5.  A blissful vision, through the night,
          Would all my happy senses sway,
        Of the Good Shepherd on the height
          Or climbing up the starry way,
        Holding our little lamb asleep;
          And like the burthen of the sea,
        Sounded that voice along the deep,
          Saying, “Arise, and follow me.”

POVERTY.

                              ’Tis a little thing
     To give a cup of water, yet its draught
     Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips,
     May give a shock of pleasure to the frame
     More exquisite than when nectarean juice
     Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.—­Talfourd.

Real poverty, it may not be impossible, is to the individual, more of a question when directed to his country than to his actions.  In Ireland or Italy, it seems to me, the greatest of individual excellence in sobriety and economy may not shield the citizen from abject want, which is a terrible thing.  But in America the man who is often called “poor” gets as much rest for his body and quite as beneficial food for his stomach as the man whose wealth is the wonder of the world.  It is a magnificent land where there is so much food raised and so many clothes made that a man calls himself poor if he have only plenty to eat and wear!  Our definition of the word “poverty” is a marvelous corruption of the word.  To be poor in the true sense of the word, in this great land, one must have either been sick or criminally negligent.  Many a clerk eats as much and dresses as well as Vanderbilt.  What does Vanderbilt do with the great number of millions which he controls?

HE FEEDS AND DRESSES AN ARMY

of about one hundred thousand other men.  If he kept his wheat, it would rot.  If he kept his clothes, they would pass into speedy decay.  By spending one hundred and fifty million dollars he is enabled to secure services which return an aggregate result of about one hundred and sixty-five million dollars in a year.  Men have eaten up his first one hundred and fifty million dollars, but their works are worth one hundred and sixty-five million dollars, and he has fifteen million dollars profit.  Suppose the men took his one hundred and fifty million dollars away from him and ate it up and wore it out in a year, doing no work in the mean time.  At the end of the year they would begin starving if they relied on him alone, and he would have neither one hundred and fifty million dollars capital nor fifteen million dollars profit.

VIEWED AS IT IS,

Vanderbilt is really only richer than other people to the extent that he can gratify rational desires more than others, and this at once puts him alongside hundreds of thousands who have money enough to purchase everything they can rationally want.  In the system of labor for wages, Vanderbilt is only a commander, having the largest force intrusted to his supervision—­or paid with his money; the thing is the same.  Almost all