Some Private Views eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Some Private Views.

Some Private Views eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Some Private Views.

‘Poverty,’ says the greatest of English divines, ’is indeed despised and makes men contemptible; it exposes a man to the influences of evil persons, and leaves a man defenceless; it is always suspected; its stories are accounted lies, and all its counsels follies; it puts a man from all employment; it makes a man’s discourses tedious and his society troublesome.  This is the worst of it.’  Even so poverty seems pretty bad, but, begging Dr. Jeremy Taylor’s pardon, what he has stated is by no means ‘the worst of it.’  To be in want of food at any time, and of firing in winter time, is ever so much worse than the inconveniences he enumerates; and to see those we love—­delicate women and children perhaps—­in want, is worse still.  The fact is, the excellent bishop probably never knew what it was to go without his meals, but took them ‘reg’lar’ (as Mrs. Gamp took her Brighton ale) as bishops generally do.  Moreover, since his day, Luxury has so universally increased, and the value of Intelligence has become so well recognised (by the publishers) that even philosophers, who profess to despise such things, have plenty to eat, and good of its kind too.  Hence it happens that, from all we hear to the contrary from the greatest thinkers, the deprivation of food is a small thing:  indeed, as compared with the great spiritual struggles of noble minds, and the doubts that beset them as to the supreme government of the universe, it seems hardly worth mentioning.

In old times, when folks were not so ‘cultured,’ starvation was thought more of.  It is quite curious, indeed, to contrast the high-flying morality of the present day (when no one is permitted, either by Evolutionist or Ritualist, however dire may be his necessity, so much as to jar his conscience) with the shocking laxity of the Holy Scriptures.  ’Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry,’ says Solomon, after which stretch of charity, strange to say, he goes on to speak of marital infidelity in terms that, considering the number of wives he had himself, strike one as severe.

It is certain, indeed, that the sacred writers were apt to make great allowances for people with empty stomachs, and though I am well aware that the present profane ones think this very reprehensible, I venture to agree with the sacred writers.  The sharpest tooth of poverty is felt, after all, in the bite of hunger.  A very amusing and graphic writer once described his experience of a whole night passed in the streets; the exhaustion, the pain, the intolerable weariness of it, were set forth in a very striking manner; the sketch was called ‘The Key of the Street,’ and was thought by many, as Browning puts it, to be ‘the true Dickens.’  But what are even the pangs of sleeplessness and fatigue compared with those of want?  Of course there have been fanatics who have fasted many days; but they have been supported by the prospect of spiritual reward.  I confess I reserve my pity for those

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Some Private Views from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.