Noble Poverty

Bruce Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 2647, 7 May 1895, Page 1

Noble Poverty

TJnaeen, uoknowrij are the divinities that — descending from garrets, tread the loud, foul, sordid, crowning highways of London, says the ' Echo.' Spiritual presences, suffering all things and in the injustice — most hard to turn to right — of our social purpose, living and smiling, daily martyrs to their creed of good. Young children, widowed age, and withered singleness — the ardent student, flushed and fed with little else but hope— the disappointed, yet brave, good old man, a long, long loser in the worldly fight, who has retired apart to bleed unseen and uncomplaining die — the poor and stern man, only stern in truths, sour of speech withart of honeyed sweetness — all of these, in all their thousand shades of character and spirit, — the army of martyrs to fortune, and the social iniquities that, dressed and spangled for truths, man passes off on man — all of this bright band have and do, and will consecrate the garrets of London, and make a holy thing of poverty by the sacrificial spirit with which they glorify her. Many of these are to be known — but more escape tbe searching eyes of the quickest moral vision. There is a something — a look of service in the aspect of some ; a depression that elevates ; a dogged air of courage that speaks the fighting man in poverty's battalions ; an honorable, undisguised thread-baredness that marks the old campaigner ! Are not his darns more beautiful than best work of Sidonian needles ? is there a patch about him tbat is not, duly essayed, true cloth of gold ? And has not such poverty its genii, its attending spirits ? Yes ; a bloodless glory is its body-guard and its tatter-bearer an angel.