It is not the purpose of this article, or this paper, to discuss the political phases, aspects, or remedies for the troubles growing out of ever-increasing wealth in the hands of the few. All these are but temporary, incidental, and ultimately ineffective. All true reforms begin in the individual heart. In this we wish to show that all these present conditions and their sad outcome are noted in the “more sure word of prophecy,” that even by this means men might know that Jehovah is God, “declaring the end from the beginning.”
God’s prophets of old bore their messages to the generation in which they lived, saying, in all likelihood, much more than is recorded. Under His guidance they wrote out for future generations that instruction which would be applicable to them. The prophets spoke for their own day; they wrote for the future. Viewed in this light, we can often see double predictions, a part referring to the prophet’s own time and people, and a part to the far future. The former is a type of the latter. Conditions among the ancient people of God are similar to conditions existing later. Judgments upon Israel of old are the prototypes of judgments upon modern Israel. The rich and tyrannical and oppressive then, are prophecies of the same characters now.
All this is especially true of the last days. Satan will then work “with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness” to destroy souls. Every device which he has used to deceive souls in the past, he will use again. But as his devices in the past were met by the word of the prophet, so God gives us that same word of all the past to forewarn us now. Among these instructions God has numbered those concerning riches.
Here is one scripture from the New Testament for these very days:—
“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” James 5:1-7.
Note the specifications of the prophecy: (1) There are great “miseries” coming upon the rich, and God forewarns them.
2. He tells them the causes, the seed-sowing of this harvest of miseries: They have in the face of the direst needs, the most abject poverty, gathered such an abundance of clothing and riches and gold and silver that the garments are not worn out, but become moth-eaten, the riches grow corrupted by disuse, and the gold and silver actually rust in their locked vaults and treasure-houses; nay, more than this, they have gotten some of this wealth by fraud, some by oppression in wages rightfully belonging to their employees; they have been utterly regardless of the cries of the poor, feasting and taking their pleasure, as a warrior who has slaughtered his enemy and finds rich spoil in the captured banquet-rooms; and in this oppression, in various ways,4they have condemned and killed the Righteous One, Christ Jesus, who identifies Himself with all the sufferings of humanity; and all this that they might heap together treasure “for [or as the R.V., in] the last ‘days,’” when, above all other times, it would be folly to store it, and most of all it would be needed for the poor, the unfortunate, the famine-stricken.
And every one of these specifications is now manifestly and increasingly true, tho they were not a few years ago. The gold and silver does not necessarily mean coin; and yet it is true of coin and bullion held in treasury-vaults at the demand or option of wealthy bond-holders till it becomes rusted or cankered. Think of the moth-eaten garments which might have blessed the poor and ragged and naked.
3. The one class of laborers are not here mentioned because they are exclusively sufferers; that one class is typical of all others. The prophet used the most numerous class in his day. The miner and the factory operator of every sort are, in the spirit of the prophecy, included.
Whence come “the miseries”? From the rising up of oppressed and outraged humanity, as another prophet declares, and as we will show later.
4. And yet, he who rises up against such oppression is fighting his own battle alone, and can hope only for temporary success. The prophet says: Leave the case in God’s hands. “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” The righteous King is coming, whose dominion shall be “from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth;” and “He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy.” Ps. 72:8, 4.
“Shall They Not Rise Up Suddenly?”
Here is another divine prediction:—
“Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that canst not look on perverseness, wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he; and makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? He taketh up all of them with the angle, he catcheth them in his net, and gathereth them in his drag; therefore he rejoiceth and is glad.”
“Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith. And also because his wine is a treacherous dealer, he is a haughty man, and that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as hell, and he is as death, and can not be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Wo to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges! Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all that dwell therein. Wo to him that getteth an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house, by cutting off many peoples, and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. Wo to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity! Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity?” Hab. 1:13-15; 2:4-13, R.V.
Note here again the particulars of the prophecy:—
1. The cry of the Spirit in oppressed humanity against man swallowing up his fellow; against man counting men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things of earth, that he might gather by his various schemes, and use them as parts of a machine, as tho justice did not exist, and the rule of God was at an end. It is not of God that the product of the people should be all consumed.
2. The cause of such inhuman oppression is the crushing, the deadening of human sensibility. The oppressor is puffed up. Wine has perverted his wisdom; not necessarily or alone of the bottle or the flask, but of ambition, of unholy greed, “the wine of Babylon,”—affecting him as it affected Lucifer, the king of Babylon, who proposed to reign, even to the dethroning of God. Isa. 14:4, 10-14.
3. Thus intoxicated, he is not willing to live and let live. He leaves his field of operation and covets his neighbor’s; he keeps not at home; his ambitions enlarge as sheol, and he can be satisfied with nothing less than the nations; he must exploit them all. Neither civilized, heathen, nor distant tribes and peoples are beyond his insatiate appetite for power.
4. But at last the sad awakening comes. Oppression reaps its fruit in like kind of spirit. Brain force is met by brute force. Money’s power is met in deadly conflict by Poverty and Idleness and Hunger and Want. The prophet declares that the oppressed peoples and nations shall take up a taunting proverb. They shall say, “Wo to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges,”—unfulfilled promises, bonds, and the like. The rising up will come suddenly and unexpectedly. The cowering “cur” will turn, and the erstwhile master will be bitten and vexed, and his riches will be “for booties,” for a prey. The spoiler of nations will be spoiled, and the wages and means of life wrung from the blood of men, will be paid in blood. Another prophet, speaking of the same oppression and robbery in order to get gain, and the cry of the poor and the needy, thus warns the rich against the consequent uprising: “And the songs of the palace shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God; the dead bodies shall be many; in every place shall they cast them forth with silence. Hear this, all ye that would swallow up the needy [not the worthy alone], and cause the poor of the land to fail.” Amos 8:3, 4.
Great opportunities and great power involve great and grave responsibilities. He who discharges them aright, who deals justly and loves mercy, will be blessed, and will prove a blessing. But he who violates the principles of justice, who lightly passes over the needs of his fellow-men, while he partakes continually of God’s goodness; who oppresses, or even despises the poor and the needy, while he revels in luxury and rolls in wealth, shall reap, sooner or later, the fruit of his sowing: “That which a man soweth shall he also reap.” This law is as eternal as justice; and the Judge can not be purchased by wealth or intimidated by power. When from mine and mill, from factory and sweatshop, from tenement and slum, the lean, the hungry, the hunted, the driven, the despairing, shall come forth together and rise up against the men of wealth whose hearts have been hardened by gold, when these masses shall be joined by the armies which have been enlisted or conscripted from among them to exploit the nations or protect plutocracy, then will God’s Word be fulfilled in violated law, and men will realize in literal life the words of Inspiration: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.”
INCREASE OF WEALTH.
THREESCORE and ten years ago there were not more than a half dozen millionaires in this country—only two of these sufficiently wealthy to be prominent. The two were John Jacob Astor and Stephen Girard.
At the present time there are nearly if not quite 4,000. More than one-half of these are found in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.
The New York Herald of April 28, 1901, gave a list of 3,828 millionaires and multi-millionaires in the United States. Only one is given as resident of this city. There are, however, not less than a half-dozen of reputed millionaires. Doubtless the Herald list as regards the East is approximately correct, but judging from this city there are many throughout the West who have escaped that journal’s ken. It is quite certain that the men of millions in this country exceed 4,000 in number.
These 4,000 men are estimated by the Herald as possessing over $16,000,000,000 (sixteen billion) of the nation’s $81,750,000,000, said to be a fair valuation of the country’s wealth. In other words, on an average each of the 4,000 men possesses $4,000,000, while the 76,000,000 hold $867 each. One two-hundredth part of one per cent.—or one person out of every 20,000—controls one-fifth of the nation’s wealth. Most of these have accumulated these fortunes in the various industries of manufacturing, merchandizing, real estate, railways, steamships, banking, mining, farms, and stock-raising. Twelve per cent. inherited their wealth.
Much of this wealth is combined in various trusts. Wealth to the extent of over two billions, it is said, has been thus organized since the opening of the new century, Jan. 1, 1901. And the latter part of 1900, according to the Saturday Evening Post, the capitalization of various combinations had reached the prodigious sum of over seven billion dollars. The increase the present year has gone on in face of the fact that Congress and twenty-nine States have passed laws expressly to prohibit trusts. Wealth laughs at law. Every commodity of civilization, every thing necessary to life, except sunshine and air (and even these in factories and tenements), is held or controlled by some trust, from the billion-dollar steel trust to match, peanut, and playing-card trusts. It is impossible to estimate the extent of these combinations.
Some of these trusts, through allied companies, control the markets of the world, as for instance, the great Standard Oil Company, reaching out its pipe lines and branches like the feelers and arms of an octopus, crushing and absorbing every independent oil enterprise. The people who consume the oil, who are at the mercy, practically, of one man, pay the profits for the enormous dividends. We are told that the year 1900 added to the wealth of John D. Rockefeller the sum of $150,000,000; William K. Vanderbilt, $25,000,000; J. Pierpont Morgan, $20,000,000; Russell Sage, Hetty Greene, Thomas Lawson, and others from $15,000,000 to $1,000,000. Surely this is the heaping together of treasure, as the prophet declares.
TRADING ON OUR LORD’S GOODS.
By Ellen G. White
To men and women God has entrusted talents to be improved by use and returned to Him. Our time, our strength, our intellect, our means, all belong to God. He has lent them to us that we may use them in helping those around us. If we use these gifts for the benefit of others, we become channels of usefulness, and God gives us an increase; for His law is, “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” Those who have been blessed by God, and yet refuse to help the needy, are charged in the ledger of heaven with robbery toward their Maker, at whose bar they will be called to account for their neglect of the needy and suffering.
God has purchased us by the death of His Son. He desires us to remember that we are His, and that by the right use of our endowments we are to make of ourselves all that it is possible for us to be. Earnestly we are to cultivate the highest powers of our being, striving by persevering effort to rise to the highest spiritual efficiency. In spirit, in word, in action, we are to try to please God. This we may do; for Enoch pleased God, tho living in a degenerate age. The power at Enoch’s command is also at our command.
God gives men means, saying, Put it out to the exchangers. Use it where it will bless some one who in turn will bless some one else. As My money is thus put into circulation to help My children, it will steadily multiply itself.
Those who have the Spirit of Christ will not selfishly spend on self that which would provide homes for the homeless, and give the destitute food and clothing. They will not lay up their money for the sake of increasing gain. Those who do this are controlled by covetousness. They love neither God nor man. Their fellow-beings are perishing all around them, and yet, tho it is in their power to be a blessing to them, they shut their eyes to their wants.
God has a controversy with those who use His gifts for self-gratification. When the judgment shall sit, and the books are opened, these will have a fearful account to settle. If they were not blinded by the enemy, they would fear and tremble at the thought of the time when God will avenge the death of His Son, whom, by their selfishness, they have crucified afresh and put to open shame.
Hear the words of the Lord: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. . . . Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.”
This is the condition of things in the world to-day. Men are grasping all they can obtain, paying their laborers the lowest prices, while they exact the highest prices for what they sell. Selfishness, avarice, and covetousness are cherished. Thousands and thousands of dollars are locked up where they are of no use to any one. Thus the Lord’s capital fails to bring an increase to Him.
Talents are of value only as they are used to accomplish the design of the Giver. God has given human beings opportunities and privileges that they may make the most of themselves from a Bible standpoint. If we use our talents wisely, our improvement will be a blessing to ourselves and to others; but when we look upon our talents as of value from the standpoint of accumulating gain for selfish purposes, we fail to carry out the Lord’s purpose, and serious loss to the Master follows. Those who might have been benefited fail to receive the help the Lord designed them to have.
In the day of judgment no one will be accepted because through clever schemes and sharp dealing he became rich. To such a one Christ will say, “I gave you talents of skill, talents of worldly treasure, that you might co-operate with Me. I was willing to teach you how to impart aright. I could have made you a channel of communication. I could have helped you to reveal My attributes by imparting to others the wisdom and understanding imparted to you. You could have used My gifts to My glory and for the uplifting of those around you. But you allowed the tempter to corrupt your senses; and under his guidance you have robbed Me of the glory I should have received, had you used your talents to relieve the suffering of My children. You were a receiver, but not a producer. Had you used My money to advance My kingdom, I could now recognize you as a faithful servant. But you withheld the means you should have imparted. I gave you My goods to dispense, but you did not feed the hungry or clothe the naked. You neglected the widow and the fatherless. In their destitution they cried for help, but you heeded them not. Their cries have ascended to Me. Their tears are registered in My book. The time has now come for Me to deal with My unfaithful servants. Wherein do your riches help you now? What peace, what happiness do you find from your transactions? What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Let us remember that there will be no second probation. Some flatter themselves with the thought that the Lord will give them another opportunity. Fatal delusion! Just now, day by day, we are preparing for the judgment. We are trading on our Lord’s goods, and at His coming He will reckon with us. And from each one He will expect a return. Let us do faithful, unselfish work. Our reward will be proportionate to the work we have done. “Behold, I come quickly!” Christ says; “and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” The Master calls for every man to do the work given him according to his ability. In the love of the Saviour let Christians arise and work for those nigh and afar off.
MRS. E. G. WHITE.
Examine Yourselves
“‘EXAMINE yourselves’ lest God in the depth of your nature will brand you a robber; for ‘everything is naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.’”
SUGGESTIONS TO THE WEALTHY.
By T.
THE impending war between capital and labor is quite fully discussed in other columns of this paper. No one can fail to see that the struggle is on, and there can be no mistaking the fact that it will be a fierce one. If any are in doubt upon this point, let them read the following burning words of the apostle:—
“Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted; and their rust shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out; and the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one; he doth not resist you.
“Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged; behold, the Judge standeth before the doors. Take, brethren, for an example of suffering and of patience, the prophets who spake in the name of the Lord. Behold, we call them blessed which endured; ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful.” James 5:1-11, R.V.
The foregoing words of Scripture are commented on elsewhere in this issue, so we will do nothing in this connection except to call attention to the fact that the second coming of Christ and “the last days” are the points to which the apostle is directing our attention; and in that time the rich men are laying up their treasure by oppressing the laborer. This scripture speaks especially of the “hire,” or wages, that are “kept back by ‘fraud.’”
In considering this matter, the imperfect standard of men must not be used. We must measure everything by the perfect standard of God. As we stand in the presence of God’s Word, and view matters in the light of divine love and tenderness, we will see a great many things as “fraud” that before we had regarded as all right.
The majority, perhaps, of the wealthy are professing Christians, and the Master has a right to their services. They should recognize our heavenly Father’s own statement that, “Thou shalt remember the ‘Lord thy God; for it is He that giveth thee ‘power to get wealth, that He may establish His ‘covenant which He sware unto thy fathers, as it is ‘this day.” Deut. 8:18. Then the man who has “power to get wealth” has received that ability from his Maker, and it should not be used in serving self; it should be used in serving the Lord.
The wealthy man may pay his laborers good wages, but his duty does not end there. Those thousands or those millions that he is amassing belong to the Lord, and they should be turned into streams of blessing for humanity. And where this is not done, the Lord is defrauded of the service due Him, even tho that particular man pays all his employes liberally. Any one can see that the text is a startling warning against the man who does not pay his hired help their proper wage, and all ought also to see that the Word of God most clearly shows the responsibility of the rich man to use his means in helping others in ways that are far broader and much more generous than merely paying good wages.
We are responsible for the right use of all we possess. Every pang of hunger, and all of the squalor and degradation and suffering that we might have relieved, but have refused, will be charged to our account, and we will have to settle it before the bar of Him whose knowledge is so perfect that no fraud, or unjust or oppressive principle, can enter His court. If you do not believe this, read the last sixteen verses of the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew.
The man who has the ability and embraces the opportunity to amass millions has a big responsibility resting upon him. Such men usually have the qualifications of great generals, and are able to organize whole armies of laborers, who profitably and successfully execute their plans. After the plans for gathering wealth are so ably executed, these same men have the opportunity afforded them of spreading great blessings among mankind. This can not be done as a general rule by giving
away their money. Something may be accomplished by building libraries and founding colleges, but it is only in the most general way that such deeds accomplish any good. The donors are not brought into close touch with the people in that way. The benefits of the library or the college that they have founded may be enjoyed, and the benefactors may receive the blessings of the hundreds who enjoy them. But these things alone do not bring the wealthy into that close touch with suffering humanity that enables them to sense the prevalence of poverty and the depth of the degradation that results from it.
There are many charitable organizations, state, church, and private. These are not to be ignored. They do untold good. But there are wealthy men in this country who, single-handed, have it in their power to do more to uplift and benefit the poverty-stricken than whole platoons of these organizations. The society is usually hampered for lack of funds, but these individuals have their millions. The executive officers of the society are bound about by rules, and often cases are brought to them that
they can not help “because they do not come ‘within their prescribed regulations.’” But these individuals with their millions could promptly make a rule for each case, and spread their blessings without hindrance or delay.
Societies have been duly organized, and fully equipped with president, secretary, and by-laws, and have gone forth to buy up sections of land, and form colonies where happiness would be secured to the poor people who would be invited to the benefits of the society. But such societies usually lack the able hand of an experienced executive, and so they sooner or later result in failure. The man of millions, or even of a much lesser sum, could take some of the thousands of acres of idle land that he holds as a speculation, divide them into small farms, and then notify business men, clergymen, lawyers, doctors, and others who are continually coming in contact with
that portion of humanity whom misfortune has overtaken, to put them in communication with such individuals. Then let them investigate their cases personally, or else have a thoroughly competent person do it for them, find out what they need in the way of advice, and settle them in a pleasant home on this land. The home should not be given them, for that would not encourage the thrift and energy that puts manliness in men. The homes could be properly fitted out and sold to them on terms that they could meet, and the money could be used again and again in helping still others. In this way the benefits would be constantly widening.
There are thousands of acres held as game-preserves. The deer and the elk must look beautiful in those wooded retreats; but their beauty would be increased rather than diminished by placing among them thousands of families with the children, who ought to be more dear to us than the beasts.
Now if such a work as this would have to be done by some society, it would be no more than speculative fancy to talk about it. But if the men who can build railroads, organize steamship lines, conduct great and successful manufacturing establishments, would only (as individuals) take hold of such an enterprise, they would make it succeed. They would find difficulties, and much to try their patience; but the obstacles would be no greater than the ones they have overcome in making their present work a success.
Why should not the owners of the big factories that employ thousands of men and women, locate their plants in country districts, and arrange for every family to own some land that the children might cultivate while the father was in the shop? In this way all could share in the work of making the living, and the right kind of manly independence would be built up. The man in the factory should be encouraged to take an interest in the cultivation of the soil. He will be a more intelligent and useful mechanic if his nature has been touched by the pleasing knowledge of plant growth. Men would not be so turbulent if they were in closer touch with the natural, and not so wholly given to the artificial, that so fully composes the ordinary city and factory life. If the manufacturer would make it possible for his men all to have a good garden, if he would if necessary supply a skilful agriculturist to interest and to teach them, the workmen would find both a profit and a delight in the benefits and pleasures of nature, that would make the meeting of the labor union most uninteresting indeed.
But even here the manufacturer who would take hold of such a thing for the selfish purpose of6avoiding strikes would not likely make it succeed. But he who takes hold of it from the motive of helping his fellow-mortals will surely have the joy of seeing many of them made contented and happy.
In a financial way there are thousands of men who are about in the position of one who is in a well. If you leave him there, he must give up and die; but if a strong hand lets a rope down and draws him out, he is as able as any one to fulfil the obligations of life. To-day it is within the reach of the wealthy to turn the curses of the poor into blessings; they may, so to speak, let the rope down to the man in the well. To-day they may plan wisely, and also execute the plans, that will relieve the distress of the poor and unfortunate; but soon it will be too late. And every wealthy man who continues selfishly to hoard his money, and who refuses to give thought to the magnitude of all that may be done for the relief of men, will soon be called to do as stated in the text at the beginning of this article,—“Weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you.”
There are many vagabonds and wrecks of humanity who would only abuse any proffered help; but there are also thousands of deserving men and women, who, if the right ones would take an interest in giving them counsel and the small financial help that would put them on their feet, would become a blessing in their home and the whole neighborhood where they might live. This is the time for prompt action. We pray that at least some hearts may be touched by these suggestions. T.
THE LOVE OF MONEY.
By W. N. G.
The Scripture says, “The love of money is the ‘root of all evil.’” It does not say that money is evil, or that having money is evil, or that the love of much money is evil; but the “love of money.” The love of money is not only evil, but it is the root of evil, and roots always produce more of their kind. The love of money is not only the root of evil, but it is the root of all evil. A literal rendering: “For the love of money is a root of all the ‘evils.’” How can this be? The solution is not far to seek; for the love of money is covetousness, and covetousness is idolatry. Col. 3:5. Idolatry is ignoring the law of the true God, and the transgression of the law is sin. 1 John 3:4. Money is the representative of the wealth of this world, so the love of money is the love of the world; and “if any man ‘love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.’”
It is for this reason that “they that will be rich ‘fall into temptation and a snare, and into many ‘foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.’” 1 Tim. 6:9. The danger here pointed out is not confined to those who are rich, those who have succeeded in becoming rich. The Word expressly says, “They that will be rich,” or, as in the Revised Version, “desire to be rich.” The love of money, or the desire to be rich, is not a sentiment of the rich alone. Many very poor people are as fully imbued with the ambition to be wealthy as are those who are the most successful. In fact, many have been beggared through an inordinate desire to add a great fortune to a reasonable competence. Their desire to be rich has tempted them to invest a moderate fortune in speculative ventures which utterly failed.
The writer has in mind an acquaintance who, in the early mining days of California, dug from the mines sufficient gold to make him comfortable for life. Starting for his home in the East, he came to San Francisco, where he was obliged to wait several days for a vessel bound for New York. In San Francisco were many temptations and snares in the line of gambling-dens, and speculations of various kinds. The miner looked on the games, and saw some men winning large sums. He was seized with an ardent desire to add to his store of gold. Altho he saw some lose all, he felt sure that he could win. But before the steamer sailed which was to take him home in good financial circumstances, he had lost all. Returning to the mines, he went to work again with pick and shovel. In course of time he was fairly well-to-do once more, and once more he went to San Francisco intending to go home. Again he had to wait some days for a steamer, and again the temptations and snares were set for him. This time he was more than ever certain that he could win a large addition to his wealth. But he failed again, and returned to the mines again to lay the foundation of a worldly competence. Being a third time successful, he started for home; but in San Francisco he simply repeated his former effort to add to his fortune by the short, speculative process, and went down to poverty. Then he lost courage, and never again rose above a mere subsistence, and a very poor one at that. He fell into “many foolish and hurtful lusts” through a love of money.
The love of money is the mother of all the “dens of vice and haunts of crime” that beset the unwary throughout this sin-cursed earth. The love of money is the incentive to all the robbery, all the embezzlement, and every effort to secure more than one’s share of this world’s products. Because one has not the faculty to accumulate money is not evidence that his love of it is any the less. The miser may not love money any more than the spendthrift. Men love money for the pleasure they can get out of it. One finds his pleasure in making a display, another in gratifying his appetite, and another in contemplating his hoardings; yet in each case it is sought for the purpose of consuming it upon the lust.
The love of money is the cause of all the hatred of the rich as well as of all the oppression of the poor and helpless. The rich are not the only oppressors of the poor. Many an innocent child or infirm old person, or easy person of middle age, is made to suffer through the covetousness of others who are far from being rich. It is also true that the love of money is the cause of all the conflicts between capital and labor, between employers and employees; nor is this manifestation by any means confined to either class. The greed of wealthy men often leads them7to adopt means for further gains regardless of the rights of employees or the true interests of customers.
On the other hand, many an employer has been robbed of legitimate profits by the unjust demands of combined employees. To-day many employers are compelled to spend their time and use their capital with less profits than the wages per capita that they are compelled to pay to confederated employees; this, too, when to raise prices would work oppression upon many patrons.
There is a prevailing tendency to censure the great monopolist, the man or corporation that gains sole control of any great enterprise, or particular line of business, thereby taking undue advantage of those who have to use the articles produced or controlled. No doubt the spirit of monopoly is selfish, covetous, extortionate; but the fleshly man is by nature a monopolist, if there be the opportunity. The peanut vendor will as quickly double the price of a bag of peanuts, if perchance he may secure all that are to be had for the time, as the armor-plate maker will raise on his product on securing a monopoly. The consequences of the two transactions differ only in magnitude; the spirit is the same.
The heart is not set right before God by either poverty or riches in the things of this world. Wealth is not merit, neither is poverty a virtue. “The carnal mind is enmity against God,” whether the individual be deemed rich or poor by his fellow-men. When the sinner has given his heart to God, his treasure, be it much or little, is included in the transaction. The love of the world is gone; whatever of its riches is in his hands he holds as a steward of the Master. From that time forth there is equality between the rich and poor. The rich man is “made low,” and the poor man is “exalted.” Both are rich toward God as long as the Spirit of Jesus rules the heart. “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” I Tim. 6:6. “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Rom. 8:32.
