Book iii.]
THE INSTRUCTOR.
295
people with a character for sobriety, who are fairer in my mind than apes, and capable of uttering something better than nightingales; and to set before them that saying, "He that pitieth the poor lendeth to the Lord;"[1] and this, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me."[2] But these, on the other hand, prefer ignorance to wisdom, turning their wealth into stone, that is, into pearls and Indian emeralds. And they squander and throw away their wealth on fading dyes, and bought slaves; like crammed fowls scraping the dung of life. "Poverty," it is said, "humbles a man."[3] By poverty is meant that niggardliness by which the rich are poor, having nothing to give away.
