"Rich Man, Poor Man -- Who's The Beggar Man Or Thief?"

Dear Children:

Once upon a time in a very big city in a very big country there lived very many poor people and very few rich.

NOW IN THE BEGINNING, GOD, THEIR HEAVENLY FATHER, BEFORE ANYBODY WAS RICH OR POOR, HAD GIVEN EVERYBODY ABOUT THE SAME AMOUNT of land and food and things with which to build their houses and make their clothes and beasts to carry their burdens and help plow the land so they could grow their food and carry their things they made to market to trade for other things that other people made that they liked and needed and who liked and needed to trade their things for their things. See?

AND EVERYBODY WAS HAPPY AND HAD EVERYTHING THEY REALLY NEEDED AND HAD NO WARS. Everybody worked hard to grow their own food and make their own clothes and build their own houses so each had plenty of what he needed.

BUT SOME WORKED EVEN HARDER THAN OTHERS AND GREW AND MADE ENOUGH EXTRA THINGS TO TRADE for the extra things and food that other hard workers grew and made too. That way different people grew and made different things they could trade for other different things that other people grew and made.

SO PEOPLE GOT TO DOING WHAT THEY CALLED "TRADING," and this business of taking all these different things to market to trade for all these other different things made by other people was called "marketing" and "trade." Some people grew lots of food but not much cotton or wool to make their clothes with, so they would take their extra food to their market and trade it for the cotton and wool that other people had lots of but needed more food. Others had lots of trees and grew lots of timber for building houses, much more than they themselves really needed, but they too needed more food or clothing, so they'd take their wood to market to trade for the food and clothing they needed. See?

EVERYTHING MOVED RATHER SLOWLY because they only had horses and oxen and elephants and camels and animals like that to carry all these things. So life went rather slow and easy and nobody was in much of a hurry and they had lots of time to relax, ate good natural healthful food the way God made it, and had lots of good normal healthy exercise, working and walking and riding and trading and playing together.

THEY BREATHED NICE CLEAN FRESH AIR AND DRANK NICE CLEAN PURE WATER, and got lots of nice quiet restful sleep at night and lived in comfy warm little tents, cabins, huts or houses with little fires and the few things they needed and the few clothes they wore.

AND EVERYBODY WAS PRETTY HAPPY AND THERE WEREN'T MANY FUSSES OR FIGHTS OR WARS because everybody was healthy and happy and had what they needed and shared and helped each other. Because God taught them to love one another and to help each other and be happy with their happy healthy little lives and the very few things that they really needed.

NOBODY REALLY NEEDED VERY MUCH--just enough to eat and clothes to keep warm and tiny tents, caves or houses to live in for shelter, and a few animals to help them with their work.

SO EVERYBODY WAS HAPPY AND CONTENTED WITH THE LITTLE HE HAD because it was enough to satisfy all his needs and the needs of others.

BUT THE DEVIL, GOD'S AND MAN'S ENEMY, WAS NOT HAPPY ABOUT ALL THIS because he likes to make people unhappy and sad and mad, and he's very unhappy when everybody's glad because that makes him very mad!

SO HE DECIDED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT TO TRY TO RUIN ALL THIS NICE PEACEFUL WORLD THAT GOD HAD CREATED and destroy as many of these happy people as he could and try to wreck the whole thing so he could be happy!--So he began causing all kinds of trouble!

HE BEGAN TEMPTING SOME OF THESE HAPPY CONTENTED PEOPLE WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF EVIL called "higher education" 'or how to be unhappy by thinking you can be happier by knowing more than you really need to know and getting more things than you really need to have.

AND SOME PEOPLE BELIEVED HIM, SO THEY BEGAN LEARNING A LOT OF EVIL THINGS called man's wisdom and higher education, and they began stealing from each other the things that belonged to others or tricking them out of some of these things so they themselves could have more!

WHILE THE POOR PEOPLE THEY WERE OUTSMARTING and robbing and cheating and killing to get more than their share became known as the poor, dumb, uneducated, overworked labourers, the weak and the meek ones.

THE PEOPLE WHO BEGAN GETTING ALL THIS EVIL KNOWLEDGE of how to trick and rob others and lie and steal and cheat and even kill to get it began to be known as the rich and the powerful and the great ones, the smart ones!

THE GREAT AND POWERFUL RICH by their evil wisdom of the Devil were even so smart with their evil knowledge and lies called higher education, propaganda and advertising, that they even convinced lots of poor people that they were right and persuaded them to voluntarily give up some of the few things they had to make them even poorer and the rich even richer, so the rich could have more and more and the poor less and less. These are called "taxes" and "profits" and "interest."

THE RICH EVEN PERSUADED AND FORCED THE POOR TO MAKE THEM SOMETHING NEW CALLED "WAR" AND "WEAPONS," like swords and spears and guns and tanks and planes and bombs so the rich could fight these wars with other rich people to try to grab what they had too!

THEY EVEN MADE THE POOR PEOPLE FIGHT THESE WARS FOR THEM, when all the poor really wanted was peace and enough to eat and wear and a place to sleep!

BUT SOME OF THE POOR WERE NOT VERY HAPPY ABOUT THIS AND BEGAN TO COMPLAIN AND REFUSE to pay these taxes and fight these wars and rebelled against letting the rich rob and kill them this way and make them so unhappy. This is called "revolution."

SO THE RICH USED THEIR WEAPONS TO FORCE THE POOR TO FIGHT THEIR WARS AND PAY these taxes, profits and interests and continued to rob and kill them by force if they refused!

BUT THE RICH NEEDED A LOT OF SMART PEOPLE CALLED "TECHNICIANS" AND "ENGINEERS" AND "SCIENTISTS" TO MAKE THESE weapons and war machines for them and teach the poor how to build them and also how to make other fancy things they wanted but didn't really need, like machines to travel very fast in because the rich were always in a big hurry to make more riches and fight more wars and have more power to try to be happier than anybody else.

THE WEAPONS AND MACHINES OF WAR ARE CALLED "MUNITIONS" and the smart people whom the rich trained to teach the poor how to use them and lead them in these wars are called the "military," and these fast ways of getting around are called "modern transportation." The rich also needed smart people to build ways of getting messages to these war leaders faster so they could fight the wars better, and to their market places quicker so they could make more riches in a hurry.