Since then Poverty is a legitimate subject of dread, there are urgent exhortations to diligence and thrift, quite in accordance with the excellent apostolic maxim that if a man will not work he shall not eat; while there are forcible statements of the things which tend to poverty, and of the courses which result in comfort and wealth. Thus it is pointed out how slack and listless labour leads to poverty, while industry leads to wealth.[168] We are reminded that the obstinate refusal to be corrected is a fruitful source of poverty,[169] while the humble and pious mind is rewarded with riches as well as with honour and life.[170] In the house of the wise man are found treasures as well as all needful supplies.[171] Drunkenness and gluttony lead to poverty, and drowsiness clothes a man with rags.[172] And there is a beautiful injunction to engage in an agricultural life, which is the only perennial source of wealth, the only secure foundation of a people's prosperity. As if we were back in patriarchal times, we are thus admonished in the later proverbs of Solomon[173]:--
"Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, And look well to thy herds; For riches are not for ever; And doth the crown endure unto all generations? The hay is carried, and the tender grass showeth itself, And the herbs of the mountains are gathered in. The lambs are for thy clothing, And the goats are the price of the field: And there will be goats' milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household; And maintenance for thy maidens."
II. But now, making all allowance for the advantages of wealth, we have to notice _some of its serious drawbacks_. To begin with, it is always insecure. If a man places any dependence upon it, it will fail him; only in his imagination is it a sure defence.[174] "Wilt thou set thine eyes upon it? it is gone. For riches certainly make themselves wings, like an eagle that flieth toward heaven."[175]
But, further, if the wealth has been obtained in any other way than by honest labour it is useless, at any rate for the owner, and indeed worse than useless for him.[176]
As the text says, treasures of wickedness profit nothing. In the revenues of the wicked is trouble.[177] Got in light and fallacious ways, the money dwindles; only when gathered by labour does it really increase.[178] When it is obtained by falsehood--by the tricks and misrepresentations of trade, for example--it may be likened to a vapour driven to and fro--nay, rather to a mephitic vapour, a deadly exhalation, the snares of death.[179] Worst of all is it to obtain wealth by oppression of the poor; one who does so shall as surely come to want as he who gives money to those who do not need it.[180] In fact, our book contains the striking thought that ill-earned wealth is never gathered for the benefit of the possessor, but only for the benefit of the righteous, and must be useless until it gets into hands which will use it benevolently.[181]
And while there are these serious drawbacks to material possessions, we are further called upon to notice that there is wealth of another kind, wealth consisting in moral or spiritual qualities, compared with which wealth, as it is usually understood, is quite paltry and unsatisfying. When the intrinsic defects of silver and gold have been frankly stated, this earthy treasure is set, as a whole, in comparison with another kind of treasure, and is observed to become pale and dim. Thus "riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death."[182] Indeed it is only the blessing of the Lord which brings riches without drawbacks.[183] In the house of the righteous is much treasure.[184] Better is a little with righteousness than great treasure without right.[185] In the light of these moral considerations the relative positions of the rich and the poor are reversed; it is better to be an honest poor man than a perverse rich man; the little grain of integrity in the heart and life outweighs all the balance at the bank.[186]