From Poverty to Power

THE PATH OF PROSPERITY THE LESSON OF EVIL [Unrest and pain and sorrow are the shadows of life} There is no heart in all the world that has not felt the sting of pain, no mind that has not been tossed upon the dark waters of trouble, no eye that has not wept the hot, blinding tears of unspeakable anguish.

There is no house- hold where the Great Destroyers, disease and death, have not entered, severing heart from heart, and casting over all the dark pall of sorrow. In the strong, and apparently inde- structible meshes of evil all are more or less fast caught, and pain, unhappiness, and mis- fortune wait upon mankind.

With the object of escaping, or fn some way mitigating this overshadowing gloom, men and women rush blindly into innumerable devices, pathways by which they fondly hope to enter into a happiness which will not pass away. Such are the drunkard and the harlot, who revel in sensual excitements; such is the exclusive zesthete, who shuts himself out from the sorrows 3 4 The Path of Prosperity of the world, and surrounds himself with ener- vating luxuries; such is he who thirsts for wealth or fame, and subordinates all things to the achievement of that object; and such are they who seek consolation in the performance of religious rites.

And to all the happiness sought seems to come, and the soul, for a time, is lulled into a sweet security, and an intoxicating forgetfulness of the existence of evil; but the day of disease comes at last, or some great sorrow, tempta- tion, or misfortune breaks suddenly in on the unfortified soul, and the fabric of its fancied happiness is torn to shreds.

So over the head of every personal joy hangs the Damocletian sword of pain, ready, at any moment, to fall and crush the soul of him who is unprotected by knowledge. The child cries to be a man or woman; the man and woman sich for the lost felicity of childhood.

The poor man chafes under the chains of poverty by which he is bound, and the rich man often lives in fear of poverty, or scours the world in search of an elusive shadow he calls happiness. Sometimes the soul feels that #t has found a secure peace and happiness in The Lesson of Evil 5 adopting a certain religion, in embracing an intellectual philosophy, or in building up an intellectual or artistic ideal; but some over- powering temptation proves the religion to be inadequate or insufficient ; the theoretical philo- sophy is found to be a useless prop; or in a moment, the idealistic statue upon which the devotee has for years been labouring, is shattered into fragments at his feet.