If violating a law annuls it, even the seventh commandment, the violation of which is so offensive to decency and its observance so necessary to the purity of the home, may in this way be ruled out as a binding obligation. Let polygamy be the order, supported by the example of Jacob and David and Solomon, and the families be constituted along that line, then enforced monogamy would seem to be a sundering of tender ties and hardness toward the cast off Hagars that is inconsistent with the Christian spirit. An earnest, Godly man, a missionary friend of the writer, under whose ministry a heathen chief was converted, was misled by the plausibility. The chief had a number of wives; he had children by them; he was much attached to his wives and was fond of his children, and they all seemed to love him and clung to him. The missionary in the kindness of his heart did not interfere with the family, permitting the chief to keep his wives and placed his name on the church roll of the Mission. For this act he was reproved by the ecclesiastical authorities above him. Let polygamy become as universal as usury and even the seventh commandment in its strictness will seem impracticable and unkind if not positively cruel.
It will not do to claim freedom from the prohibition of usury because we have organized commerce and the state and all society in violation of it.
CHAPTER XIV.[ToC]
AMERICAN REVISION.
The Revision by the American Committee is the latest effort of scholarship to bring King James' Version up to date by eliminating effete terms and using words in their modern sense.
The references to usury are here collated so as to give a general view of the question from the translations of the passages in this the latest Revision. The reader will notice that the modern word "interest" is substituted for "usury" in nearly every passage.
Exodus 22:25: "If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him interest."