He had now turned instinctively to the making of a home for himself.  After an engagement of four years he had been married, on October 22, 1896, to Mary Louise Curtis, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus H. K. Curtis; two sons had been born to them; he had built and was occupying a house at Merion, Pennsylvania, a suburb six miles from the Philadelphia City Hall.  When she was in this country his mother lived with him, and also his brother, and, with a strong belief in life insurance, he had seen to it that his family was provided for in case of personal incapacity or of his demise.  In other words, he felt that he had put his own house in order; he had carried out what he felt is every man’s duty:  to be, first of all, a careful and adequate provider for his family.  He was now at the point where he could begin to work for another goal, the goal that he felt so few American men saw:  the point in his life where he could retire from the call of duty and follow the call of inclination.

At the age of forty he tried to look ahead and plan out his life as far as he could.  Barring unforeseen obstacles, he determined to retire from active business when he reached his fiftieth year, and give the remainder of his life over to those interests and influences which he assumed now as part of his life, and which, at fifty, should seem to him best worth while.  He realized that in order to do this he must do two things:  he must husband his financial resources and he must begin to accumulate a mental reserve.

The wide public acceptance of the periodical which he edited naturally brought a share of financial success to him.  He had experienced poverty, and as he subsequently wrote, in an article called “Why I Believe in Poverty,” he was deeply grateful for his experience.  He had known what it was to be poor; he had seen others dear to him suffer for the bare necessities; there was, in fact, not a single step on that hard road that he had not travelled.  He could, therefore, sympathize with the fullest understanding with those similarly situated, could help as one who knew from practice and not from theory.  He realized what a marvellous blessing poverty can be; but as a condition to experience, to derive from it poignant lessons, and then to get out of; not as a condition to stay in.

Of course many said to Bok when he wrote the article in which he expressed these beliefs:  “That’s all very well; easy enough to say, but how can you get out of it?” Bok realized that he could not definitely show any one the way.  No one had shown him.  No two persons can find the same way out.  Bok determined to lift himself out of poverty because his mother was not born in it, did not belong in it, and could not stand it.  That gave him the first essential:  a purpose.  Then he backed up the purpose with effort and an ever-ready willingness to work, and to work at anything that came his way, no matter what it was, so long