“Gradually and slowly we learned that, under such conditions, we were poor indeed! During the lapse of ages, we learned by sad experience that all good acts contain in themselves a reward of happiness, and all bad acts contain in themselves a punishment of misery. By a continual and positive reward of the right, and by a continual and positive punishment of the wrong did we at last learn to grope our way from the old antagonistic system to our present system of voluntary, co-operative individualism. “From my foregoing remarks you will easily see that your idea of wealth and that of the Marsites do not correspond. “You class many things not produced by labor as wealth; for instance, land and money as such. We call nothing wealth which is not produced by labor. With us our communities’ average productive labor is the basis of wealth. Our wealth is a _compound_, composed of three elements, namely, organized-self, material wealth, and mental wealth. Wealth as considered by your masses is an _element_ composed of material wealth only--dollars, houses, books, land, railroads, bonds, etc. “You call a person rich when he has many dollars, no matter what his other attainments and surroundings may be. Your so-called rich men may be the dupes of ignorance, cruelty, slavery and superstition; they may work themselves and their families to premature graves; they may scheme the bread out of the mouths of the still more ignorant and poverty-stricken ones; they may be surrounded by hovels and extreme ignorance and poverty; they may, every night, be in danger of being robbed and murdered by their cold, hungry neighbors who may be forced idlers, and still you call them rich, only because they claim to own a few dollars. We believe that all men are poor who are not the owners of a healthy body, a sound mind, and an abundance of material subsistence, which can be obtained only in a world where all are comparatively rich in this kind of wealth. “According to your idea of wealth, _avarice_ is a sin, because the rich _accumulate_ their millions by robbing the poor. No man can _earn_ a million dollars. According to our idea of wealth, the most avaricious person is the best, for he equally works to the highest interest and good of himself and his fellow-man. No man, in our opinion, can be rich in a poor, ignorant world.” CHAPTER VI. LABOR. “Before I can give you a clear description of the interior of the ‘big-house,’ and the work that is done in it by the inmates, it will be necessary to give you a brief explanation of our system and idea of labor,” continued Mr. Midith.