THE MONEYLESS MAN by Our Fireside Friend

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 14, 1873

THE MONEYLESS MAN

By Our Fireside Friend

Is there no secret place on the face of the earth, Where charity dwelleth, where virtue hath birth? Where bosoms in mercy and kindness will heave, And the poor and the wretched shall ask and receive? Is there no place on earth where a knock from the poor Will bring a kind angel to open the door? Ah! search the wide world wherever you can, There is no open door for the moneyless man!

Go look at your hall where the chandeliers' light Drives off with its splendor the darkness of night; Where the rich, hanging velvet, in shadowy fold, Sweeps gracefully down with its trimming of gold, And the mirrors of silver take up and renew In long lightened vistas the 'wildering view; Go there in your patches, and find, if you can, A welcoming smile for a moneyless man.

Go look in yon church of the cloud-reaching spire, Which gives back to the sun his same look of red fire; Where the arches and columns are gorgeous within, And the walls seem as pure as a soul without sin; Go down the long aisles—see the rich and the great, In the pomp and the pride of their worldly estate; Walk down in your patches, and find, if you can, Who opens a pew to a moneyless man!

Go look to yon judge in his dark, flowing gown, With the scales wherein law weigheth quietly down, Where he frowns on the weak and smiles on the strong, And punishes right, while he justifies wrong; Where jurors their lips on the Bible have laid, To render a verdict they've already made; Go there in the court-room and find, if you can, Any law for the cause of a moneyless man!

Go look in the banks, where mammon has told His hundreds and thousands of silver and gold, Where, safe from the hands of the starving and poor, Lies pile upon pile of the glittering ore, Walk up to the counter—ah, there you may stay Till your limbs grow old and your hairs turn gray— And you'll find at the bank not one of the clan With money to lend to a moneyless man!

Then go to yon hovel—no raven has fed The wife who has suffered so long for her bread— Kneel down by her pallet, and kiss the death frost From the lips of the angel your poverty lost— Then turn from your agony upward to God, And bless while it smites you, the chastening rod— And you'll find, at the end of our life's little span, There's a welcome above for the moneyless man!

—Our Fireside Friend.