete change! ” It teaches that the rich can have as narrow a life as they think tho poor have. It is true that “ poverty makes strange bedfellows,” but why suppose (as I did as a child) that “ strange ” means “bad”? On the walls of my mind hang, as in a portrait gallery, pictures of women eminent for virtues, for cleverness, for pluck, for human sympathy, for womanliness, and these portraits arc of those who arc, or were, as poor, or poorer, than tho writer. There is a “ fellowship of poverty’ ” equal quite to tho fellowship of suffering. Tho key to the riches of poverty is perhaps that of treating it as an honoured guest. This gets rid of dishonesty of thought and deed about it, of false pretences, of caring what others think. Till women who are poor realise that in poverty is their special sphere of work and influence, their sphere of special delights and pleasures, there will bo no rest of spirit for them. Even “ having no timo (or money) to be ill ” averts nervous breakdowns; while to many, poverty brings the leisure so absent from our modern life. And leisure is a, priceless gift. Poverty has a drastic side; it sorts friendships. A painful sorting, often. About this aspect of it, let the writer hand on tho brief and heartening words once sent her by friend: “They don’t want you? AVell, you can still live.” One can even live to bo thankful for being deserted. Friendships are often parasitic; some of ns would never learn to have good strong stems of our own if friends did not at times detach themselves from our smothering grasp. From being parasites, may the Lord deliver us! Friendships should bo with

Those other lives which hold some gift for you, To whom you give.

Ruskin was a great teacher, but the One of whom Charles Lamb said, “ In His presence wo could only kneel,” said “ Blessed are the poor,” surd we have no reason to think that in this ago Ho would say instead, “ Blessed are the rich.” And after all, as Ruskin himself would have been swift to say, “What has woman to do with riches? ” Wealth is her prerogative in life—wealth in its old sense of the common weal, of herself, her family, her neighbours, her country, and. indeed, the world. If anything teaches this, it is the Magnificat of Mary, when vet but the potential mother of Jesus Christ. It is said daily in thousands of churches of the Anglican communion; its phrases reveal a woman’s thoughts for the welfare of the worhl. and a woman’s thoughts about a child to bo. Thoro would bo less birth restriction in our midst if women’s thoughts wore fixed, like Mary’s, on the possible good to mankind_ of a child born into tbe world, even if that child is born in a manger, or (possibly worse) in the workhouse.