Psalm 144:14 That our oxen may be strong to labor; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets. English pauperism is a peculiar product of this island. You see nothing like it anywhere else. Those who have heard me speak on this topic know what an essential difference I draw between pauperism and poverty. Poverty is a relative term. Man may be poor, and yet may be healthy and very happy, and may not need your sympathy. But pauperism describes the conditions of those unhappy fellow-citizens of ours in such wretched circumstances that it is absolutely impossible for them to maintain themselves and their families in health and decency. Now, this kind of extreme poverty or pauperism is quite different from anything that you witness anywhere else. As a distinguished minister of my own church, Dr. Rigg, said a quarter of a century, ago, in a book which he published on the subject of Education, English pauperism is "a national institution, a legacy from mediaeval times and dregs of an outworn feudalism." In other words, the peculiar pauperism which exists in this country arises from the fact that the people have been divorced from the soil. (H. P. Hughes, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets. |
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