or squalor. Poverty is not a real evil to him. If he had money
he wouldn't know how to spend it. I read a book the other day about a
priest who lived a very devoted life in the slums--he had two rooms in a
clergy-house--and there was a chapter in praise of the way in which he
endured his poverty. But it was all wrong! What that man really enjoyed was
preaching and ceremonial and company--he had a real love of human beings.
Well, that man's life was crammed with joy--he got exactly what he wanted
all day long. It wasn't a self-sacrificing life--it would have been to you
and me--but he no doubt woke day after day, with a prospect of having his
whole time taken up with things he thoroughly enjoyed."

"But what about the people," I said, "who really enjoy just the sense of
power which money gives them, without using it--or the people whose only
purpose in using it is the pleasure of being known to have it?"

"Oh, of course, they are simply barbarians," said Father Payne, "and it
doesn't do _them_ any harm to be poor. No, the tragedy lies in the
case of a man with really expansive, generous, civilised instincts, to whom
the world is full of wholesome and urgent delights, and whose life is
simply starved out of him by poverty. I have a great mind to send you to
London for a couple of months, to live on a pound a week, and see what you
make of it."

"I'll go if you wish it," I said.

"It might bring things home to you," said Father Payne, smiling, "but again
it probably would not, because it would only be a game--the real pinch
would not come. Most people would rather enjoy migrating to hell from
heaven for a month--it would just give them a sharper relish for heaven."

"But do you really think your poverty hurt you?" I said.

"I have no doubt it did," said Father Payne. "Of course I was rescued in
time, before the bitterness really sank down into my soul. But I think it
prevented my ever being more than a looker-on. I believe I could have done
some work worth doing, if I could have tried a few experiments. I don't
know! Perhaps I am ungrateful after all. My poverty certainly gave me a
wish to help things along, and I doubt if I should have learnt that
otherwise. And I think, too, it taught me not to waste compassion on the
wrong things. The people to be pitied are simply the people whose minds and
souls are pinched and starved--the over-sensitive, responsive people, who
feel hunted and punished without knowing why. It's t