against the combinations of society, and the chances of fortune. He was his own builder and purveyor, his own law and riches. With a new world around himunquestioned, unexplored-its rivers and cataracts, its huge mountains and glorious skies, its sunshine and gorgeous nights of stars-he did not believe in Poverty, but walked thrö the world, as Bulwer describes the Romans to have done, 'like a Lord in his Hall.' He was a necromancer whose hands were as cunning as magic, and served all his wants and necessities. That he might witness the secret beauty and glory of nature in her loneliest hiding places, he constructed a boat with his own hands, and having furnished her decks with provisions, sailed away for a fortnight up the Indian stream' which Emerson alluded to at that Manchester Symposium, with Plato's Timaeus for a companion. And this self helping man, with his shilling a week and log dwelling-house, was of sufficient magnitude to be prized by the greatest person whom America has yet bred and nurtured, and of sufficient integrity to be the guardian of his Household and Estates during his absence from them. A wise man can effect more with his poverty, than a fool with all his riches; for wisdom is the only true Crœsus. No doubt it is inconvenient to forego the necessaries of life, as I myself have found it to be, but it is foolish to jump out of the window, because the wolf barks at the door. I had rather slay the wolf than put up with his howling. Many things that we call necessaries, are superfluities and luxuries, which we can very well spare without injury either to health or morals. Jesus lived upon alms, and the Apostle Paul was a brave Tent Maker, who traveled upon his own mysterious earnings. Take no thought for the morrow,' is the highest lesson which a Son of God can learn and live by. 'Behold the Lilies of the Valley!' has ever seemed to me like a new fist lux, opening up a celestial and beautiful world, to all clear eyes and trusting hearts. The Heavenly Father who cares for the Lilies, cares more for man by giving him the Lilies to love. When I see a fine landscape, or look upon the stars, I am rich enough. Poverty seems a very contemptible complaint in such a healthy and affluent world. The scholar, at all events, who can get bread and water, and is not obliged to run away from his chambers, as Jean Paul was, for fear of the landlord or the washerwoman, has nothing to make him sad and heavy. Let him abide his time with cheerfulness, for he is the chosen of heaven, the 'heir of all the age,' the foremost in times' ranks, the inheritor of all the eternities. But he must battle and conquer before he can sit down in peace, and enjoy the sunshine under his own fig tree and vine. It may even happen that he is obliged to live on coarse fare, and never hear the chink, in his own pockets at least, of any other than copper coins, all his life time thrö, but he is not the less great for that, nor acceptable to that high Lord who knows the relative values of worth and commodity. How fared it with the Cæsars and Alexanders of old, how fares it with the Hudsons and the Stock-brokers of this day, that thou, Poor Brawler against the Destinies! shoulds't make such account of their condition? Was not Diogenes rich enough to request the Macedonian conqueror to stand out of the sunshine? and Socrates to tell his infamous Judges, when they had condemned him to death, that they ought rather to maintain him at the public cost in the Prytaneum? Nay, do I not at this moment know a man of much promise in Nottingham Towna new Evangelist-who, like James Greaves his master thinks three shillings a week enough to provide food for the body, and lives on roots and water that he may preserve himself pure for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost? Numberless examples might be quoted of men who have preferred poverty to riches; and altho I do not like superstition, either in this or anything else, yet it is refreshing to see a high and haughty soul looking with contempt upon the tinsels of property, and daring to live free and naked in a world of Clothed Apparitions. It is a privilege this, belonging to the heavenly immunities, to attain which all sacrifices were cheap. Society will certainly have its laugh at plain-dealing and eccentric persons, who act always from fixed ideas, and cannot conform to the general customs-because it is conservative in its very nature, and does not like to be reminded of its own littleness by the majestic presence of a man. But it is equally true that for integrity and rare gifts society has the profoundest reverence in its heart, altho I doubt not that Socrates himself would be voted a bore, in any modern Drawing-room. Periander of Corinth, whilst entertaining the Sages of Greece at a banquet, of which I have spoken more fully in another paper, laid aside the sumptuosity of his ordinary fare in honor of his guests, whom he knew to despise splendor as well as dainty and costly viands. It was a graceful recognition of the supremacy of the intellect over the ordinances of fashion and the idolatry of the belly. The poverty of the guests did not detract from the moral beauty of the banquet, nor did Thales and Bion speak less freely because they sat at a King's Table. Nevertheless, I am not fond of poverty, and do not like to be pinched with hunger, for I have had my share of rough usage in the world. But what I assert is this, that it is useless to whine over a hard lot, and honorable to bear it with a brave and manly heart. Every condition has its uses and blessings, and I have found much profit of the heavenly sort, in keeping a Sorrow Mill wherewith to grind all my suffering into meal for nutrition. Let us be content with the dispensations of the gods, and believe that all things are for the best. I think the Manchester men displayed their long ears not a little, when they made such a hubbub in the streets, over Emerson's recognition and annunciation, at the Athenæum, of the truth contained in this injunction. Why Blasphemest Thou, O Seer!' was perhaps a little antique and Hebraic, a little startling and sudden to a modern audience, but pious enough, if the good people could have interpreted its spirit; and, the rest about brothels,' and 'scaffolds,' was but a bolder way of saying 'all things are for the best,' and as good a commentary as need be on the text: 'God shall be all in all.' For Poverty and Want, Wrong and Crime, are the necessary and fatal fruitage of that moral fall which is symbolized in the old Fable about the Apples of Eden. He who can look deep enough may see the goal to which the calamities of men are tending, and in the exhibition of frightful public or private phenomena, will learn by this knowlege to hold his peace, in awe and submission. There is nearly as much profanity in noisy declamation against evil, as there is wickedness in the commission of evil. Let him who hates evil, show me a good life, for that is the best and holiest, as well as the most reverential, of preachings. Poverty and wealth are both good, if a true man bear the burdens of them, for the true man is lord of his condition. But in order to try what metal a person is made of, it would be hard to say which of the two conditions would be the best furnace for the experiment. There are temptations common to both, which it is a task to master. We all have our probation of forty days with the devil in the wilderness, but it is not every one who can say 'Get thee behind me Satan!' This, however, is the first requisite proof of valor, and these alone are the words which can unlock for us the kingdoms of Life and Rectitude. Nothing more godlike can show itself upon earth, than a pious and trusting soul that follows the right, and advances upon the starry highways of its eternal destiny, unmoved by good or ill report, and undisturbed by circumstances. Such a soul restores our faith in the laws of celestial gravitation, and makes us feel that God is a solid, and not a gas. Obedience to the high and eternal behests, in a world full of rugged and savage obstructions, where poverty, want, and wrong assume the fiery visages of demons, and with infernal conjurings bring up from the bottom of the dread abyss appalling visions of despair, and mocking masks of doubt and denial, to jibber at the soul and scare it from its enterprize, is, I say, the most sublime of spectacles. It is an obedience which makes God the debtor of man, and all the Hosts of Heaven to clap their hands. I know this is not a common thing, but it is on that account, all the more beautiful and blessed when it does appear. I like the strength and pride-the humility and submission of the old Bard David in this exclamation-Tho he slay me, yet will I put my trust in him.' It is the triumphant chorus in the battle song and life of a saint, and bravery and piety can go no further. Somewhat different to this is the rant of the Devil in Lord Byron's Cain :— He is alone, indefinite, indissoluble tyrant. Could he but crush himself, 'twere the best boon He ever granted. I call this very bad philosophy, even for a devil, and he who mistakes it for religion would do well to read the Psalms, if they are not too old-fashioned for modern tastes. To conclude, however. The Book of Job furnishes us with the best example of a man tried by wealth and poverty, and found even thröout. I think this book the finest of all epics, ancient or modern. The good man, who in his direst poverty and affliction, both of soul and body, would not 'curse God and die,' but answered his tormentors thus: He knoweth the way that I take, and when he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold,-was indeed a fine exemplar; and so high a subject is well worthy of the almost supernatural pomp of imagery in which it is set. How very old is the burden of that sacred writing! How universal and deeply planted are the ideas which it represents; how modern to the highest minds of this day does it read! Think you that Goethe had not been in the same depths with that mighty Arabian? That Faust and Job are not creations of the same material, tho cast in different moulds? Or that Festus and the Pilgrim's Progress would have been written, if there were not one common mind to all humanity, and one mystic, fathomless sea, enveloping all existence, to draw from? These suggestions should admonish us that the soul is its own wealth, and that outward circumstances, whether of riches or poverty, are good or evil, according as we make them so. I know that the body must be fed, and in these sorrowful times of distress and misery, it would look like cruelty to write the philosophy of suffering, and hand it over to the people instead of bread. For I can find no apology for starvation, which as it is the most anomalous and dreadful of all social facts, so it lies far beyond my Economics of poverty. I should be ashamed to write to the poor man who had not bread to eat, and would prefer to give him half my own loaf rather than any dissertation; but my concern in this paper has been more with the poor student (whom the gods always care for) than with the poor operative whom so few care for; altho I hope both parties, in the right season, may find a few crumbs of consolation scattered in it, here and there. THE DAY AND THE HOUR SHALL REVEAL. When the weary pilgrim sinks down on the heath, Do not cut down as a blight to the plain The tree that the lightning hath scorched and riven : When wet with the dews of heaven. Regard no work with an eye of scorn; He who sees fit that the heart should bleed, Man judgeth amiss, but the Thought and the Deed, K. B. ALL GOOD THINGS ARE COMMON. When the newborn helpless Stranger Enters first this World beneath, Born in Palace or in Manger, 'Tis the common air we breathe ;When the silken lids asunder, To the miracle of sight, Open first with joy and wonder, "Tis unto the common light: All good things are common. On him now in quick succession Minister to one emotion, Nature knows no partial boon: Needful things are common. Nature, universal mother, Doth bestow on every soil, Unto one as to another, 'Tis on all the rain descendeth, 'Tis for all the flowers are spread, 'Tis one common sky that bendeth O'er the humblest, haughtiest head: All such things are common. Not alone the broad creation; Thought and feeling both are free, Heart and mind are not of station, Nor controled by man's decree. Like the precious ore in mountains, Inward things are common. |