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Covetous men have put our Lord's words, "Ye have the poor with you always," beside the Old Testament sentence, "The poor shall never cease out of the land," in order to quiet the trouble of their own consciences when forced to think of the little they are daily doing for the poor; and then tell themselves, and too often tell others, that aspiration, self-denial, and liberality are, after all, mere spasmodic, ineffectual palliatives of a disease which is inveterate and hopeless, and that, the existence of poverty being an unalterable decree, there can be no true neglect in doing nothing in their power, if there can be no full success in doing all. To some other people this combination of texts supplies a convenient discouragement to throw on all suggestions for elevating the condition of the poor, and alleviating the pressure of their poverty; for it enables them practically to conclude thus: "To do this thing would be, more or less, to fly in the face of the Almighty: To alter the conditions He has so clearly laid down would be, in fact, to contradict His will." Of course this error also admits of an easy reply, too logical by far, how. ever, for men who would offer the argument. It is this. God may have willed, and has willed, that absolute equality of goods Shall be, in this world, an impossibility; that the terms rich and poor, being relative terms, shall always have persons to whom they may be applied, though a man who is rich as compared with a peasant may be poor as compared with a prince. But God has never revealed as His will that those conditions shall never be interchangeable; on the contrary, His word tells us that such interchange must be sought (James 1:9), and the history of the world, from day to day, shows us, as part of its natural course, a continual rising of some, and sinking of others, in the social scale. Then there is another class of objections to deal with. It is urged by those who really sympathize in good will for the physical and moral raising of the poor, and feel that the bettering of poor men's condition would be an admirable thing if only it were possible, but that its antecedent impossibility frustrates all efforts towards so desirable an end. There are very many such — people who feel Christian love to fellow men fill them with longing to promote their temporal, and through it their eternal good; people who, themselves blessed with ease and affluence in worldly things, feel themselves in some sort trusted by God to benefit their poorer fellows; who know the pity and the wrong of merely flinging money, in whatever sums, into the grasping hand of the loudest clamourer; who strive with all their might in seeking, and fail so often bitterly in finding, the true deserving poor; who go themselves amidst the haunts of squalor, the homes of misery, the very centres of disease, trying to make true Christian mercy the dispenser of their money, and to consecrate even filthy lucre to the holy ministry of Christian love. How many these are, of Christian men and Christian women, God only knows who only can reward; but yet how disappointing is their work! They see from day to day so little fruit; they meet from day to day so much resistance; what wonder if, while conscience urges them to persist in their work, despondency should often overwhelm them, and make the toil, which only hope can lighten, a crushing burden when hope is fled? Is it not too sadly true that when the self-indulgent love to cry, "the raising of the poor is resistance to God," the self-sacrificing often have to answer, "the raising of the poor is hopeless for man!" The one class lets them lie, and cries, "their poverty is destiny;" the other class labours even while it cries, "our labour is in vain!" And both have only quoted half the texts — the one side to excuse neglect, the other to explain despondency; while the whole text can force duty on the slothful and give courage to the zealous. For our Lord, indeed, spoke the truth of His day, of our day, and of all days, when He said, "Ye have the poor with you always;" but He said something more which we should lay to heart, "When ye will, ye can do them good." These glorious words settle all questions at once as to the title of man to interfere with the condition of the poor, and as to the alleged hopelessness of such interference. The thing may be done, and the thing may be done with success. To alter the condition of the poor is allowable; to alter it for the better is possible. "Ye can do them good!"

(W. L. Blackley, M. A.)

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KJV: For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

WEB: For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want to, you can do them good; but you will not always have me.