woe,
And hope and fear,--believe the aged friend,--
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is;
And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost
Such prize despite the envy of the world,
And having gained truth, keep truth, that is all.

THE PENALTY.

+The penalty of selfishness is strife.+--The selfish man can neither
leave men entirely alone, nor can he live at peace and in unity with
them. Hence come strife and division. Being unwilling to make the
interests of others his own, the selfish man's interests must clash with
the interests of others. His hand is against every man; and every man's
hand, unless it is stayed by generosity and pity, is against him. This
clashing of outside interests is reflected in his own consciousness; and
the war of his generous impulses with his selfish instincts makes his
own breast a perpetual battlefield. The lack of harmony with his fellows
in the outward world makes peace within his own soul impossible. The
selfish man, by cutting himself off from his true relations with his
fellow-men, cuts up the roots of the only principles which could give to
his own life dignity and harmony and peace. Selfishness defeats itself.
By refusing to go out of self into the lives of others, the selfish man
renders it impossible for the great life of human sympathy and
fellowship and love to enter his own life, and fill it with its own
largeness and sweetness and serenity. The selfish man remains to the
last an alien, an outcast and an enemy, banished from all that is best
in the life of his fellows by the insuperable obstacle of his own
unwillingness to be one with them in mutual helpfulness and service.

CHAPTER XV.

The Poor.

Our fellow-men are so numerous and their conditions are so diverse that
it is necessary to consider some of the classes and conditions of men by
themselves; and to study some of the special forms which fellowship and
love assume under these differing circumstances.

Of these classes or divisions in which we may group our fellow-men, the
one having the first claim upon us by virtue of its greater need is the
poor. The causes of poverty are accident, sickness, inability to secure
work, laziness, improvidence, intemperance, ignorance, and
shiftlessness. Those whose poverty is due to the first three causes are
commonly called the worthy poor.

THE DUTY.

+Whether worthy or unworthy,