A robust and virile race cannot be reared in the slums

Life seldom gives as much as we want. Often it gives us less than what we deserve. To many it gives not anything at all. The poor live a life of grinding toil. By day and by night they work to keep starvation at bay. Ill-clad, ill-fed, and ill-housed, they wear out their bodies and work out their hearts. Born and bred in low estate, they grow in anguish. Poverty suppresses intelligence and paralyses worth.

Often do the rich forget that they are the trusted stewards of their riches and they have to help the poor to ameliorate their condition. When they, the epicures, feast satiety and drain the cup of pleasure, the poor, like hungry dogs that slink about the villages, stand in need of the barest necessaries of life and cannot quell the hunger of the hungry. The neglected and castaways of society are crippled and they cannot walk without crutches. The sun may shine bright, fresh earth may shed odor, trees may grow luxuriant, and birds may sing merrily, but the helpless and the poor weep and moan and sigh and seek relief in crying aloud and beating their breasts. Life to them is a prolonged agony between the cradle and the grave.

Life to many is an incessant struggle against poverty. Slump throws many out of work. They borrow money at usurious rates. They fall into the depths of degrading poverty. The orphans and the waifs and strays live in squalor of slums. Born in misery, they die in misery. Weary souls seek their rest in wells and rivers.

Man may fail to care for the poor, but thou, Ahura Mazda, dost never. Thou dost ever help those that are without means of sustenance through no fault of theirs. I will help and greet such of thy poor. In greeting them, I greet thee. I serve thee best, when I serve thy poor and the down-trodden, that are forsaken of men, Ahura Mazda.

This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 01, 2000.