"You jest," replies the Dutchman; "you are in this very case proposing to me a usury that is absolutely of the nature of an infinite series. I should (that is, myself and heirs would) in that case receive back my capital at the end of twenty years, the double of it in forty, the four-fold of it in eighty; this you see would be just an infinite series. I cannot, besides, lend for more than twelve months, and I am contented with a thousand crowns as a remuneration." THE ABBÉ DES ISSARTS.--I am grieved for your Dutch soul; God forbade the Jews to lend at interest, and you are well aware that a citizen of Amsterdam should punctually obey the laws of commerce given in a wilderness to runaway vagrants who had no commerce. THE DUTCHMAN.--That is clear; all the world ought to be Jews; but it seems to me, that the law permitted the Hebrew horde to gain as much by usury as they could from foreigners, and that, in consequence of this permission, they managed their affairs in the sequel remarkably well. Besides, the prohibition against one Jew's taking interest from another must necessarily have become obsolete, since our Lord Jesus, when preaching at Jerusalem, expressly said that interest was in his time one hundred per cent.; for in the parable of the talents he says, that the servant who had received five talents gained five others in Jerusalem by them; that he who had two gained two by them; and that the third who had only one, and did not turn that to any account, was shut up in a dungeon by his master, for not laying it out with the money-changers. But these money-changers were Jews; it was therefore between Jews that usury was practised at Jerusalem; therefore this parable, drawn from the circumstances and manners of the times, decidedly indicates that usury or interest was at the rate of a hundred per cent. Read the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew; he was conversant with the subject; he had been a commissioner of taxes in Galilee. Let me finish my argument with this gentleman; and do not make me lose both my money and my time. THE ABBÉ DES ISSARTS.--All that you say is very good and very fine; but the Sorbonne has decided that lending money on interest is a mortal sin. THE DUTCHMAN.--You must be laughing at me, my good friend, when you cite the Sorbonne as an authority to a merchant of Amsterdam. There is not a single individual among those wrangling railers themselves who does not obtain, whenever he can, five or six per cent, for his money by purchasing revenue bills, India bonds, assignments, and Canada bills. The clergy of France, as a corporate body, borrow at interest. In many of the provinces of France, it is the custom to stipulate for interest with the principal. Besides, the university of Oxford and that of Salamanca have decided against the Sorbonne. I acquired this information in the course of my travels; and thus we have authority against authority. Once more, I must beg you to interrupt me no longer.