The Dignity of the Poor

es a last shall be first, and the first shall be last ’? (Matt. xx. 16).

** He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the poor ”’ (Ps. Ixxi. 18).

AuttHoucH the declaration of our Saviour Jesus Christ, that the last shall be first and the first last, will not have its perfect fulfilment until the General Resurrection, when the just shall be called to fill the first places and the wicked shall be cast out inte exterior darkness, yet even now in this present life that admirable reversal of all human conditions has already begun, and we see the first instances of such a reversal in the institution of the Church. That marvellous city, whose foundations were laid by God Himself, has its laws and regulations by which it is governed. But as Jesus Christ, its Divine Founder, came on earth to overthrow the order established there by human pride, it follows of necessity that the polity of the Church is directly opposed to that of the world; and this opposition is chiefly observable in three things. First, in the world the rich always predominate, every kind of advantage falls to their

• Sermon preached at Paris, in 1659, to the Daughters of Providence. 218 share, they secure and keep the high places of earth: in the Kingdom of Jesus pre-eminence belongs to the poor, who are the first-born of the Church and her true children. Secondly, in the world the poor are subject to the rich, and seem only born to serve them, while in the Holy Church the rich are only admitted into her fold on condition that they serve the poor. Thirdly, in the world favours and privileges are for the wealthy and the powerful; the poor have no share in them except as dependants of the rich: but in the Church of Jesus Christ graces and blessings are for the poor, and it is only through the poor as a medium that such privileges fall to the lot of the rich. Thus, even in this present life, do we already see the fulfilment of the Gospel assertion that the last shall be first and the first last. The poor, who in the world are the last, in the Church are the first, and the rich, who imagine everything to be their due, and who trample the poor under foot, only have a place in the Church that they may serve the poor; © the graces of the New Covenant belong by right to the poor, and it is only through their hands that the rich receive them. That is assuredly an important lesson for all you who are rich in this world’s goods! It should teach you what is your duty towards the poor; how you should honour their state, relieve their necessities, share their privileges.*

*** May a Catholic be a Socialist? (a) ‘ Yes, for socialism is an economic system, and hence is not concerned with religion.’ (b) * No, for socialism opposes Christian morality and religion, and has been condemned by the Church.’ Both these answers are but half-truths, and therefore incorrect. They make the matter entirely too simple. Socialism is at once a social movement, a social philosophy, and a contemplated socio-industrial system. The question may be answered in the form of the following summary and conclusion of our study. While a Catholic is not justified

St. John Chrysostom makes use of a striking image, in order to teach us the advantages of poverty over riches. He represents to us two cities, the one inhabited solely by the rich, the other by the poor; and then goes very carefully into the question, which of the two is the more powerful? Were we to consult the majority of men as to this matter, there is very little doubt that the rich would carry the day. The great St. Chrysostom, however, decides in favour of the poor; and bases his conclusion on this reasoning.

either in taking an active part in the present socialist movement or in accepting the scientific socialist philosophy, he may, subject to the very improbable hypothesis that it would be practicable, believe in essential economic socialism.’’—Rerv. Proressor J. A. Ryan, D.D

** Tf our first father and his posterity had remained in the state of innocence, there would be no need of property in the means of production; this, I believe, is the teaching of all theologians. Private property in capital, therefore, is the consequence of imordinate appetites, not a necessity of human nature as such.

‘* There are two hypothetical principles, if I may call them so, as to which Socialists and Catholics are in perfect agreement:— (1) That in proportion as men become unselfish and moral, under whatever influence, it is reasonable to limit private property in the means of production and of transport; and (2) that the limitation might be made complete if all inordinate selfishness were to cease. The essential difference between us is:—(1) That they regard man as being now less selfish than we believe him to be; and (2) that while they look forward with confidence to a golden age and universal garden of Eden, we have no hope that Astraea will ever come back to earth.’’—Rerv. Proressor WALTER M‘Donarp, D.D.

** Socialism means the control of the means of production by the political officers of the community, or, to put it in ordinary language, by the politicians.’’—Hmame BEttoc.

‘* I propose to say a little on the agreement, but more on the differences, between a Socialist Commonwealth and a Religious Order.... Without the religious influences kept at work all life long upon every member of the Religious Order, life in the Order would be impossible. But, it seems, no education is needed to be a Socialist (though it must be said that the Fabians are wiser on this point). Only an Act of Parliament or two, and we shall all change our natures.’’—Josrpu RickAsy, S.J., Political and

Moral Essays, v.

The city of the rich, he says, would indeed be far the more magnificent, the more brilliant, the more showy, but it would be wanting in stability, its very foundations would be insecure. Abundance, being the enemy of labour, incapable of self-restraint and discipline, and therefore always eagerly on the search for pleasures and sensual enjoyments, would corrupt.

the minds of men and enervate their courage by luxury, pride and sloth. Thus the fine arts would be neglected, the land would be imperfectly cultivated, the strenuous labour by which the human race is kept in existence would be absolutely abandoned, and this splendid city, without the interference of any outside enemy, would of itself fall to pieces, ruined by its own wealth and prosperity. On the other hand, in the city inhabited only by the poor, industrious necessity, fertile in invention and mother of all useful arts, would lead the minds of men to serious application by the pressure of want and the stern requirements of an indigent laborious life; would sharpen their wits by study; would inspire them with manly vigour by the exercise of patience; and, sparing herself no exertion, would achieve those great works which of necessity demand great labour. That is the substance of what St. John Chrysostom says on the subject of these two very different cities, making it a reason for giving preference to poverty.*

But, speaking of things as they really are, we know that the distinction drawn between these two cities is really only a pleasing fiction. Cities, which are bodies politic, demand, quite as much as the human

• «© We should be quite willing to abolish luxury, but to abolish | honest, industrious, self-denying poverty would be to destroy the » soil upon which mankind produces the virtues.””—ANDREW ©

Carnecie, The Gospel of Wealth.

character does, variety and mingling of component parts; so much so that according to ail rules of human polity this City of the Poor cannot possibly exist except in imagination. It appertains to the Saviour alone, and to the polity of Heaven, to build for us a city which should be truly the city of the poor. This city is Holy Church; and if you ask me why I call her the city of the poor, I will tell you in a very few words. According to her first plan, she was built for the poor only, and they are the true citizens of that blessed city which Holy Scripture calls the City of God. Strange as this teaching may possibly appear to you, it is none the less true; and in order to convince you of this, I would call your attention to one striking difference existing between the Synagogue and the Church. Almighty God promised temporal blessings to the Synagogue, whereas (as the Psalmist says) all the glory of the Christian Church is hidden and interior: All the glory of the King’s daughter is within (Ps. xliv. 14). God give thee, said Isaac to his son Jacob, the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth (Gen. xxvi. 89). That is the blessing of the Synagogue, And who does not know that in the Old Testament God only. promises His servants to prolong their days, to enrich their families, to multiply their flocks and herds, to bless their lands and their inheritance? According to those promises, it is very easy to understand that, wealth and abundance being the portion of the Synagogue, it must of necessity be composed of powerful and opulent citizens. But it is not thus with the Church. Among the promises of the Gospel, none are to be found of those temporal blessings which had attracted sensual minds or amused childish ones,

Jesus Christ substituted for them crosses and afflictions; and by this marvellous change the last became first, and the first last, because the rich who were the first in the Synagogue cease to have any rank at all in the Church, and the poor and needy are its true citizens.

Although this diversity in the ordering of God under the Old and the New Covenant is based upon the most sublime reasons, which it would take too long to go into here, we may, in passing, say this. As under the Old Dispensation God condescended to manifest Himself to His people with all external signs of majesty and splendour, it was fitting that the Synagogue, His spouse, should be distinguished by all possible outward marks of greatness and dignity; but it was very different in the New Dispensation, in which the Eternal God veiled His majesty and power under the form of a servant. The Church, His mystical body, must, then, be an image of His — lowliness, and bear upon Her the sign and mark of the voluntary self-annihilation of Her Divine Head. Is not that the reason why this same humbled and despised God, desiring as He says that His house should be filled (Luke xiv. 23), bids His servants go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in—whom? The poor and the weak, the blind and the lame (Luke xiv. 21). It is with these and such as these that He would fill His house. He desires to see none there who are not weak, because they alone are signed with His own sign, the Cross and its weakness. The Church of Jesus Christ then is, properly speaking, the city of the poor. The rich, being as such in the train of the world and stamped with the impress of the world’s coinage, are only admitted as it were on sufferance into that City of God which belongs of right to the poor and needy, who are signed with the sign of the Son of God. This is why the Psalmist calls them God’s poor: Thy poor (Ps. Ixxi. 2). Why God’s poor? He calls them thus prophetically; because under the New Covenant it has pleased God to adopt them and endow them with a special prerogative.

In fact, was it not to them the Saviour was sent? God, He says, has sent Me to preach the Gospel to the poor (Luke iv. 18). Again, is it not to the poor He speaks in that first sermon preached on the holy Mount, when, not deigning to address the rich except to anathematize their pride, He pronounces the Divine words which are for those whom He is going to evangelize: Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven? (Luke vi. 20). If, then, it is to them that Heaven belongs, Heaven which is the Kingdom of God in eternity, it is to them the Church, which is the Kingdom of God in time, also belongs; and consequently they were the first to enter it: for you see, says St. Paul, that there are not in the Church many wise according to the world, not many mighty, not many noble, but the foolish things of the world hath God chosen (1 Cor. i. 26, 28). And if in its earliest days the rich were received into it, at their very entrance they stripped themselves of all their goods, casting them down at the feet of the Apostles, so that they might come into the Church (which was the city of the poor) with all the marks of poverty upon them, so absolutely was it the will and design of the Holy Ghost at the very foundation of Christianity to establish the high prerogative of the poor, the members of Jesus Christ.

I might indeed establish the pre-eminence of the poor by many other convincing reasons which would prove to you that they are the true children of the Church, and that it was principally for them that this spiritual city was built. But it would be better to draw some instruction, to gather some fruit from. this most salutary doctrine. It should teach us to respect the poor and needy as our elder brethren in the family of Jesus Christ, and as chosen by His Heavenly Father to be the citizens of His Church, the City of God,—citizens who, bearing as they do His own most undoubted marks, are also His most valued members. It is from the Apostle St. James that we learn that important truth. Hearken, he says, my dearest brethren; hath not God chosen the poor of this world, that they might be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him? And yet, he goes on to say, you dare to despise the poor! (James ii. 5-6).

St. James, as you see, in this passage is trying to impress upon us the eminent dignity of the poor and the high prerogative of their vocation. God, he says, has chosen them in a special manner to be rich in faith and inheritors of His Kingdom. And from this we may, with the same Apostle, conclude that it would be most deplorable blindness on our part to be wanting in respect and consideration and even reverence for the poor whom God Himself has so highly honoured by the pre-eminence He gives them in His Church.

St. Paul sets us an example in this matter. Writing to the Romans about the alms which he was going to carry to the faithful in Jerusalem, he says: I beseech you, brethren, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the charity of the Holy Ghost, that you help me in your prayers for me to God, that the oblation of my service may be acceptable in Jerusalem to the saints (Rom. xv. 80-31). See how he treats the poor; how respectfully, how courteously! He says not a word of the alms that he is taking to them, nor of the help he is going to give them; he only speaks of the service which he hopes to render them. Pray to God, he says, that my service may be acceptable to them. What is the meaning of the great Apostle? why must he take so many precautions to induce the faithful to accept an alms? The explanation of his mode of speaking is the great dignity of the poor. There are two motives for giving: we do it either to gain affection, or to relieve want; either as the result of esteem, or from a feeling of pity: in the one case we give a present, in the other we bestow an alms. As regards alms, we generally think that it is sufficient simply to give; in the matter of presents, we take rather more trouble, and there is a certain innocent art in the way of giving which doubles the value of the gift. This is the way in which St. Paul assists the poor. He does not regard them simply as unfortunate people who must be helped; but in them, from the very fact of their misery, he recognizes the most honourable members of the mystical body of Christ, the first-born of the Church. Viewed in this light, they become to him persons of distinction to whom he pays court. This is why he does not consider it sufficient that his gift should relieve their necessities; he desires also that his service should be acceptable to them; and, that he may obtain this favour, he asks for the prayers of the whole Church. So important a position do the poor occupy in the Church of Jesus Christ that St. Paul seems to find his most solid happiness in the honour of serving them and in the delight of pleasing them.

Let us always remember this in our intercourse with the poor, and in the services which we may be able to render them. Let us try to be more deeply imbued with the feelings of the Apostles on this subject, and as far as possible imitate their example. Let us never forget that although the world’s honours, wealth and rank may place us above them apparently, yet that the marks of Jesus Christ, which they are so happy as to bear deeply impressed upon them, raise them in reality far above us. Let us, in serving them, reverence the mysterious dispensation of Divine Providence, which gives them the highest rank in the Church, and such lofty prerogatives that the rich are only admitted into that Church to serve them.

Indeed this second truth, namely, that the rich are only admitted into the Church to serve the poor, is so evident and natural a sequence of what we have already considered that there is no need to go very deeply into an explanation or statement of its proofs. It is very certain that our Divine Lord, Who in His Gospel only promises us afflictions and crosses, has no need for the rich in His Church; and their pomp and magnificence having nothing in common with the profound humiliation of their God veiling His Divinity upon the Cross, we can easily understand that He does not seek them for their own sake. For, indeed, of what use are they to Him in His Kingdom? To build magnificent temples in His honour, or to adorn His altars with gold and precious stones? Do not try to persuade yourselves that the Eternal God takes pleasure in those adornments. He accepts them indeed from the hands of men as tokens of their piety, as the homage due to Him from their religion. But, far from its demanding or exacting this expenditure of wealth, do you not see that there is nothing simpler or less costly than what is necessary for His worship? He requires only pure water in order to regenerate His children; a little bread and wine are all that is needed in order to consecrate the Eucharistic Mysteries in which dwells the Source of all His graces. Never did our God consider Himself better served than when the Holy Sacrifice was offered to Him in dungeons, and when humility and faith were the only adornments of His temples. Formerly, under the Old Law, He desired to be worshipped with all possible display of pomp and splendour; but the simplicity which He (if I may so speak) affects in the worship of the New Covenant is intended to show the rich of this world that He has no longer any need of them or of their treasured gold, except for the service of His poor.

But these poor He owns that He does need, and He entreats their help: Behold I tell you a mystery (1 Cor. xv. 51). This is indeed a great mystery, great and most admirable. Jesus has need of nothing; and Jesus has need of all. He has need of nothing as regards His power, but He has need of all as regards His compassion. Yes; this is the mystery of the New Testament. The same mercy which induced our innocent Jesus to take upon Him the tremendous load of the sins of the whole world still compels Him, in all the joy and glory of Heaven, to take upon Him the heavy burden of that world’s miseries. For as the most guiltless, nay, the All-Holy, bore the weightiest load of sin, so the possessor of boundless wealth of riches which neither moth nor rust can ‘consume is the most needy, wanting all things. Here He famishes with hunger, there He is parched with a consuming thirst; here He groans under the galling pressure of the heaviest chains, there He is racked and wasted with grievous sickness; He suffers at one and the same time from the extremes of cold and heat. Poor indeed, and the poorest of the poor, because all the other poor suffer only for themselves, it is Jesus Christ alone Who suffers for the whole vast company of the afflicted and distressed. It is then the pressing need of His poor which induces Him to admit the rich to share their advantages in the Fold of the Church.*

What indeed would be the fate of the poor and the afflicted, were there none but such as these in the household of God? Who would relieve their sad necessities? And remember that Jesus, our Divine Redeemer, suffers in His poor, that He feels in Himself every hardship, every pang of want and privation, which they have to endure. It is true that He might send His holy Angels to minister to them; but it is more just and reasonable that they should be aided by men and women like themselves.

Enter, then, you who are rich in this world’s goods, enter the Church of Jesus Christ; the door at last is open to you, but open only for the sake of the poor, and on condition of your serving them. It is for love

*** A certain inequality in the conditions of men for the maintenance of order and subordination is the work of God, and sets forth the divine law. Any great disproportion which we remark among men is their own work, brought about by the law of violence. All extremes are corrupt, and originate with man: the law of compensation is just, and comes from God.”—LA BRUYERE.

of His children that He permits the entrance of those strangers. Behold the miracle of poverty! Yes, the rich were foreigners; but the service of the poor naturalizes them, and avails in the expiation which they must make for all the evil done while the taint of their wealth clung to them. Therefore take heed, rich men who pride yourselves so much upon this world’s honour and rank. Never forget that however splendid your titles and distinctions may be in that poor world which you once valued so highly, in the Church of Jesus Christ you are only the servants of the poor. Do not take offence at this title. The Patriarch Abraham gloried in it; numerous though his own household servants were, he would depute to none the duty of waiting upon the destitute and needy. As soon as any such approached his house, he hastened to welcome them, setting before them the choicest and most delicate food, waiting upon them at table himself. St. Peter Chrysologus, speaking of this, says: ‘* Abraham, at the sight of any poor man crossing his threshold, forgets that he is a master, and plays the part of a servant.’? And why, think you, was he so eager to serve the poor? Because he, the father of all true believers, already saw in spirit the rank which they were one day to hold in the Church. Already he sees Jesus Christ in them, he forgets his own dignity in the contemplation of theirs, and by his example shows the rich how sacred is their obligation to serve the poor.*

But how? what kind of service ought we to render

• « The personification of Christ in suffering humanity invests all forms of misery with a divine halo; the hearts of Christians, believing in this personification, are drawn to the poor with power which they dare not resist, under penalty of refusing tender love them? in what are we bound to assist them? The example of the Patriarch has already answered that question; but St. Augustine goes still more deeply into the matter, and gives us more definite instruction on the subject. He says: ‘‘ The service which you owe to the needy consists in taking upon your own shoulders a part of the heavy burden which weighs upon them so grievously.’’ St. Paul commands the faithful to do this: Bear ye one another’s burdens (Gal. vi. 2). No precept can be plainer than this. The poor have their own peculiar burden, and the rich too have theirs. The poor have their burden; who does not know that? When we see them toiling and labouring day after day in the sweat of their brow, we can feel little doubt as to the heaviness of the load which continually weighs them down. But although the rich appear to tread the earth with a light step, free from care and anxiety, it is not really so. They too have their burden and no light one, the burden of their wealth, as the poor have to carry the burden of their necessities. ‘* The burden of the poor,’’ says St. Augustine, ‘‘ is their not having what they absolutely need; the burden of the rich is their having what they do not absolutely need.’’ What! you say, is it a burden to have too many possessions and goods? And not only do you ask the question openly and directly, but I know that many a man of the world in his secret heart longs passionately to lay such a burden upon his own shoulders. Ah well, let all who cherish such longings wait for the coming to the Babe of Bethlehem and the Saviour of Calvary.’”-—ARCHBisHoP J. IRELAND, The Church and Modern Society, vol. i., p. 882. “* But it will be asked, Have you no faith in philanthropy? No; for, as Chateaubriand says, philanthropy is only the false coin of charity.””—BaLmes, European Civilization, chap. xxxiii.

of that Day which, slow though its dawn may seem to be, is yet so certain to break upon all of us, when they will be summoned before the great Tribunal, and the just but inexorable Judge of the whole earth will demand a strict account of all the talents committed to them. Yes, of all—of talents wasted, buried, hoarded, or spent on things that perish in the using. Then, in that Day, they will understand and acknowledge the truth, that their wealth is indeed a heavy incubus; then, too late, they will repent of not having shaken off so grievous a load.

But do not let us wait until the coming of that dreadful day; let us, while we have time, obey St. Paul’s command: Bear ye one another’s burdens. You who are rich, bear the burden of the poor, relieve their wants, help them to support the heavy weight of suffering under which they groan: but do not forget that while doing this you are really labouring for your own advantage; that when you give to them, you lighten their burden but at the same time they lighten yours; you bear the weight of need and indigence which presses them to the very dust, they take upon their shoulders the load of wealth and superfiuities with which you are overweighted. Share one another’s burdens then, so that (as St. Paul says) there may be an equality (2 Cor. viii. 14). For think how unjust it would be if the poor had alone to bear the burden of this world’s miseries. If they do sometimes complain and murmur against the decrees of Divine Providence, dear Lord, bear with me if I say that it is with some show of justice;* for, since we

*** The murmurs of the poor are just,’’ wrote Bossuet in one of his sermons on Almsgiving. See also his sermon on Final Impenitence. “Rich men,” cried Massillon, in his sermon on Almsgiving,

Q are all moulded of the same clay, and since there can be but little difference between one lump of such clay and another, why should we see on the one hand enjoyment, distinction, affluence, and on the other, dejection, want, hopeless poverty, even contempt and servitude? Why should one highly favoured individual live in such luxury and be able to gratify even his idlest whim and fancy, while another poor wretch, as much a man as he, can scarcely manage to support his wife and children, or to satisfy the claims of his own gnawing hunger? Seeing as we do such strange inequality, how could we justify a Providence which seems to deal so ill in its distribution of the treasures which God would have equally divided among His children, if that same Providence had not found a means of relieving the wants of the poor, a means of establishing that equality which should exist among men? In order to provide this means, ©

** do you not, perhaps, turn the public misery to your advantage? Do you not, perhaps, make of indigence a barbarous occasion of gain? Do you not know the inhuman art of profiting by the tears and necessities of your brethren? ”’

In his Caractéres La Bruyére (who was a protégé of Bossuet’s) has left us an awful picture of the miserable condition of the then peasants of France: ‘‘ Certain wild animals, male and female, are scattered over the country; they are dark, livid, sunburnt, chained as it were to the soil that they dig and grub with unwearied pertinacity; they have a sort of articulate voice, and when they stand erect, they show a human face, and in fact are men.” And Fénelon wrote anonymously to Louis XIV.: ‘* Your subjects are dying of hunger. France has become a huge hospital. The magistrates are discredited and harassed. You have brought all this trouble on yourself. The people no longer delight in your victories and conquests; they are filled with bitterness and despair. You make everything centre round your own person, as if you were the God of the whole earth.”’

For a dicussion on the relation between religious truth and material prosperity, and a description of the wretchedness of enormous masses of the people of modern England, see Bishop

John Vaughan’s Faith and Folly, pp. 482-466; also Robert Blatchford’s Merrie England.

God has established His holy Church, into which He does indeed receive the rich, but only on condition of their serving the poor; His Church in which He ordains that abundance shall supply deficiency, and gives portions to the needy out of the superfluities of the wealthy.* Let this thought be with you always and rule your conduct as regards the poor and the distressed. If you do not carry their burdens your own will overwhelm you; the clogging weight of your own riches so badly administered will drag you down even into the lowest depths of Hell; while, on the other hand, if you share with the poor the burden of their poverty, by relieving their necessities, you will deserve to participate also with them in their privileges. f

And let me remind you that without such participation in the privileges of the poor there is no salvation for the rich. For if it is true, as I have said, that the Church is the city of the poor, if they hold the highest rank in it, if it was principally for

• Cf. Bourdaloue’s two sermons on Almsgiving; also Lacordaire’s Conference on Catholic Doctrine regarding Property, Eng. trans. (London, 1853).

• For an exposition of the natural law of justice, which it is the duty of the State rigidly to enforce, and of the supernatural law of almsgiving, the urging of which on the Christian conscience has been entrusted to the Church, see M. Georges Goyau, Ketteler (Paris, 1907), pp. 120-123.

** Nowadays the world says that alms are not enough; and the world is right. The world rebels against the old word charity, caritas; and here the world is wrong: it does not understand the meaning of the term. Rich and poor alike ignore it. The disinherited masses call for justice. This is not calculated to frighten the Church. It is not a term which she fails to understand. She thirsts and hungers for justice. Blessed are those that thirst for justice. For centuries she has preached it to the great and to the lowly, without dissociating it from charity; for, in her wisdom, which is deeper than that of our modern politicians, she holds them that this blessed city was founded, we may justly conclude that its privileges belong in an especial manner to them. In all kingdoms, in all empires, there are privileged individuals, persons of eminence, who have special rights and immunities, and the reason for these privileges is that either owing to their birth or to the nature of their public functions they are in closer touch with their Sovereign than are the other members of the community. The greatness, the splendour, the majesty of that Sovereign which encircles his own brows like a halo, sheds some of its lustre upon all those who approach him. Well, since Holy Scripture tells us that the Church is a kingdom, perfect in its ordering and government, we cannot doubt but that it has also its privileged members. And from whence do these privileges originate except from the companionship, the intimate intercourse with their Divine. Prince, with Jesus Christ Himself? If, then, in order to gain these privileges we must be united with our Adorable Saviour, do not let us seek them among the rich. Our Monarch’s Crown is a Crown of Thorns; the light which radiates from it is truly a mystic glory, for it is made up of suffering and pain. It is that justice and charity are inseparable, both representing the two aspects of the same virtue.”—A. Lrroy-BEaAuLiev, Papacy, Socialism, and Democracy, chap. iii.

See also Bossuet’s sermon on Justice, preached before Louis XIV. ‘* Justice,’ writes Bossuet, ‘‘ is the sacred bond of human society, the necessary curb upon licence, the unique foundation of tranquillity. When justice reigns, there is good faith in treaties, probity in commerce, properness in all social affairs. Justice is the principal virtue and the common ornament of public and private persons. Justice, the queen of the moral virtues, is served and surrounded on her throne by three excellent virtues which may be called her principal ministers; they are firmness, prudence, and mercy.”

in the poor, it is in those who suffer that the majesty of this spiritual kingdom dwells. Jesus being Himself poor and needy, it was fitting that He should associate Himself with His fellow-sufferers, and bestow His favours upon them.

Let us, then, henceforth no longer despise poverty or treat her as a mean and contemptible creature. It is true that she sprang from the very dregs of the people; but the King of Glory having espoused her, she became at once noble and highly to be honoured; and from the very moment of that marvellous alliance the Royal Bridegroom has bestowed upon the poor all the privileges of His Empire. To the needy and destitute He promises a Kingdom; to those who weep, consolation; food to the hungry; eternal joy to those who suffer. If, then, all the rights, all the graces, all the privileges of the Gospel, are for the poor of Jesus Christ, what remains for you, the rich in this world’s goods? When He speaks of you in His Gospel it is only to anathematize your pride: Woe to you rich! (Luke vi. 24). Who would not tremble at such a sentence? who would not quail before so terrible a malediction? There is indeed but one hope left for you; but there is that hope. It is true that those privileges are given to the poor; but you can receive them from their hands, and it is to them that the Holy Ghost sends you that you may obtain the graces bestowed by Heaven. Do you desire the forgiveness of your many and grievous sins? Redeem them, says the Holy Ghost, by alms (Dan. iv. 24). Do you implore the mercy of God? Seek it, then, from the hands of the poor, by showing mercy towards them: Blessed are the merciful (Matt. v. 7). Do you long to gain an entrance into the

Kingdom of Heaven? Jesus Christ Himself tells you that its portals will be unbarred to you, provided that the poor plead for your admission there. Out of the mammon of iniquity, He says, make unto yourselves friends, who, at your death, shall receive you into everlasting dwellings* (Luke xvi. 9). Thus we see that grace, mercy, remission of sins, the very Kingdom itself, is in their hands, and that the rich cannot enter there unless the poor receive them.

How rich, then, are you whom we call poor! How poor are you whom men call rich! If indeed you who abound in worldly goods cling to those goods, you will never have a share in the treasures which the love of your King and your God would give you in their stead;+ for you nothing will remain but the terrible malediction of the Gospel: Woe to you rich, for you have received your consolation. Ah, if you would find a shelter from this threatened thunderbolt of Divine wrath, seek it under the wing of poverty: make for yourselves friends of the poor; give and you shall receive; cast away your temporal blessings, and fill your empty treasure-chambers with spiritual ones; share the sorrows of the destitute and the afflicted, and God will give you also a share in their privileges.

What more can I say concerning the advantages of poverty, and the importance, nay, the absolute neces-

• That is to say: ‘‘ By means of your wealth make friends of the poor; so that when your wealth fails you, as it will at death, they may plead for you.”’

• “‘ Has this man given much at his death? Nay, he has given nothing, but he has left somewhat; and he has left nothing but what he could not retain: he has kept it till the last moment; and if he could carry it away neither God nor the poor would have had any part in it.””—BourDALOUE.

sity, of relieving it? Nothing, except to remind you, in the words of the Psalmist, that blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor (Ps. xl. 1). Notice this word understandeth. It is not enough to open your bodily eyes to the poor and to their necessities. If you look upon them in this way only, you will see nothing but what is mean and contemptible, and you will despise them. You must open the eyes of your soul, of your intelligence guided by faith, and you will see in them Jesus Christ. You will see in them the representatives of His poverty, the citizens of His Kingdom, the inheritors of His promises, the distributors of His graces, the true children of His Church, the first members of His Mystical Body. Those who do so open the eyes of their intelligence and therefore see all this in the poor, are—and can we wonder that they are?—eager to assist them and to relieve their necessities.* But, merely to give them alms either because we feel that we are constrained to do so by their importunity, or because our natural kindheartedness moves us to do it, does indeed relieve their distress, but it is not understanding the poor as we are bidden to do. He who truly enters into the deep mystery of fraternal charity is he who regards the poor as the first children of the Church; who, honouring them as such, believes himself bound to serve them; and who has no hope of sharing in the blessings of the Gospel except by the means of such charity as our Divine Lord Himself prescribes in that Gospel.

• Tt is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all or exists wholly for them.’”—G. K. CHESTERTON.