A rich man 
On Possessions

 By Kahlil Gibran from Jesus the Son of Man

HE SPOKE ILL of rich men. And upon a day I questioned Him saying, "Sir, what shall I do to attain the peace of the spirit?" 
And He bade me give my possessions to the poor and follow Him. 
But He possessed nothing; therefore He knew not the assurance and the freedom of possessions, nor the dignity and the self-respect that lie within. 
In my household there are sevenscore slaves and stewards; some labor in my groves and vineyards, and some direct my ships to distant isles. 
Now had I heeded Him and given my possessions to the poor, what would have befallen my slaves and my servants and their wives and children? They too would have become beggars at the gate of the city or the portico of the temple. 
Nay that good man did not fathom the secret of possessions. Because He and His followers lived on the bounty of others He thought all men should live likewise. 
Behold a contradiction and a riddle: Should rich men bestow their riches upon the poor, and must the poor have the cup and the loaf of the rich man ere they welcome him to their board? 
And must needs the holder of the tower be host to his tenants ere he calls himself lord of his own land? 
The ant that stores food for the winter is wiser than a grasshopper that sings one day and hungers another. 
Last Sabbath one of His followers said in the marketplace, "At the threshold of heaven where Jesus may leave His sandals, no other man is worthy to lay his head." 
But I ask, at the threshold of whose house that honest vagabond could have left His sandals? He Himself never had a house nor a threshold; and often He went without sandals.

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