Something of the same brand of atonement was evidently in the mind of Dives when he awoke to the mistake he had made--desirous to send from hell and tell his five brothers to use the family fortune in erecting a "Dives Home for the Hungry," belike with the family name and coat of arms over the front portal. Jesus would concede no such privilege. He referred those "five brethren" to "Moses and the prophets; let them hear them"--Moses being the leader of the labor movement which had given to the slaves in the Goshen brick-yards their long-deferred rights; and the prophets being those ardent Old Testament tribunes of the people who had so hotly contended for the family idea of society against the exploiters and graspers at the top. Dante's idea that each sin on earth fashions its own proper punishment in hell receives confirmation in this parable. "The great gulf fixed," which constituted Dives's hell, was the gulf which he himself had brought about. For the private fortune he amassed had broken up the solidarity of society--had introduced into it a chasm both broad and deep. The gulf between him and Lazarus in this world exists in the world to come to plague him. The thirst which parched Dives's tongue, "being in torments," was the thirst for companionship, the healing contact once more with his fellows, from whom his fortune had sundered him like a butcher's cleaver. Jesus had so exalted a notion of the working class, their absence of cant, their rugged facing of the facts, their elemental simplicities, their first-hand contact with the realities of life, that he regarded any man who should draw himself off from them in a fancied superiority, as immeasurably the loser thereby, and as putting himself "in torments." Lazarus (_From the London "Spectator"_) ANONYMOUS Still he lingers, where wealth and fashion Meet together to dine or play-- Lingers, a matter of vague compassion, Out in the darkness across the way; Out beyond the warmth and the glitter, The light where luxury's laughter rings, Lazarus waits, where the wind is bitter, Receiving his evil things. Still ye find him when, breathless, burning, Summer flames upon square and street, When the fortunate ones of the earth are turning Their thoughts to meadows and meadow-sweet; Far away from the wide green valley, The bramble patch where the white-throat sings, Lazarus sweats in his crowded alley, Receiving his evil things.... In the name of Knowledge the race grows healthier, In the name of Freedom the world grows great; And men are wiser, and men are wealthier, But--Lazarus lies at the rich man's gate. Lies as he lay through human history, Fame of heroes and pomp of kings, At the rich man's gate, an abiding mystery, Receiving his evil things. A Parable BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (See page 189)