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The rich man's wealth is his strong city - Behold a mystery in providence; there is not a rich man on earth but becomes such by means of the poor! Property comes from the labor of the poor, and the king himself is served of the field. How unjust, diabolically so, is it to despise or oppress those by whose labor all property is acquired!
The destruction of the poor is their poverty - A man in abject poverty never arises out of this pit. They have no nucleus about which property may aggregate. The poet spoke well: -
Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat
Res angusta domi.
"They rarely emerge from poverty, whose exertions are cramped by want at home."
Destruction - That which crushes, throws into ruins. Wealth secures its possessors against many dangers; poverty exposes men to worse evils than itself, meanness, servility, and cowardice. Below the surface there lies, it may be, a grave irony against the rich; see Proverbs 18:11.