Similar misconduct among us must result in similar consequences, with all the tragedies of bankruptcy. Not a bank, not a corporation, not an institution of charity, which would not suffer,--each sweeping multitudes into the abyss which it could not avoid. Business would be disorganized, values would be uncertain; nobody would know that the paper in his pocket to-day would buy a dinner to-morrow. There is no limit to the depreciation of inconvertible paper. Down, down it descends, as the plummet, to the bottom, or up, up, as the bubble in the air, until, whether down or up, it disappears. It is hard to think of the poor, or of those who depend on daily wages, under the trials of this condition. The rich may, for the time, live from their abundance; but the less favored class can have no such refuge. Therefore, for the poor, and for all who labor, do I now plead, when I ask that you shall not hearken to this painful proposition. I plead, also, for the business of the country. So long as the currency continues in its present uncertainty, it cannot answer the demands of business. It is a diseased limb, no better than what is known in India as a “Cochin leg,” or an excrescence not unlike the pendulous goitre which is the pitiful sight of an Alpine village. But it must be uncertain, unless we have peace. Therefore, for the sake of the currency, do I unite with our candidate in his longing. Business must be emancipated. How often are we told by the lawyers, in a saying handed down from antiquity, that “a wretched servitude exists where the law is uncertain”! But this is not true of the law only. Nothing short of that servitude which denies God-given rights can be more wretched than the servitude of an uncertain currency. And now that, by the blessing of God, we are banishing that terrible wrong which was so long the curse and shame of our Nation, let us apply ourselves to this other servitude, whose yoke we are all condemned to bear in daily life. Looking into the travels of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, you will find that he encountered in China paper money on a large scale, being an inconvertible currency standing on the credit of the Grand Khan, not unlike our greenbacks. Describing the celestial city of Kin-sai, the famous traveller says, “The inhabitants are idolaters, and they use paper money”; and then describing another celestial city, Ta-pin-zu, he says, “The inhabitants worship idols, and use paper money.”[276] I know not if Marco Polo intended by this association to suggest any dependence of paper money upon the worship of idols. It is enough that he puts them together. To my mind they are equally forbidden by the Ten Commandments. If one Commandment enjoins upon us not to worship any graven image, does not another say expressly, “Thou shalt not steal”? * * * * *