lord of plenty has his mind fixed on God; when a man’s fortune is bankrupt, so is his heart:—­accordingly, the devotion of the rich is more acceptable at the temple of God, because their thoughts are present and collected, and their minds not absent and distracted; for they have laid up the conveniences of good living, and digested at their leisure their scriptural quotations (for prayer).  The Arabs say:  ’God preserve us from overwhelming poverty; and from the company of him whom he loves not, namely, the infidel’:—­And there is a tradition of the prophet—­that ’poverty has a gloomy aspect in this world and in the next!’”

My antagonist said:  “Have you not heard what the blessed prophet has declared?—­’poverty is my glory!’” I replied:  “Be silent, for the allusion of the Lord of both worlds applies to such as are heroes in the field of resignation, and the devoted victims of their fate, and not to those who put on the garb of piety, that they may entitle themselves to the bread of charity.  O noisy drum! thou art nothing but an empty sound; unprovided with the means, what canst thou effect on the last day of account?  If thou art a man of spirit, turn thy face away from begging charity from thy fellow-creature; and keep not repeating thy rosary of a thousand beads.  Being without divine knowledge, a dervish, or poor man, rests not till his poverty settles into infidelity; for he that is poor is well-nigh being an infidel:—­nor is it practicable, unless through the agency of wealth, to clothe the naked, and to liberate the prisoner from jail:  how then can such mendicants as we are aspire to their dignity; or what comparison is there between the arm of the lofty and the hand of the abject?  Do you not perceive that the glorious and great God announces, in the holy book of the Koran, xxviii, the enjoyments of the blessed in Paradise?—­that ’to this community, namely, the orthodox Mussulmans, a provision is allotted’;—­in order that you may understand that such as are solely occupied in looking after their daily subsistence are excluded from this portion of the blessed; and that the property of present enjoyment is sanctioned under the seal of Providence:—­to the thirsty it will seem in their dreams as if the face of the earth were wholly a fountain.  You may everywhere observe that, instigated by his appetites, a person who has suffered hardship and tasted bitterness will engage in dangerous enterprises; and, indifferent to the consequences, and unawed by future punishments, he will not discriminate between what is lawful and what is forbid:—­Should a clod of earth be thrown at the head of a dog, he would jump up in joy, and take it for a bone; or were two people carrying a corpse on a bier, a greedy man would fancy it a tray of victuals.  Whereas the worldly opulent are regarded with the benevolent eye of Providence, and in their enjoyments of what is lawful are preserved from things illegal.  Having thus detailed my