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CHAPTER III.

THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF POVERTY.

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POVERTY rounds many a speech with an eloquent turn, and often gives grace to the verses of the Poets; but nobody likes much to meet poverty: it is best to be complimented at a distance, it is most loved the farthest off. Yet Poverty has been the great worldworker; the greatest things have been achieved by Poverty, and the reason is obvious--"Necessity is the mother of invention." The brain of Poverty frequently had to scheme for the stomach. were no flattering parasites standing by to lend the willing hand; Poverty had to perform its labours alone; it had to execute its own perceptions: Independence, and Effort, and Success, were all born from the same family stock as poverty. The lowly man can do many things that the more lofty cannot do, cannot even attempt to do-hence, freedom of speech, that magnificent eloquence that rushes like a strong wind through the soul, that stirs the spirits of men in vast buildings, is usually associated with a comparative lowly condition. The earth is covered with the monuments piled by Poverty. What could Capital do without Poverty? Is it not indispensable that if the hand is to perform anything, the mind must be unembarrassed, except with the great object upon which its central intensity is fixed) Luxury

cannot serve the world; it is fastidious; it is timid; tremulously it shrinks from before its opportunities; but Poverty, it is not fearful, it has nothing to lose : it wraps its serge garment, its blanket about it, and goes forth as a prophet and a missionary. It seizes axe, and plunges into the wilderness, to fell forests and bid young plantations rise; it rears its loom and factories, and spins its flax, its silks, its cotton; makes its cordage for shipping, and pictured elegancies for the luxurious and proud, who throng to Poverty for all the necessities of the easy and slothful life. Sad is it to think how often Poverty, the real labourer, should receive comparatively no remuneration for its toils; that all its expenditure should be for others. We were forcibly reminded of the condition of the poor man, the other day, when walking through an immense silk mill and manufactory. We had put into our hands a cocoon of some poor unfortunate silk worm that had there spun its own sepulchre; it had spun, it had given forth its silk, the product of its labour, and died there; we found it entombed in the crysalis. It seemed a most apt figure for the thousands of poor human worms labouring around it; the seeds they not only planted, but actually made, yielding to them but little profit and value. Speaking, then, of the achievements of Poverty, there is nothing morbid and unbecoming in ascribing to it nearly all the spacious, the magnificent, the vast and wonderful exhibition of human enterprise with which the world is covered.

We cannot resist the fascination of a fine passage before us, translated by Mrs. Child, from the "Consuelo," of George Sand, and unfriendly as we are to many of the writings of the (latter) distinguished and extraordinary woman, we cannot withhold our admiration from the following:

"Paths sanded with gold, verdant heaths, ravines loved by the wild-goats, great mountains crowned with stars, wandering torrents, impenetrable forests, let the good goddess pass through, the Goddess of Poverty!

"Since the world existed, since men have been, she traverses the world, she dwells among men she travels singing, and she sings working-the goddess, the good Goddess of Poverty!

"Some men assembled to curse her. They found her too beautiful, too gay, too nimble, and too strong. 'Pluck out her wings,' said they; 'chain her, bruise her with blows, that she may suffer, that she may perish the Goddess of Poverty !'

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They have chained the good goddess, they have beaten and persecuted her; but they cannot disgrace her. She has taken refuge in the soul of poets, in the soul of peasants, in the soul of martyrs, in the soul of saints the good goddess, the Goddess of Poverty!

"She has walked more than the wandering Jew; she has travelled more than the swallow; she is older than the egg of the wren; she has multiplied more upon earth than strawberries in Bohemian foreststhe goddess, the good Goddess of Poverty!

"She has many children, and she teaches them the secret of God. She talked to the heart of Jesus, upon the mountains; to the eyes of the Queen of Libussa, when she became enamoured of a labourer; to the spirit of John and of Jerome, upon the funeral pile of Constance. She knows more than all the doctors and all the bishops-the good Goddess of Poverty!

"She always makes the grandest and most beautiful that we see upon the earth; it is she who has cultivated the fields and pruned the trees; its is he who tends the flocks singing the most beautiful airs; it is

she who sees the first peep of dawn, and receives the last smile of evening-the good Goddess of Poverty!

"It is she who builds the cabin of the wood-cutter with green boughs, and gives to the poacher the glance of the eagle; it is she who rears the most beautiful urchins, and makes the spade and the plough light in the hands of the old man-the good Goddess of Poverty !

"It is she who inspires the poet, and makes the violin, the guitar, and the flute, eloquent under the fingers of the wandering artist; it is she who carries him on her light wing, from the source of the Moldan to that of the Danube; it is she who crowns his hair with pearls of dew, and makes the stars shine for him large and more clear-the goddess, the good Goddess of Poverty !

"It is she who instructs the ingenious artizan : who teaches him how to hew stone, to carve marble, to fashion gold, silver, brass, and iron; it is she who renders the flax supple and fine as a hair, from the fingers of the old mother, or of the young girl-the good Goddess of Poverty!

"It is she who sustains the cottage, shaken by the torch, and oil for the lamp; it is she who kneads bread for the family, and weaves garments for summer and winter; it is she who feeds and maintains the world-the good Goddess of Poverty!

"It is she who has built the grand churches and the old cathedrals; it is she who carries the sabre and the gun, who makes war and conquests. It is she who collects the dead, tends the wounded, and hidest the conquered the good Goddess of Poverty!

"Thou art all patience, all strength, and compassion, Oh, good Goddess! It is thou who unites all thy children in a holy love, and who givest to them faith, hope, charity-Oh, Goddess of Poverty!

'' Thy children will cease one day to carry the world upon their shoulders; they will be recompensed for their trouble and toil. The time approaches when there will be neither rich nor poor; when all men shall consume the fruits of the earth, and equally enjoy the gifts of God; but thou wilt not be forgotten in their hymns-Oh, good Goddess of Poverty!

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They will remember that thou wert their fruitful mother, their robust nurse, and their church militant. They will pour balm upon your wounds, and they will make the rejuvenated and embalmed earth, a bed where thou canst at last repose-Oh, good Goddess of Poverty!

"Until they of the Lord, torrents and forests, mountains and valleys, heaths swarming with little flowers and little birds, paths which have no masters, and sanded with gold-let pass the good goddess, the Goddess of Poverty !"

The Lines of the BETHUNES are tolerably well known. They are fine illustrations of a battle with poverty, although the triumph was never very decided. The life of JOHN BETHUNE is now lying before us; and certainly if humility, patient continuance in well-doing, hopeful energy, exaltation of sentiment, all existing in conjunction with severe pain and affliction-if these can ever make a name worthy and noble, John Bethune is the synonyme of all this.— We shall not attempt anything like a connected life of him. What do our readers think of the following traits of his life, as recorded by his brother?

"During the winter of 1823-4, to assist in supportporting himself, he broke stones on the road between Lindores and Newburgh, along with his biographer. He was then under thirteen years of age; and when, from the intense cold which occasionally prevailed, and the lack of motion to which his employment subjected

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