January 11

"For the poor shall never cease out of the land."—Deuteronomy 15:11.

AND well is it for me that I have the poor always with me. They bless me a hundredfold more than I am able to bless them. I am ennobled by their presence. Deprived of the poor, I become poor myself.

They keep the Angel of Tenderness in my fellowship. If there were not so much around me to awaken my compassion and pity—if the world were all a smiling and untroubled and fertile world—how harsh I should grow, and how cold, and how self-contained!

And they keep the Angel of Helpfulness in my company. Their necessities are a constant call to me to rouse myself and go and succour them. They bid me open my hand and give. They teach me the sweet and Christlike luxury of doing good. They enrich my days in service and ministry.

And they keep the Angel of Gratefulness in my secret soul. They are a continual parable, never out of my sight, of my own spiritual poverty—how I was myself a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord my God redeemed me. So I remember, day by day, my indebtedness to Him.

In the Isle of Flowers, where Maeldune's voyagers saw "blossom and blossom and promise of blossom," they only grew angry. In the Isle of Fruits, "all of them redder than rosiest health or than utterest shame," they gorged themselves and drew their swords on one another. Yes, for my own sake let me thank God that the poor do not cease from the land. And let me serve them not grudgingly or of necessity, for the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.