If Poverty Were Removed From the Earth—Want and poverty there will always be. However high the standard of knowledge and morality may be, whatever heights we may reach in civilization, poverty will always continue, as a display of the riches of the grace of God, a standing memorial to the truth of the words, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Zechariah 4:6. It would not be for the benefit of Christianity for the Lord to remove poverty from the earth. Thus a door would be closed that is now open for the exercise of faith—a means whereby the hearts of the afflicted can be reached by the gospel of goodness. By Christian liberality souls are reached that could be reached in no other way. It is the helping hand of the gospel.—Letter 83, 1902. (WM 177.1) MC VC