Sir,--At page 15 of the 21st letter of your 'Fors Clavigera' you tell the working men and labourers of this country that "lending for gain is sinful;" and you intimate, as I gather, that this is the teaching of the Bible. May I, therefore, be allowed to submit that this unqualified assertion, with its world-wide consequences, is not true? In Deut. xxiii. 20, you will find these words: "Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury." And the margin (a), for the scope and meaning of this word "stranger," refers you to Deut. x. 19, which says, "Love ye therefore the stranger." And the margin (b) refers us also to Lev. xix. 35, which enjoins us to "love the stranger" as ourselves. So that we are thus plainly taught-- I. That the lending upon usury cannot be in itself a sin, or God (c) could not have allowed it in any case whatsoever, any more than He could have allowed theft or lying (d). II. That the lending to the stranger was not incompatible with the command, "Love ye the stranger," or else God, in the laws and writings given by Moses, at one and the same time, stultifies and contradicts Himself (e). III. That the laws forbidding usury, like the laws for preserving estates to their families by the year of Jubilee, and like the laws which bound Israelitish servants until the "year of release," were peculiar and exclusive, and concerned only that people living in a peculiar and exclusive way. Outside that little patch of territory, but the size of our two largest English counties, the Jews were expressly told they might lend upon usury; and this at the same time that they were enjoined to love the stranger, and not to "oppress the stranger (f)."