Fruit of Covetousness: Oppression

“Flee these things, and follow after .... love, patience, meekness.” — 1 Tim. vi. 11.

The love of money is a root of every evil, and oppression is one of its many bitter fruits. The subject of this discourse is the multiform oppression of the poor that results from a too eager pursuit of wealth. There are certain texts of Scripture in which this idea seems to be very distinctly expressed — such as, “Do not rich men oppress you?” “Behold the hire of the laborer,” &c. — but the connection between these expressions and our present theme is more apparent than real. These expressions specify forms of oppression which prevailed in those times, but which are more rare in the highly-civilized society of our own country and our own day. The text which I have written at the head of this lecture goes to the fountain of the evil, and beginning there we can follow the course of the streams,

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whether they turn to the right hand or to the left. Oppression is greatly modified in form “by the circumstances of society, although in its nature it continue the same. It is of the utmost consequence to go, in the light of Scripture, to the state of the heart whence the vices flow; for if we look merely to the overt acts, we may be led to conclude that the acts have changed their nature, while they have only changed their form. If you flee from the miser’s thirst for wealth, and follow after “love, patience* meekness” you will not take a guilty part in any thing that would oppress the poor, however cunningly disguised the oppression may he.

In ruder times, the rich often oppressed the poor in a very direct manner. When might took the place of right, they who had the power did not always take the trouble of covering their rapacity under legal forms. They kept back the laborer’s hire, or seized his patrimonial field, or enslaved his person, according to the measure of impunity which their circumstances permitted them to enjoy. In this country, and in the present day, such vulgar robbery cannot be perpetrated. The richest man in this kingdom cannot withhold from the poorest a penny to which he has a legal claim. So far it is well. It should be matter of thankfulness to the Ruler over all. Having never known the want of it, there is reason to fear we do not sufficiently appreciate its worth. But the supremacy of law in a country does not imply the reign of justice, far less of love, in human hearts. The advanced civilization which lays an effectual restraint on rapacious hands, cannot drive covetousness from its seat in the soul. Dwelling there, reigning there, when one path is obstructed, it will form a new one for itself. Love of money, a spring in the heart, when one channel of issue is locked up, will force its way by another. Accordingly, this passion as certainly, and perhaps we should say as extensively, oppresses the poor now, as in ruder nations at earlier times. The same native evil is compelled to adopt more refined modes of action: but the oppression may be as galling to the poor and as displeasing to God although it keep strictly within the letter of human law.

One object of our Sabbath assemblies is to get the law of the Lord applied to principles and practices which lie beyond the reach of human enactments. A Christian should not dislike to have God’s law applied to him in all its length and breadth. He who has been most sincerely endeavoring to conform to the law, will be most willing to have new deficiencies pointed out which had hitherto escaped him. What do ye more than others? It will not do for a man who bears Christ’s name to gather himself up and say, I have given every one what is legally his due. ]S“o thanks to you for that. Those who care not for Christ, who blaspheme his holy name, do the same — must do the same — dare not withhold it: but you — you are under the law to Christ; and his law is love, “Flee these things, and follow after love.” His commandment is, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” If you repudiate that law, you reject Christ. Are you his subjects, or are you not? If you are, then after keeping human law towards all mankind, you must hear his law, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” It is not by acts of Parliament, and the judicial precedents of human tribunals that we are to be judged. The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son. He will judge by his own law then: we should regulate our lives by it now.*

[ * “We can scarcely wonder that our author should have been led, in considering the sin of covetousness, to contemplate the miseries of the poor, when we revert to the actual condition of a large proportion of the population in the great and rich city of Glasgow, in which these discourses were delivered. A well-informed author, in a recent work, speaking of a district in the heart of Glasgow, says, —” that no

12G FRUIT OF COVETOUSNESS —

I have no doubt the law of Christ is violated amongst us — thoughtlessly, in ignorance, and in company with a multitude, it may be — but still

language can exaggerate the horrors of the scenes which are daily and hourly passing in the midst of the immense emporiums of wealth and commerce which have sprung up as if by magic throughout the land.” {Prize-Essay on National Distress.) The following is from the Parliamentary Reports of the Hand-Loom Commission, and refers to the same districts in Glasgow. Mr. Symonds, the Commissioner, says — “Under the escort of the vigilant superintendent of the Glasgow police, I have four times visited these districts; — I have seen human degradation in some of its worst phases, both in England and abroad, but I can advisedly say that I did not believe, until I visited the AVynds of Glasgow, that so large an amount of filth, crime, misery, and disease, existed on one spot in any civilized country.” {Report, p. 51.) The Report of the officer who accompanied Mr. Symonds contains minute details; but we can quote only this passage — “There (in those districts) is concentrated every thing that is wretched, dissolute, loathsome, and pestilential. The houses in which this miserable population (some 30,000) live, are unfit even for sties, and every apartment is filled with a promiscuous crowd of men, women, and children, all in the most revolting state of filth and squalor. ... In these horrid dens the most abandoned characters of the city are collected, and from thence they nightly issue to disseminate disease, and to pour upon the town every species of crime and abomination. The people who dwell in these quarters are sunk to the lowest possible state of personal degradation, and regard themselves, from the hopelessness of their condition, as doomed to a life of wretchedness and crime.” [Rep. pp. 14, 15.) — No wonder, with such scenes before his eyes, that the preacher should suspect there might be some connection between wealth and covetousness on the one hand, and such extreme destitution sinfully violated, to a most alarming extent in connection with the money-making efforts of this mercantile community.

You have seen a street thronged from side to side with human beings, men, women, and children, all moving in one direction. The mass moves like a river. If every one keep his own place and glide along with the current, the motion will he gentle and harmless. But two or three strong men in the midst of that crowd conceive a desire to proceed at a much quicker rate than their neighbors. Yielding to that impulse, they bound forward with might and main. Observe the effect of their effort. They press on the persons that are next them. If these be strong men too, the only effect will be to push them faster forward, and the greater pressure may be only a

on the other. He could scarcely avoid inquiring — Do these poor people work? If so, how are they paid? If they do not work, why not? If these people, who belong to the working classes, had been properly cared for, — if work had been offered them, and proper wages had been paid, would they, in such masses, have sunk into this degradation? He might well consider whether the indirect, but overwhelming, oppression proceeding from the commercial and industrial systems of our day, is not as great, as sinful, and as much to be denounced, as any which has preceded it. He might well be led to the conclusion that these systems demand an infusion of Christian humanity and love, to reconcile their practical operations with the laws of Christ. — C] pleasant excitement. But the pressure extends on either side, and is felt even to the outer edge of the crowd. “Wherever there is a woman, a child, or a cripple, the feeble goes to the wall. The person originating the pressure may not be in contact with that sickly passenger — there may be many persons between them; but the pressure goes through all the intermediate links, not hurting any till it come to one who is unable to bear it, and hurting the helpless. In such a crowd, you may sometimes see the selfishness of human nature in all its undisguised odiousness. The man seeks his own advantage, heedless of the injuries that his effort may inflict on others. He is not guilty of a direct deed of injustice He would not lift his hand to strike the feeble; he would not illegally wrest away his property. He endeavors to act justly: nay, he sometimes opens his hand in charity to the distressed. But really, though indirectly, he is an oppressor. He wriggles forward, although his movements necessarily hurt the poor. He looks to his own things; and disregards the things of others. He breaks the law of Christ.

The oppressions which abound in our day, as the fruits of covetousness, are chiefly of this nature. They are by no means so gross as the tyranny which the feudal lords of the middle ages exercised on their serfs; but they spring from the same source, and are essentially of the same character in the estimation of the Judge. Xaboth’s vineyard is not now to he added to the ampler possessions of his richer neighbor, by suborning men of Belial to swear away the poor man’s life; yet the poor man is oppressed, and rich men would need to examine carefully whether their hands are clean.

Yet another word of explanation is required before I proceed to specify cases of oppression. “W men I speak of hardships endured by the poor, I speak of them at present in so far only as they are inflicted on the poor by the selfish conduct of others. I am well aware, and at the proper time I am prepared to declare it fully, that the sufferers are often in great measure the cause of their own misfortunes. That subject, however, is not at present before us. Our subject is, not the privations which the poor, by vice and improvidence, may bring upon themselves, but the hardships that are brought upon them by those who are in haste to be rich.*

[ * The improvidence, the vices and crimes, of the poor, are a standing excuse with many for refusing them that compassion which their condition inspires. It is, however, no ex-I shall now enumerate and briefly illustrate some of the forms which oppression assumes in modern society.

1. The reduction of wages below the point at which a laboring man can support his family, or a woman support herself. The fact is indisputable and undoubted, that in many departments of industry the remuneration to the operator is miserably inadequate. I am well aware that this state of things is due to a variety of causes, over some of which men of capital can exercise no effective control; but one of the causes which go to produce the general result — one of the springs which swell that stream of misery — is within our view and within our reach. It is covetousness pervading and agitating the community. It is

cuse; for uncharitableness and the refusal of aid on such grounds is an aggravation of the offence. Our Saviour did not so treat the erring woman. Compassion for crime, for poverty, for degradation, for ignorance, is a religious duty; and not only compassion, but relief and remedy according to our best discretion and ability. The penalty upon those who will not work, is, that they shall not eat — it is a penalty fearfully visited, by God, upon the idle and dissolute; but God has not placed that law in the hands of his people to be executed by them. We cannot refuse food, nor raiment, nor shelter, upon that ground, to our fellow-men: for we are not endowed with that wisdom, nor that infinite knowledge, which enables us in all cases to determine the validity of those excuses which are offered by the poor for their poverty. — C] the love of riches, raging as a passion, and causing, by its unhealthy pulsation, painful inequalities in the action of the body politic. There is enough for all — enough of food and clothing produced by the earth for the abundant supply of all its inhabitants. One portion of the community have more than they need, while another have not enough to satisfy the wants of nature. This evil cannot be remedied by spoiling the rich to satisfy the poor. The Communist theory is a lie and a cheat. It begins by denying God, and it cannot end in doing good to men. It has not truth for its basis, and cannot have the benefit of the species as its result. To lay violent hands on property, under pretence of dividing it equally, would be to add yet another crime, and consequently to plunge the country into deeper distress.* The rich might

[ * It is one of the peculiarities of the day that the writer who espouses the cause of the poor, or who urges the necessity of social amelioration, finds himself obliged to denounce socialism or communism, that it may be distinctly understood his plans do not come from that quarter: as if all amendment belonged to socialists; as if others could not devise social benefits or reforms without their instigation. It would not be amiss, perhaps, if reformation, both social and religious, were more in our thoughts, and if we should be careful not to give socialists all the reputation of being ready to cure social evils. If Christians will but awake to the social aspects of Christianity, and betake themselves by violence be made poor: but the poor would not thereby be made rich. Resistance to the laws of the Creator’s government quickly recoils upon its author’s head.

It is not only — it is not chiefly — the pressure of the money-makers that holds down the operators. Vices prevalent among themselves have a greater share in the work of degradation. But it is not the part of a Christian man to comfort himself with the thought, — It is not all my fault. Does any part of the evil lie at your door? This is the question for you. And you are not relieved by showing, as you can easily do, that the evil belongs to the system which has become prevalent — that all fall in with the current — and that the efforts of one contending against it would not be sensibly felt. All this may be true, and yet the question remains, Have you done your own duty? We will not be judged for want of success, so far as results depended on the action of others, but we will be judged for want of faithfulness in doing the part that lies with ourselves. Consider the poor; and when the full tide of selfish effort is pressing on, carrying you and them along with

heartily to the reforms in society which it enjoins, then the vocation of socialists and infidel reformers will soon be gone. — C.J it, lean you the other way, and so lighten, by the amount of your influence, the Bufferings which you cannot remove. I have been in a crowd such as I have described. I have been borne along in it, not painfully pressed, not personally injured, because I was as strong of body as airy of those around me, but so carried forward as to be wholly unable to direct my own movements. In these circumstances, I have seen a poor, feeble woman falling- before me. I was next her. It was my body that was pressing on her, to the danger of her life. I was not able to bear back the whole mass so as to relieve her wholly, but I leaned back against the crowd with all my might, and cried out to my neighbors that they should do the same. I relieved, by a little, one who had fallen helpless. Even though the pressure behind had been such that I could not in any the least degree affect it, yet would I, in such a case, press backward with all my might. It would gratify an instinct of my nature planted within me for good. If my body is to crush that poor wretch, it shall be in spite of a struggle to the contrary, in which all the muscles of my frame are strained to the uttermost. There is not one of you who would not, in such circumstances, do the same thing. This is all that I ask. I only want the same instinct and the same act carried out to the great crowd of the world. In the eager, onward press of life, remember the poor, and lean to their side. “When the number of generous hearts is increased, their efforts will tell on the condition of the community.

2. The labor of children is another evil more or less remotely an effect of the haste to be rich. In such a community as this, it is difficult to get the children of the poor kept at school beyond the most tender age. There is not time allowed for the proper development either of mind or body. Children are placed under the yoke while yet the bodily frame is tender, and the mental faculties untrained. Men, their masters, force them to toil at an age when God, their Maker, evidently intended that they should sport. The labor which God has righteously laid on man, man has unrighteously laid on infants. This derangement is primarily due to that money-making spirit of which we complain. The labor of infants is not necessary to extract from the ground food and clothing for the human species. The labor of the men that live on it would be sufficient for the purpose, and no more. It is to satisfy the morbid appetite of covetousness that little ones are harnessed in the ragged implements of toil. It is not by a sudden effort, or by the deed of a few, that the mischievous system is to be overturned; but every man is responsible for the right use of his own influence. Perhaps you do not personally press a poor child into premature toil; but you press one who presses another, who presses and oppresses that helpless little one. Every struggle of strong men in the race for wealth is adding to the derangement of the social system, and telling somewhere in tears. If, by the Spirit’s reviving power, many in our city were satisfied with the unsearchable riches of Christ, on the instant there would be a slackening of Mammon’s traces, which hitherto they had been content to drag, and the effects would be felt on the utmost verge of the community — the widow’s burden would be lightened, and the orphan’s day of toil longer delayed.

3. Sabbath labor is one of the oppressions that the prevalence of the money-interest inflicts upon mankind. It is an evil that cries loud to the Lord of Hosts. God has made the Sabbath, and given it for rest to wearied men; and Mammon dares to interfere between our Father in heaven and his needy children — Mammon dares to wrench from the poor this good gift of God.

“Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,” says God; “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.” “Labor all the six days,” says Mammon, “and labor on the seventh too.” The commands are opposite. You cannot serve both these masters.

I do not enter into details. I assume it as notorious that the thirst for gain is making inroads on the Sabbath rest — that the money-making part of the community are gradually extracting seven clays’ work out of the working-man. It is not necessary to collect evidence. The thing is not done in a corner. The volumes of smoke hovering over the city on the Sabbath-day, and the names from furnaces lighting up the sky on the Sabbath-night, publish the tidings — proclaim our shame. Necessity! Oh, the plea put in to defend the deed is the most odious part of the sin! “What man’s life would be in danger, or what man’s happiness impaired, if these furnaces were deserted on the Sabbath? There is a necessity, — the necessity that compels the dropsied man to drink — the necessity that compels the horse-leech to draw the blood of its victims. There is the necessity of getting some men made rich, at the expense of the souls and bodies of other men. The plea of necessity resolves itself into this: “I must be rich, though I should rob God of his gl o ry, and my brethren of their birthright.” “What right have you to keep laboring-men toiling at these fires on the Sabbath? The rich, who increase their wealth in this way, would need to get much good out of their gold. It is a costly thing. The very souls of their brethren are fuel to the flame that melts it. After all, this desperate shift to increase the profits at the expense of the Sabbath is suicidal and abortive. It is over production that propagates these dreadful epidemics in the mercantile body, which not only prostrate the poor, but sweep the fortunes of the rich away.

This is the most impudent and odious form that oppression has assumed in modern times. The adversaries of the Sabbath make a bold effort to persuade the laborer that they are on his side — that they afford him an easy opportunity of improving his circumstances. It is demonstrable, that, to add a day’s toil to the laborer’s week will not add a day’s wages to his income. A great proportion of the laboring classes now know that well. When they are found to be on the alert on this side, another stratagem is tried to wile the Sabbath away from them. The day is offered for recreation. This proposal involves two great fallacies. The first is, while it speaks of recreation only, it means recreation to one class and unceasing toil to another, in order that the rich may make more money out of both. There is rottenness at the root of that pleasure, which hinds overtoiled brother-men to furnaces and engines on the Sabbath, as well as on the other days of the week. The pleasure-seeker on a Sabbath-excursion, and the speculator on the dividend day, do not take into account the neglected families of the men who have ministered to their amusement or their profit — families who are deprived of a father’s care, and are, in consequence, soon thrown a burden on the community. But another fallacy lies in rich men offering to the laborer a boon out of a store which is not their own. If men will not take the “word” of the Sovereign Creator, challenging the Sabbath to himself, the decree is countersigned by his “ministers,” the laws of nature. Philosophy can read from the records of nature, that man cannot with impunity subject his fellow-man to unceasing toil. To overtask workingmen for six days, and then invite them to take physical relaxation out of the Sabbath, is a very aggravated species of swindling. It is like the act of a proprietor who should seize the whole of a tenant’s crop, and then persuade the bereaved man to take as much as will support his family from the field of a neighbor. Avarice would grind a man during six days, leaving not the needful relaxation to restore exhausted nature, and then take from another — and that the Lord of all — as much as will serve to keep the machine going for another week. This is to prostitute God’s holy day, as if it were of no other use than to oil the wheels of Mammon’s car. The pretence of giving the workmen recreation on the Sabbath, I count an aggravation of the offence. Men ought not to be toiled so constantly, and so long, and so hard during the six days, as to require the seventh, like the brutes, for mere physical recreation. Mammod is a hard master. He makes his sons go through the fire.

4. Yet another oppression let me name — The poor are in a great measure cooped up in crowded lanes, and miserable houses. This is one bitter fruit of a general selfishness. This evil, which we all observe and lament, is demonstrably owing to a systematic neglect of a law of God, which enjoins us to look not every one on his own things, but also on the things of others.* How

[ * There is, perhaps, not an injunction in the New Testament more neglected in its real spirit than this, which requires us “to look not every one on his own things, but also on the things of others.” It springs directly from the Divine command to love our neighbor as ourselves; but its requirements have neither been developed in our religious literature nor obeyed in our religious life. Whilst it is clearly our duty to take care of ourselves, it is made as clearly our duty to take to make the most of it is the law which is permitted to regulate the administration of property. Few men, indeed, are destitute of human symcare of others. If Christians are sufficiently enlightened to perceive what promotes their own interests and comforts and happiness in life, they can understand what will promote the advantage of others, and they are bound to act accordingly under that discretion, as stewards of Christ, which prudence and charity dictate. If they will have laws for their protection and the protection of their property, they should see that others have like advantages, and especially that the poor and lowly enjoy protection for their labor, which is their chief and often only possession. If they are careful to secure an adequate income for their support, they should be careful that the laborer, who has no other income, and no means of living, but his wages, should be secure, not only of labor, but of sufficient compensation for his toil. If they live in comfortable houses, they should be anxious that the humble and the poor should not be without some degree of that comfort. If they enjoy the full light of the Gospel, they should endeavor to make it shine upon the poor: if they bestow all the advantages of education upon their own children, they should remember the children of others. Thus we might run through the whole compass of our enjoyments, physical, intellectual, moral, and religious, and show that we are as much bound to impart, as we are entitled to enjoy, the advantages of life. We must remember, too, that this obligation is equally as imperative upon us in our collective as in our individual capacities. A nation may be unduly selfish as well as an individual: — a denomination or church as well as a single Christian. These must regard the welfare of others as well as their own: and while it is true that nations and denominations, and other collective bodies, derive vigor and strength from their association, they must not use that strength to injure others — nay, they must use it to help others. But pathy. Many partial alleviations are effected by the personal kindness of individuals; but these desultory efforts do not tell with much effect on the aggregate result. The general law overbears the isolated exceptions, and that law is so to dispose of each item of property as to yield the largest possible per centage of pecuniary return. This dreadful law is even now squeezing wretched families into wretched holes, and so preparing rank disease, physical and spiritual, for the community in the coming days. The money-making spirit of the age is a short-sighted passion. It is penny wise, and pound foolish. A large infusion of Christian charity would make it not only more godly, but more gainful.

In regard to these and other species of oppression, it is difficult to make either the man himself or the public understand how far the wide-spread sufferings of the poor have been caused by the desperate efforts of a money-maker. The effects come after the cause has passed by, and they

the topic cannot be treated in a note. If fully enlarged, it would cast a flood of light upon many denominational measures of the present day, especially that one of separate denominational education, which cannot be carried out without destroying the public School System. It is a remarkable fact that the Presbyterians and Roman Catholics should be the most interested in this mistaken policy. — C] appear at a distance from his track. Around his path all seems smooth; and when, long after and far distant, multitudes of the poor are thrown into agony, few think of him as the guilty cause. A ship may sail down the river, or along its estuary, gliding gently with the current, or even impelled by the breath of the sky, and the ripple on its sides will be scarcely perceptible. Even after it has passed, there is no commotion on the shore. All is natural, and easy, and harmless. But when a ship impelled by steam passes by — a ship agitated onward by a tierce energy put forth from its own bosom, forcing forward itself with unnatural speed, by dashing backward whatever comes within its reach — the commotion in the direct wake of that ship may not be great, but, after the ship has passed, and, it may be, gone out of sight, a commotion begins far away on either shore. Waves rise suddenly, and as if without a cause, from the deep; the surge lashes the shore with successive, hasty, angry strokes. After raging ominously for awhile, it gradually dies away again. It has come and gone, you cannot tell how or why; and, even when it has gone, you are uneasy in the silence that succeeds, for you know not when it may return. It was the eager, artificial, impatient, desperate struggling forward of that ship that produced the commotion far away on the river’s hanks after it had passed by. Though the ship had been large and deeply laden, if it had only taken advantage of fanning winds and currents, it would have left no such abnormal agitation behind.

We have been describing in allegory the passage of a wrestling, wriggling money-maker through the crowded stream of life. Forward he will be — forward faster than hj legitimate means he can accomplish — faster than he can go by spreading his sail to the breeze. In order to impel himself forward, he strikes back every thing around that he can lean upon. He strikes fast and vehement. Though few have marked his motions, because of his motions there is a frightful surge of suffering afterwards on the outer edges of society. Sufferings sudden, and sharp, and thick, come over the laboring poor — sufferings under which they sink, without being able to divine their cause. Meantime, that cause has turned round a headland, and has safely reached the ocean, or has been thrown on a rock by the vehemence of its own motion, as the case may be. “Whether the speculator ultimately make or wreck his own fortune, his convulsive effort has pressed and oppressed the poor.

Conceive the force operating now within this city in the direction of money-making. If all the energies that are expended in that direction were added, how vast would the sum of them be! I know not a speculation more interesting than this. We are accustomed to such statistics, and such summations. In modern times great errors are corrected, and great public benefits attained, by the accurate enumeration of certain forces all acting separately, and the computation of their united power. It can be told in a single line of figures how many tons of shipping are owned in the port of Glasgow. It can be told in a line of figures how great an aggregate of steam-power is operating in and around the city. Now, conceive, if we had a notation to mark the energies exerted by a human mind, and if we had correct statistics of all the energies that are yearly expended in this city in the making of money, and if these in their aggregate could be represented in a line of figures, how great, how dreadfully great, would that aggregate be! It would represent a power which, if collected and united, and turned upon the city’s filth, and poverty, and ignorance, would sweep them away, as the stream of a mighty river rolling down our streets would carry off the mire that had accumulated on their surface.

I cannot walk in upon a merchant in his counting-house, and charge him individually with the guilt of unjustly diminishing a laborer’s wages, of forcing a tender child into the toils appointed for manhood, of intercepting God’s gift of rest from his weary creatures, or of immuring a family in a den not fit to he the residence of a human being. I cannot make any such specific charge against a brother; but this is nothing more than to say that I cannot judge the world. The world has a Judge notwithstanding, and before His judgment-seat we must all appear. The line of causes and effects in the relations of an artificial society is not too intricate for the Omniscient. The Judge of all the earth knows every man’s share of the evil that is done under the sun, and He will execute righteous judgment. The day will declare the division of responsibility. All that I can do is to reiterate the statement that the poor and ignorant are kept in a state of poverty and ignorance by the absorption of those energies, in the aggregate, on the accumulation of wealth, which ought to be devoted to the doing of good. The broad, deep stream of human energy is made to play idly upon money-making, the only result being to drive round a huge dizzy wheel, which adds nothing to human happiness; while mere driblets are turned aside upon good to others, scarcely sufficient to turn the proper machinery round, and not fitted to make any sensible impression on the accumulated mass of sin and misery.*

I address a concluding word to those who bear Christ’s name, and hope in his mercy. Let us think of the position which He has given us, and the work which he requires at our hands. If we are bought with a price, we are not our own. The redemption of the soul is precious: it is the greatest thing. Wherefore has our dear Redeemer shed his blood for us? Wherefore has he taken

[* There are several passages in these discourses, which might be seized upon by those who are ever ready to cry — “You are employing language calculated to increase the prejudice of the poor against the rich — you are widening the breach, too wide already — you are lending yourself to the slang of socialism.” The Preacher has, however, kept within due bounds on a subject which deserves to be treated plainly, even at the risk of touching this kind of sensitiveness. We are very far from desiring to disturb any kindly relations subsisting between the rich and the poor; but we hold that the selfishness which is natural to man, and which is increased in “the race for riches,” should be clearly pointed out, with its consequences. The rich may do vast injury to the poor, whilst only intending to benefit themselves. They should be taught to study and understand the social results of “the race for riches” — by every path which the “runners take.” No false delicacy should shut our mouths on a topic so vital to human welfare. — C] our nature, and given his soul an offering for sin? Is it that we may “realize something?” Is it that we may “make a fortune?” Is it that we may “die worth many thousands?” The very sound of the questions gives a rude shock to your minds. You shrink from these suggestions as blasphemous paradox. But, startling though these propositions be, they are but common practice clothed in plain language. You will not deliberately propose to spend yourselves for money, and yet nearly all your souls may be given to money notwithstanding. “I go, sir,” said the son, when the father commanded him to work in his garden — “I go, sir,” he said, with an unquestioning acquiescence; but he “went not.”

If we had in this city twenty thousand men of average mental culture, and average strength of purpose — all renewed in the spirit of their minds; all walking over earth as already the heirs of heaven; all feeling that they owe their redemption to Christ, and that they will soon be with him; all knowing that he leaves them a little while in the world, to afford them an opportunity of doing good there; all hastening to do as much for the needy as they can before they are taken to heaven, where no needy will be within their reach — twenty thousand such men, and this wilderness would soon blossom like the rose! Twenty thousand such soldiers of Jesus Christ, and the armies of the aliens would wither like the mown grass before them!

.But let every one of you, in particular, live not to himself, and not for money. “Follow after love.’’1 I am persuaded that a very great revolution of ideas is needed to bring us unto a right state of mind in regard to these matters. Christ gets fair words; but self and the world get the most of our hearts and hands.

To seek the things of others — to do good to the needy, even to the unthankful and evil — to spend your life in the Father’s business, — this is to keep company with Jesus. This is the way by which he went. The sweetness of the society will make the labor feel light.

Oh that we had hearts lighted up with love — lighted at the love of Jesus! Oh that we could go through the world as his companions, acting as parts of him, left behind awhile in the body, looking on men as he looked, and acting as he acted, until the faithful servant is taken unto the joy of his Lord!