But the solid reasons which once inspired the church’s opposition to business do not concern us here. The opposition was unsuccessful, the reasons were forgotten, and [p086] the old pronouncements against usury were looked upon as quaint and unworldly. For the new economic order which displaced feudalism, the Catholic Church, at least, had no program. It did not adapt itself readily to the spirit of commercial enterprise which captured the active minds of Northern Europe. The Protestant churches did adapt themselves and contrived to preach a gospel which encouraged, where Roman Catholicism had discouraged, the enterprising business man. They preached the divine duty of labor. “At the day of doom,” said John Bunyan, “men shall be judged according to their fruits. It will not be said then, Did you Believe? But, were you Doers, or Talkers only?” As this preaching became more concrete, to be a doer meant to do work and make money. Baxter in his _Christian Directory_ wrote that “if God show you a way in which you may lawfully get more than in another way (without wrong to your soul or to any other), if you refuse this, and choose the less gainful way, you cross one of the ends of your calling, and you refuse to be God’s steward.” Richard Steele in _The Tradesman’s Calling_ pointed out that the virtues enjoined on Christians—diligence, moderation, sobriety, and thrift—are the very qualities which are most needed for commercial success. For “godly wisdom ... comes in and puts due bounds” to his expenses, “and teaches the tradesman to live rather somewhat below than at all above his income.” However edifying such doctrine may have been, it was clearly an abandonment of the right, once so eloquently asserted by the church, that it had the authority to regulate business in the interest of man’s spiritual welfare. That right is still sometimes asserted. Sermons are still [p087] preached about business ethics; there are programs of Christian socialism and Christian capitalism. Churchmen still interest themselves, often very effectively, to reform some flagrant industrial abuse like the sweating of women and children. But the modern efforts to moralize business and to subordinate profit-seeking to humane ends are radically different from those of the mediæval church. They are admittedly experimental—that is to say, debatable—since they do not derive their authority from revelation. And they are presented as an appeal to reason, to conscience, to generosity, not as the commandments of God. The Council of Vienna in 1312 declared that any ruler or magistrate who sanctioned usury and compelled debtors to observe usurious contracts would be excommunicated; all laws which sanctioned money-lending at interest were to be repealed within three months. The churches do not speak in that tone of voice to-day.