Material revolution, the attack of the poor on the rich to take away their possessions, has never achieved anything. Many a time it has been tried, and many a time it has failed. Being part of the system of Mammon it could do nothing else than fail. The evils which Mammon has wrought Mammon will never remedy. There may be instances in history of economic cures for economic ills; but I think they are few. In general such cures are of the nature of our "settlements" of strikes. They settle to-day what is again unsettled to-morrow, leaving the work to be done all over again, and so on into a far future.
The revolution in point of view has these great advantages:
First, it contains within it the seeds of success, since it is revolution toward God, the owner of the Earth and the fulness thereof; Next, it takes place within the individual himself, doing no one else any harm;
Lastly, it does not run counter to man's economic laws; it only uses and transcends them. It directs and corrects them. Working along their lines it stimulates their fruit. Letting the inner man out of the economic trap it sets him in a world in which first, and last, and before everything else, he is God's servant in God's pay. God's pay being sure, and paid in the way we need it, we no longer have money-fear to be afraid of. Money-fear being set aside we can the more easily give ourselves to the knowledge that "the Kingdom of God does not consist of eating and drinking, but of right conduct, peace, and joy, through the Holy Spirit; and whoever in this way devotedly serves Christ, God takes pleasure in him, and men commend him highly."[32]
XVII
And lest what I have said should seem fanciful or chimerical let me add that I am not saying these things merely on my own responsibility. To my certain knowledge there are hundreds of thousands—some millions—of people throughout the world who at this very minute are living according to this principle, and proving that it works in practical effect.
Neither am I speaking theoretically, as I have tried to make plain. To a degree that convinces myself I have made the demonstration. Where my life was like a dark and crooked lane in which I might easily be lost, it has now become as an easy and open highway; where money-fear was the very air I breathed, it is now no more than a nebulous shred on a far horizon. Money-fear comes occasionally; but only as the memory of pain to a wound which you know to be healed. It comes; but, like Satan out of Heaven, I can cast it from me with a thought.