lways been enabled to get the
bread of honest industry, and so have you; and though our children feed
upon brown bread, and we cannot afford to buy them fine clothes, like
some of our vain neighbours, to pamper their pride with; yet, bless the
Lord, they are as healthy and clean as any in the parish. Why then
should you complain? Godliness with contentment is great gain!"

"An honour and a comfort to be a poor man, indeed! What nonsense you
talk! What sort of honour and comfort can that be? I am out of patience
with you, man," the wife sharply cried out.

"I can prove it!" replied he.

"How?" returned his partner, in no very pleasant tone of voice.

"My dear," said the good man, "hear me quietly, and I will tell you."

"I think it an honour, and I feel it a comfort, to be in that very
station of life which my Saviour Jesus Christ was in before me. He did
not come into the world as one that was rich and great, but as a poor
man, who had not where to lay his head. I feel a blessing in my poverty,
because Jesus, like me, was poor. Had I been a rich man, perhaps I
should never have known nor loved him. 'For not many mighty, not many
noble, are called.' God's people are chiefly found among the base things
of the world, and things which are despised. This makes my poverty to be
my comfort.

"Besides, hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and
heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? This
thought makes my poverty also to be my honour.

"Moreover, to the poor the gospel was and is preached, and to my heart's
delight I find it to be true, every Sunday of my life. And is it not
plain, all the neighbourhood through, that while so many of our rich
farmers, and tradesmen, and squires, are quite careless, or set their
faces against the ways of God, and are dead to everything that is
gracious and holy; a great number of the poorest people are converted and
live? I honour the rich for their station, but I do not envy them for
their possessions. I can not forget what Christ once said, 'How hardly
shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!'

"Oh! my dear wife, if you did but know how to set a right value upon the
precious promises which God has made to the poor, how thankful should I
be!

"The expectation of the poor shall not perish. He delivereth the poor
and needy from him that spoileth him. He has prepared of his goodness
for the poor. The poor