Usury Part 8

Familiarity with one prepares us to better understand the other. The devout student of the Word has his mind aroused, and his susceptibility so quickened that he is able to read more clearly the lessons in the volumes of nature open before him. The student of nature, who has searched its mysteries and taken in its beauty and designs of infinite wisdom everywhere appearing, must be the more ready and competent to appreciate the revealed love and grace.

The Bible is not a treatise on natural science, nor does natural science teach revealed religion, yet they do not conflict. The special student of either may have perfect confidence that whatever he has found true in his chosen field will be found consistent with truth in other fields of special study.

Chemistry, biology and all studies of nature, are found only to give a higher conception of the G.o.d of all grace. The same wisdom and power shine out in His works that are revealed in His Word.

Again, the laws of G.o.d, whether fixed in nature or revealed in His Word, are for the highest interest of the physical, mental and spiritual man. Every truth in the Word works for the welfare of man's body and soul. The laws of nature, physical and psychological, obeyed, promote man's bodily and mental vigor. Strict obedience to the laws of G.o.d, as revealed in both Word and nature, produces the completest physical and mental manhood.

G.o.d had the highest welfare of every man at heart when He prepared the earth for his abode and gave him dominion over it. And He yearned for his deliverance from a fallen estate when He gave him a revelation of His infinite redeeming love. The eye of G.o.d is upon each individual of the race, as upon every sparrow. He has in thought, in word and in works, not the favoring of one of an hundred, while the ninety and nine are crushed or neglected, but the happiness and highest good of every one of the hundred.

The ethics of the Bible and the ethics of nature, as wrought out by the earnest heathen philosophers, mainly agree. It is an astonishment to some that there is so much agreement in the systems of heathen morals and the revealed moral law. The moral law is written on men's hearts, and can be read there by the diligent and careful student; but the consciences of men, enlightened and quickened by the revealed Word, produce the highest ethical types the world knows.

The Bible is not a work on political economy, yet there is nothing out of harmony with the most perfect political inst.i.tutions. When we find political principles clearly revealed, we shall find the same truths when we study the most orderly relations of men in their social organization.

The Bible is not a work on economics, yet it advances no economic principles that work a hardness or injustice to any. When we find economic principles clearly stated, we shall surely find the same truths confirmed in a careful study of the nature of things.

As the written Word forbids usury or interest, it can be presumed that the nature of things and man's highest good also forbids it; that it is not an arbitrary prohibition, but is given in love because it is in its very nature a ruinous evil. As we find a positive prohibition of taking usury or interest in the old dispensation and the confirmation of it in the new, both by the words of the Master and the understanding and practice of the disciples and fathers, we may confidently expect that it will be confirmed by a correct and careful study of ethics and of the relation of man to things.

We may learn duty from either or both sources. To some men the Bible comes with the greatest clearness and the utmost force of authority.

Others find in nature their highest conception of the Infinite, and their best directions for a correct life. If usury or interest is found to be a sin from the Word, there is no need for those to enter into the economic proof who have no taste for this character of study or reasoning. If it is found to be "_malum per se_" from the nature of things, even those who reject the divine revelation must array themselves against it. If it is shown to be evil by both revelation and economic law, then all peoples, Christian and heathen, should combine against it.

CHAPTER XVI.

RIGHTS OF MAN OVER THINGS.

Man was the last and the crowning work of the Creator. G.o.d made man in his own image and gave him dominion over all creatures.

"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.

"Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

"All the sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

"The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever pa.s.seth through the paths of the seas."

This high position is in entire harmony with man's innate consciousness of his superior powers, and of his n.o.bler spiritual nature, and of his rightful dominion over all the other material creations. Man is a person, a thinking intelligent being, and is conscious of his personality, and from his lofty height he calls all else the lower and the inferior creatures. Wherever man is found over the whole earth, of whatever faith or grade of civilization, he claims this universal dominion.

Man was commanded to subdue the earth and bring it into subjection as his servant and he is conscious of his right to use all things to promote his comfort, convenience and welfare. Anything he can make of service to himself he has a right to appropriate.

A tree is a thing which he may prepare for his own purposes, for fuel, for tools, or for a dwelling, as he pleases.

Isaiah ridiculed the idolater in his time, who made an idol of wood and worshiped it, while with another part of the same tree he built a fire and warmed himself. A part he served and a part served him. The whole tree was subject to him; in itself it had no rights.

Rights belong to persons, and not to things, and personality cannot be transferred to a thing. If there is no personal owner the question of rights is never raised. The tree, or any thing whatever, has no rights in the matter. Rights belong to the owner, the person, not to the thing he owns.

The game in the mountain forests and the fish in the rivers are things with no owner and whosoever will may take and use them.

Land is a thing, and any person may make it into a farm or garden and build upon it his home. The land has no rights and makes no protest.

The whole earth is subject to man and is to be subdued by him. If no owner appears his rights are not disputed. Our fathers found an unowned continent, with all its rich resources of soil and forests and mines. It was to them free, and with the labor of a few generations they transformed it into farms and plantations and built it over with magnificent cities.

Even that which formerly was the property of another has no rights.

The deserted hunter's hut in the mountains can be appropriated. The abandoned farm does not resist a new tenant. A derelict vessel, still afloat but driven before the winds, whose officers, crew and owners are at the bottom of the sea, can be appropriated, for there is no one to dispute the claim.

Even force or labor in the abstract is but a thing and has no rights.

The wind is unowned and any one who will may harness it to do his work. The electric forces of nature are unowned, whoever will may gather and direct them to do his purpose. The waterfall may be made to do man's work and will not resist. The animals have no rights against man. The broncho, horse, ox, mule, or animal of any kind, may be turned to man's service. All the forces of nature were made for man.

They have no rights to be regarded, when his interests can be served.

It is man's high privilege to stand above all things, to call them to his feet and to compel their service. It is the reversion of the order for him to take the subordinate place and serve the inferior creation.

Things subdued, such as wealth secured, is to minister to his highest good and to promote his n.o.blest manhood. The order is reversed when this wealth commands his service and sacrifice. The miser both reverses the divine order and violates common sense by giving the love and service of his shriveling soul to a thing.

The usurer and the borrower on usury, both, reverse the true order by a.s.suming that a thing can claim man's service. Both grant that a thing has rights to be respected. The usurer takes the service as due to the thing he owns. It is his property that is exalted, and for which he claims the service must be rendered, and if the borrower will think closely, he will find that in paying usury he is serving a thing.

A man reverses the divine order and degrades himself, and becomes a gross idolater, when he serves things unowned instead of commanding their service, "stocks and stones." He reverses the true order when he becomes a miser and serves that which is his own, "which his own fingers have made," instead of compelling it to serve him. He is not less degraded when he exalts over himself a thing owned by another and serves it. The ownership of another does not change the nature of the thing. One can serve his neighbor's idol as truly as he can his own.

There is nothing above man but G.o.d. His fellow man is by his side, his equal, and all other material creations are beneath his feet, and he is not to permit his fellow man to lift up the inferior thing and place it above him. If he does he must step down from the pinnacle on which he was placed by his G.o.d and which his own consciousness demands he shall occupy.

"Shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Isaiah 10:15.

If he serves the borrowed ax and saw for the claim that the ax and saw have against him, he admits his debt to things and Isaiah's ridicule of an idolater can be turned against him and he steps down from the position of conscious inborn dignified lordship and becomes a servant of the inferior things.

CHAPTER XVII.

EQUAL RIGHTS OF MEN.

All men have sacred rights that must be regarded. That these rights are equal is so familiar and stale an expression that it hardly need be spoken. "All men are created equal," each having rights, that are inalienable, and each having the right to resist the encroachment on his rights by another. To protect these rights governments are inst.i.tuted.

The vital energy of a man is his own and his right to it must be regarded. Since the abolition of chattel slavery this has been indefeasible except for crime.

He has a right to his own vital energy and to all that his own vital force produces. He has a right to his property inherited, earned, or however secured, except by fraud. He has no claim against the vital energy of his fellow man, nor has he any claim whatever against the property of another.

The working man needs capital. His vital energy must waste unless there is material upon which it may be expended. There must be the tree, land or material in some form, upon which he can work. But give him the world raw and unsubdued and he can transform it again as he has. He can build again everything on land and sea, the farms, towns, and cities, and the floating palaces. He can again dig out the mines and refine the silver and gold, mould the clay, smelt the ore and shape the iron. His needs and his power, however, give him no claim to the property of another.

The man of property is dependent upon the laborer. He may be the owner of farms, forests and mines, of horses, flocks and herds, of railroads and oil wells, yet these will not minister to him nor serve him without the laborer. His coffers may be filled with gold, and his barns bursting with grain and his stalls filled with fatlings, yet all this wealth is useless and lost, unless touched with the vital energy of an intelligent laborer. But his dependence and losses give him no right to the labor of another.

He has no right, no just claim, to the services of another man, his equal. All his wealth cannot confer the right. Wealth is but a thing, in itself without rights, and can therefore add nothing to the rights of its owner.

He may however use his wealth to command service by might, but not by right. A club is but a thing having no will and no rights, yet in the hands of a savage it adds greatly to his power and may be used by him to oppress another of his tribe. A ruffian with his gun meeting a defenseless man may so command him, that he is ready for the most abject obedience. An armed highwayman may compel a brave man "to stand and deliver." So a man may use his property to secure the service of another but it gives him no right to that service.

The usurer, who has himself no rights against his fellows, uses a thing, his property, as an instrument or weapon to command service.

He may place his hand upon every material thing another must have, and withhold it, and the other is shut up and compelled, he has no alternative. He must yield to the demands or suffer. Many men are driven to the last extremity before they will borrow.