The sin was charged, the appeal pressed, only on the preacher's undergraduate hearers. Beneath the gallery, the Heads of Houses sate, remorseless; nor from the pulpit was a single hint permitted that any measures could be rationally taken for the protection, no less than the warning, of the youth under their care. No such suggestion would have been received, if even understood, by any English congregation of this time;—a strange and perilous time, in which the greatest commercial people of the world have been brought to think Usury the most honorable and fruitful branch, or rather perennial stem, of commercial industry.
177. But whose the fault that English congregations are in this temper, and this ignorance? The saying of mine,[133] which the author of this book quotes in the close of his introduction, was written by me with a meaning altogether opposite, and far more forcible, than that which it might seem to bear to a careless interpreter.[134] In the present state of popular revolt against all conception and manner of authority, but more especially spiritual authority, the sentence reads as if it were written by an adversary of the Church,—a hater of its Prelacy,—an advocate of universal liberty of thought and license of crime: whereas the sentence is really written in the conviction (I might say knowledge, if I spoke without deference to the reader's incredulity) that the Pastoral Office must forever be the highest, for good or evil, in every Christian land; and that when it fails in vigilance, faith, or courage, the sheep must be scattered, and neither King nor law avail any more to protect them against the fury of their own passions, nor any human sagacity against the deception of their own hearts.
178. Since, however, these things are instantly so, and the Bishops of England have now with one accord consented to become merely the highly salaried vergers of her Cathedrals, taking care that the choristers do not play at leapfrog in the Churchyard, that the Precincts are elegantly iron-railed from the profane parts of the town, and that the doors of the building be duly locked, so that nobody may pray in it at improper times,—these things being so, may we not turn to the "every-man-his-own-Bishop" party, with its Bible Society, Missionary zeal, and right of infallible private interpretation, to ask at least for some small exposition to the inhabitants of their own country, of those Scriptures which they are so fain to put in the possession of others; and this the rather, because the popular familiar version of the New Testament among us, unwritten, seems to be now the exact contrary of that which we were once taught to be of Divine authority.
179. I place, side by side, the ancient and modern versions of the seven verses of the New Testament which were the beginning, and are indeed the heads, of all the teaching of Christ:—
Ancient.
Blessed are the Poor in
Spirit, for their's is the
kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the
earth.
Blessed are they which do
hunger for righteousness,
for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the Peacemakers,
for they shall be called the
children of God.
Modern.
Blessed are the Rich in
Flesh, for their's is the
kingdom of Earth.
Blessed are they that are
merry, and laugh the last.
Blessed are the proud, in that
they have inherited the
earth.
Blessed are they which hunger
for unrighteousness, in
that they shall divide its
mammon.
Blessed are the merciless, for
they shall obtain money.
Blessed are the foul in heart,
for they shall see no God.
Blessed are the War-makers,
for they shall be adored by
the children of men.
180. Who are the true "Makers of War," the promoters and supports of it, I showed long since in the note to the brief sentence of "Unto this last." "It is entirely capitalists' (i.e., Usurers') wealth[135] which supports unjust Wars." But to what extent the adoration of the Usurer, and the slavery consequent upon it, has perverted the soul or bound the hands of every man in Europe, I will let the reader hear, from authority he will less doubt than mine:—
"Financiers are the mischievous feudalism of the 19th century. A handful of men have invented distant, seductive loans, have introduced national debts in countries happily ignorant of them, have advanced money to unsophisticated Powers on ruinous terms, and then, by appealing to small investors all over the world, got rid of the bonds. Furthermore, with the difference between the advances and the sale of bonds, they caused a fall in the securities which they had issued, and, having sold at 80, they bought back at 10, taking advantage of the public panic. Again, with the money thus obtained, they bought up consciences, where consciences are marketable, and under the pretense of providing the country thus traded upon with new means of communication, they passed money into their own coffers. They have had pupils, imitators, and plagiarists; and at the present moment, under different names, the financiers rule the world, are a sore of society, and form one of the chief causes of modern crises.
"Unlike the Nile, wherever they pass they render the soil dry and barren. The treasures of the world flow into their cellars, and there remain. They spend one-tenth of their revenues; the remaining nine-tenths they hoard and divert from circulation. They distribute favors, and are great political leaders. They have not assumed the place of the old nobility, but have taken the latter into their service. Princes are their chamberlains, dukes open their doors, and marquises act as their equerries when they deign to ride.
"These new grandees canter on their splendid Arabs along Rotten Ron, the Bois de Boulogne, the Prospect, the Prater, or Unter den Linden. The shopkeepers, and all who save money, bow low to these men, who represent their savings, which they will never again see under any other form. Proof against sarcasms, sure of the respect of the Continental Press, protecting each other with a sort of freemasonry, the financiers dictate laws, determine the fate of nations, and render the cleverest political combinations abortive. They are everywhere received and listened to, and all the Cabinets feel their influence. Governments watch them with uneasiness, and even the Iron Chancellor has his gilded Egeria, who reports to him the wishes of this the sole modern Autocrat"—Letter from Paris Correspondent, "Times," 30th January, 1885.