The poor in the land.
The meaning is that there will always be greater or less scope for the exercise of the virtues of kindness and liberality,—that it is vain to hope for a Utopian condition of society in which there shall be absolutely no poor.
I. THIS DOES NOT IMPLY:
1. That many existing causes of poverty cannot be permanently removed.
2. That every attempt ought not to be made to reduce poverty within its narrowest limits. The saying, "Ye have the poor always with you" (Matthew 26:11), is no utterance of fatalism. Much can be done to reduce poverty. With the growth of society, still more as a result of the spread of Christian principles, numbers of the causes of poverty now existing may be expected to disappear (idleness, intemperance, bad laws, merciless competition, class antagonisms, unfavorable sanitary conditions, etc.).
II. IT DOES IMPLY:
1. That under the most favorable conditions of existence on earth a residuum of poverty is still to be looked for.
2. That while poverty lasts, it is our duty to help to bear its burden. Poverty, in a state of society such as we anticipate as the goal of history, need never be the painful thing it is now. With loving hearts, and hands ready to help, its sting will be taken away.—J.O.