_R._ Certainly not, if rightly used: they are blessings in the hands of the virtuous, and some such there are. But in too many cases, mankind abuse them. The fortunate are very apt to be vicious; those who go on in an unchanging tide of success, at last fancy that they may indulge their pride and their passions with impunity. Such persons have hard hearts; and though the world, judging of the outside only, call them fortunate, and envy them--still, if we look within and see their real character, we shall pity them, as in fact poor, and destitute, and miserable in all that constitutes real goodness, real wealth--a good heart. It is for this reason that the Bible--a book more full of virtue than mankind generally think--tells us that “whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.” In other words, God sends sorrow and misfortune upon men in real kindness. He takes away health, but he gives gentleness and humility of soul, as a compensation; he takes away worldly wealth--houses, lands, and merchandises--but he gives charity, good will, kindness, and sympathy, in their stead. He takes away external and earthly riches, and gives in exchange spiritual riches, of infinitely greater price. He takes away dollars and cents, which only pass in this world, and are wholly uncurrent in another, and gives coin that bears upon it an image and superscription, which not only makes it available in time, but in eternity. _M._ Most people think very differently from you, on these matters: they seem to imagine that the rich are not only the happiest, but the wisest and best part of mankind. _R._ Shallow people may think so, but wise men do not. Our Savior appealed to the poor, not to the rich. Poverty, not wealth, was the soil in which he sowed the seeds of truth; and he knew all things. History justifies Christ’s judgment of human life, for all, or nearly all great improvements in society have been begun and carried on by the poor. For almost all useful inventions; for almost all that is beautiful in poetry, and music, and painting, and sculpture, and architecture; for almost all that has contributed to diffuse truth and knowledge and liberty among mankind--we are indebted to those who have been born and nursed in poverty. If you were to strike out of existence all that the poor have created, and leave only what the rich have created, you would make this world one vast scene of desolation, vice, and tyranny.