THE MAN'S THE MAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20762, 3 January 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MAN'S THE MAN.

THE PEERAGE OF POVERTY.

BY PAI'I'EIUTAS.

We have admittedly fallen on hard times, when we do well to bear in mind that not a few of the world's best benefactors have known the pinch of poverty. We are all too apt to measure a man's worth to .society by the amount of money he owns, but there are far better tests than that. What a man is in his own inner self and what he does to serve tho age in which he lives are vastly more important than tho wealth which he has either' inherited or acquired.

In every realm of human thought and activity men have gained renown who have been sadly familiar with Dame Poverty. Discoverers in the boundless fields of science have often pursued their researches under the handicap of scanty resources and have wrested from Nature her agelong secrets while enduring severest hardships. Artists have painted pictures bofore which admiring crowds have stood in mute amazement while they themselves found it hard to keep the wolf from the door. The fame to which their genius entitled them often came late in life or even after their life had closed. Poets and prose authors have written immortal works which later ages have reckoned timong their chief literary treasures when all the while they wero involved in financial perplexities which baffled all their skill. Inventors have employed their ingenuity in devising machinery which lias lightened labour for countless thousands while they lacked tho very necessaries of life. An Honourable Peerage. Manifestly the Peerage of Poverty is larger than the Peerage of Nobility and Wealth. It has no Debrett in which its illustrious names are recorded and its marvellous achievements are described. No Heralds' College acclaims their famous deeds. No imposing titles are attached to their names. They gain no distinction in aristocratic circles and no royal honours are conferred upon them. 1 hey know nothing of Baronetcies and Knighthoods, and are not presented at Court. Yet they belong to a Peerage which is in the highest degree honourable. They may have lived in obscurity and died in poverty, yet they have enriched tho world unspeakably by their services and are better entitled to renown than many who have worn coronets and dwelt in palaces. Wealth is no criterion of usefulness. It often tends to indolence and self-indulgent luxury. It tends to harden all the finer feelings of tho soul. It not seldom makes its owner as cold as the coin he so carelessly handles. Poverty, too, of course, may sour tho nature and lead to much unloveliness of character and baseness of conduct. But it has often proved a spur to noblo endeavour, and by its brave ac ceptanco of tho inevitable limitations of life has attained a dignity which affluence has failed to reach. No armorial bearings may adorn the homes of the poor, and no regal honours may fall to their lot, yet they may display a princeliness of character and may serve their fellow-men with a prodigality of genius which will entitle them to a distinguished place in the Peerage of Poverty. Richness of the Mind.

Wo must never lose sight of t lie fact that the greatest thinkers of the world have set light store on the possession of riches. Mental and moral wealth has ever in their esteem outweighed all material possessions. The supreme Teacher of Truth, the lowly Galilean, whose golden sentences have enriched the minds of men beyond all telling, had not where to lay His head, rode into His .own city on a borrowed ass, chose His apostles from toiling fishermen, moved freely among the poor, and slept at last in a tomb hewn for another tenant. His greatest disciple, whose massive thoughts have shaped the world's beliefs more mightily than any other thinker's for the past nineteen centuries, and whose letters Luther describes as thunder, lightning and silver flame, spoke of himself as " poor, yet making many rich." No saint lias more endeared himself to the world than Saint Francis of Assisi, the lover of all living things, the rich Knight, who renounced his ancestral fortune and made Poverty his bride. John Wesley, leader in the great Evangelical revival which saved England in the eighteenth century and the founder of Methodism, said he would be ashamed to die worth more than ten pounds! He set an example to his followers of plain living and high thinking, and believed that povertv could be ennobled by piety. Buddhism, which is now the dominant religion" in many Eastern lands, began with Sakyamuni's renunciation of royal dignity and his voluntary devotement to a life of poverty and service. Hinduism recognises in the penniless sadhu, who cuts down his diet to the barest necessities and wanders, an impecunious pilgrim, from shrine to shrine, its ideal of sainthood. To Western lovers of wealth and comfort this type of goodness appears grotesque and repulsive, but the more reflective and mystic East views it with favour. If we go back to the sages of Greece we find that they, too, lightly esteemed the wealth for which the mass of mankind eagerly scrambled. After a day of high debale with Phaedrus, Socrates finds himself before an altar of Pan, and pauses before it to present this prayer: Beloved Pan, and nil ye other sods who haunt this place, grant that 1 may become beautiful in the inner man, and may whatever I possess without be in harmony with tint which is within. May I esteem the wise man alone to be rich. And may my store of gold be such as none but the good may bear. " Phaedrus, need wo say anything more? As for mo, I have prayed enough." To which Phaodruß replies: " And let the same prayer serve for me, for those nre the things friends share with one another." The Peeresses. A special note of praise is duo to tho Peeresses in tho Realm of Poverty. Many a noblo woman has toiled early and lato in order to give her sdns the best possible chance of making good in life. They have spent their lives in obscurity, undertaken rough manual toil and denied themselves comforts which others enjoyed in order to enable their sons to secure scholastic degrees or acquire technic.*! and scientific efficiency.

• A fine example of such maternal selfdenial is seen in the mother of Dr. Joseph Wright, Professor of Comparative Philology in llie University of Oxford for twenty-four years, who died quite recently. His widowed mother lived in a one-roomed cottage, for which sho paid tenpnnce halfpenny a week and went out charing to feed and clothe her four hoys. She toiled at her charing until Joseph had put his foot on the lowest rung of the ladder of learning, and she had the joy of seeing him rise until he became one of the first linguists of.his day and compiler of the English Dialect Dictionary. He succeeded Professor Max Muller in' the Chair of Comparative Philology at Oxford and produced many learned works. His mother had her reward in the fame her gifted sou attained. The Teer.ige of Poverty presents many similar examples. The Peeresses are as illustrious as the Peers. Poverty is hard to bear and tests the moral fibro of all who have to bear it. But there are worse things than impecuniosity, and many penniless men and women have benefited and enriched the world more than multitudes who have revelled in luxury.