FROM POVERTY TO POWER

UNREST and pain and sorrow are the shadows of life. There is no heart in all the
world that has not felt the sting of pain, no mind that has not been tossed upon
the dark waters of trouble, no eye that has not wept the hot, blinding tears of
unspeakable anguish. There is no house- hold where the Great Destroyers,
disease and death, have not entered, severing heart from heart, and casting over
all the dark pall of sorrow. In the strong, and apparently indestructible meshes of
evil all are more or less fast caught, and pain, unhappiness, and misfortune wait
'upon mankind. With the object of escaping, or in some way mitigating this
overshadowing gloom, men and women rush blindly into innumerable devices,
pathways by which they fondly hope to enter into a happiness which will not
pass away. Such are the drunkard and the harlot, who revel in sensual
excitements; such is the exclusive aesthete, who shuts himself out from the
sorrows of the world, and surrounds himself with energating luxuries; such is he
who thirsts for wealth or fame, and subordinates all things to the achievement of
that object; and such are they who seek consolation in the performance of
religious rites.