Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/36

34 old proverb, that, "When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window," is true in a far more general sense than the one in which it is generally applied. They have the floor for a bed; the scant and mouldering remnant of food for dinner; the cold hearth, where the wind blows in the snow;—these physical sufferings re-act on the moral world, they deaden and embitter the sweetest of our feelings. The parent half loves, half loathes, the child that takes the bread from his own mouth; and the child looks on that as tyranny, which is only misery. It learns to fear before it learns to love. Suppose such a childhood past: it has escaped disease; no chance chill has distorted the youthful limbs, they have, at least, health to begin life. The poor man has nothing more than his strength. God's best gifts lie dormant within him: the chances are that he cannot read even the holy page, that, at least, holds out the hope of a less miserable world. He has not that mental cultivation which alone teaches us what are