Proverbs 19:4

Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbour.

The rich and the poor

Nothing upon earth is so powerful as money. It is a force before which everything bows. Wealth is such a mighty power, that one possessing it does not feel his dependence as other men do. Being more easily spoiled than other men, his salvation is more difficult. This accounts for everything the gospel has to say about rich men. In speaking of wealth, we are very apt to make the mistake of supposing that only very rich men are wealthy. The Bible accounts that man wealthy who, free from debt, has anything left after making provision for actual necessities of life. Poverty is isolation. When we become poor we become lonely. Either friends withdraw from us or we with- draw from them. When one gets really poor he is pretty much left by his brethren. They may not mean to shun him, but they let him pretty severely alone. The poor are the material we Christians are to work upon. To these we are to let our light shine. It is our holiest work to stop this separation of the poor from his neighbours. The poor are here by Divine intention. The poor help to save our souls. We are not to relieve them only; we are to help them. Giving is not enough to fulfil our Christian duty towards them. Helping the poor to help themselves is the most Christlike thing you can do. Machinery in religious life is to be avoided. It is of use only as it helps to concentrate energy. (G. R. Van de Water.)

Poverty, riches, and social selfishness

I. The trials of poverty.

1. Degradation. “The poor useth entreaties.” To beg of a fellow-man is a degradation; it is that from which our manhood revolts. “The poor useth entreaties.” They have to mortify the natural independence of their spirit. They are subjected to--

2. Insolent treatment. “The rich answereth roughly.”

3. Social desertion. “The poor is separated from his neighbour.” Who in this selfish world will make friends with the poor, however superior in intellect or excellent in character? When the wealthy man with his large circle of friends becomes poor the poles of his magnet are reversed, and his old friends feel the repulsion.

II. The temptations of wealth.

1. Upon the mind of its possessor. It tends to promote haughtiness and insolence. “The rich answereth roughly.” The temptation of wealth is revealed--

2. Upon the mind of the wealthy man’s circle. “Wealth maketh many friends.”

III. The selfishness of society. “Every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.” (Homilist.)

Friendship of the world

When I see leaves drop from their trees in the beginning of autumn, just such, think I, is the friendship of the world; just such are the comforts and joys of this life. While the sap of maintenance lasts my friends will swarm in abundance, my joys and comforts will abide with me; but when the sap ceases, the spring which supplies them fails; in the winter of my need they leave me naked. (H. G. Salter.)

Friends sought far money

In Dr. Guthrie’s “Autobiography” there is a good illustration of the unhappy state of cynicism into which the rich are prone to fall. There he relates how, in a winter of extraordinary severity, he made an appeal to a lady who had succeeded to a prodigious fortune, on behalf of the starving poor of his parish. In doing so he had no very sanguine hope of success. On being ushered into her room, she turned round, and showing her thin, spare figure, and a face that looked as if it had been cut out of mahogany, grinned and said, “I am sorry to see ye. What do you want? I suppose you are here seeking siller.” “The very thing I am here for,” was the Doctor’s frank reply. Her next remark demonstrated how little power her riches had of conferring happiness; and with all her wealth of flatterers, what a poor, lonely, desolate, miserable creature this possessor of more than a million sterling was. “Ah,” she said, “there is nobody comes to see me or seek me; but it’s the money, the money they are after.” We are glad to be able to relate that this rich old lady gave to Dr. Guthrie fifty pounds for the poor--an act which we hope shed a gleam of sunshine into her dark life.