Usury : $b a scriptural, ethical and economic viewElliott, Calvin
Religion
Usury : $b a scriptural, ethical and economic view
Elliott, Calvin
Usury
While "temperate" men were grieved at the tide of wretchedness and
protested, they did not think it possible to get on without whisky.
Dr. Prime, for so many years editor of the New York Observer, told of
the meeting of the family physician and the pastor at his father's
home in a case of severe illness. When the physician took his leave
the pastor followed him into the yard, where they had a long
consultation. The pastor was anxiously seeking advice. Three drinks
made his head swim, and the problem was how he could make more than
three calls and not become unsteady. The doctor gave directions and
Dr. Prime said that neither the minister nor the physician thought of
the simple remedy, "not drinking."
It has taken two generations, but the transformation is marvelous. The
minister can now call in every home in his parish and never once have
an opportunity to drink. If Rev. John Pierpont was yet living, who was
put out of his pulpit in Boston by an ecclesiastical council because
he publicly protested against the use of the basement of his church as
a storeroom for whisky, he would see every minister losing his pulpit
who would not publicly protest against such a desecration. Rev. George
B. Cheever, the dreamer, in 1830, woke up the stupid consciences of
the fuddled men and women; he wrote out his dream and published it,
"Deacon Giles' Distillery," and went to jail for it, but even he never
dreamed of the greatness of the temperance reform that has followed.
The overthrow of chattel slavery is complete and the human rights of
the inferior peoples are recognized. Human slavery was of old, as
ancient as history; it was widespread over the world; there was an
immense and profitable commerce in human flesh; luxurious wealth and
ease was secured by appropriating labor without compensation; it was
thought that the Scriptures in both Testaments approved the holding of
bondmen; there was a consciousness of superior gifts; there was a firm
belief that the negroes, especially, needed the care of the superior
race; that they were better off and happier than they would be in
freedom; there was a deep-seated race prejudice that remains
unyielding till this day. Yet the slave trade has ceased, stopped by
armed vessels patroling the seas. The slaves, eight hundred thousand,
in the West Indies were set free; the shackles were stricken off by
the sword in the United States; Brazil adopted gradual emancipation,
and chattel slavery disappeared forever from the civilized world.
The reform battles fought and won are assurances that victory shall
also reward those who contend against this sin of usury. There are
also other good grounds for confidence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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