By REV. WILLIAM ARNOT.
These “ways,” as described by Solomon in the preceding verses, are
certainly some of the very worst. We have here literally the picture of
a robber’s den. The persons described are of the baser sort: the crimes
enumerated are gross and rank: they would be outrageously disreputable
in any society, of any age. Yet when these apples of Sodom are traced
to their sustaining root, it turns out to be _greed of gain_. The love
of money can bear all these.
This scripture is not out of date in our day, or out of place in our
community. The word of God is not left behind obsolete by the progress
of events. “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the
flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth
away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter, i: 24, 25).
The Scripture traces sin to its fountain, and deposits the sentence of
condemnation there,—a sentence that follows actual evil through all
its diverging paths. A spring of poisonous water may in one part of
its course run over a rough, rocky bed, and in another glide silent
and smooth through a verdant meadow; but, alike when chafed into foam
by obstructing rocks, and when reflecting the flowers from its glassy
breast, it is the same lethal stream. So from greed of gain—from
covetousness which is idolatry, the issue is evil, whether it run
riot in murder and rapine in Solomon’s days, or crawl sleek and slimy
through cunning tricks of trade in our own. God seeth not as man seeth.
He judges by the character of the life stream that flows from the
fountain of thought, and not by the form of the channel which accident
may have hollowed out to receive it.
When this greed of gain is generated, like a thirst in the soul, it
imperiously demands satisfaction: and it takes satisfaction wherever
it can be most readily found. In some countries of the world still it
retains the old-fashioned form of iniquity which Solomon has described:
it turns free-booter, and leagues with a band of kindred spirits, for
the prosecution of the business on a larger scale. In our country,
though the same passion domineer in a man’s heart, it will not adopt
the same method, because it has cunning enough to know that by this
method it could not succeed. Dishonesty is diluted, and colored,
and moulded into shapes of respectability, to suit the taste of the
times. We are not hazarding an estimate whether there be as much of
dishonesty under all our privileges as prevailed in a darker day: we
affirm only that wherever dishonesty is, its nature remains the same,
although its form may be more refined. He who will judge both mean men
and merchant princes requires truth in the inward parts. There is no
respect of persons with him. Fashions do not change about the throne
of the Eternal. With him a thousand years are as one day. The ancient
and modern evil-doers are reckoned brethren in iniquity, despite the
difference in the costume of their crimes. Two men are alike greedy of
gain. One of them being expert in accounts, defrauds his creditors, and
thereafter drives his carriage; the other, being robust of limb, robs
a traveler on the highway, and then holds midnight revel on the spoil.
Found fellow-sinners, they will be left fellow-sufferers. Refined
dishonesty is as displeasing to God, as hurtful to society, and as
unfit for heaven, as the coarsest crime.
[Footnote F: “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain;
which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.”—Prov. i:19.]
This greed, when full grown, is coarse and cruel. It is not restrained
by any delicate sense of what is right or seemly. It has no bowels.
It marches right to its mark, treading on everything that lies in the
way. If necessary, in order to clutch the coveted gain, “it takes away
the life of the owners thereof.” Covetousness is idolatry. The idol
delights in blood. He demands and gets a hecatomb of human sacrifices.
Among the laborers employed in a certain district to construct a
railway, was one thick-necked, bushy, sensual, ignorant, brutalized
man, who lodged in the cottage of a lone old woman. This woman was in
the habit of laying up her weekly earnings in a certain chest, of which
she carefully kept the key. The lodger observed where the money lay.
After the works were completed and the workmen dispersed, this man was
seen in the gray dawn of a Sabbath morning stealthily approaching the
cottage. That day, for a wonder among the neighbors, the dame did not
appear at church. They went to her house, and learned the cause. Her
dead body lay on the cottage floor: the treasure-chest was robbed of
its few pounds and odd shillings, and the murderer had fled. Afterward
they caught and hanged him.
Shocking crime!—to murder a helpless woman in her own house in order
to reach and rifle her little hoard, laid up against the winter and
the rent! The criminal is of a low, gross, bestial nature. Be it so.
He was a pest to society, and society flung the troubler off the
earth. But what of those who are far above him in education and social
position, and as far beyond him in the measure of their guilt? How many
human lives is the greed of gain even now taking away in the various
processes of slavery? Men who hold a high place, and bear a good name
in the world, have in this form taken away the life of thousands for
filthy lucre’s sake. Murder on a large scale has been and is done upon
the African tribes by civilized men for money.
The opium traffic, forced upon China by the military power of Britain,
and maintained by her merchants in India, is murder done for money on a
mighty scale. Opium spreads immorality, imbecility, and death through
the teeming ranks of the Chinese populations. The quantity of opium
cultivated on their own soil is comparatively small. The government
prohibited the introduction of the deadly drug until England compelled
them to legalize the traffic. British merchants brought it to their
shores in ship-loads notwithstanding, and the thunder of British cannon
opened a way for its entrance through the feeble ranks that lined the
shore. Every law of political economy, and every sentiment of Christian
charity, cries aloud against nurturing on our soil, and letting loose
among our neighbors, that grim angel of death. The greed of gain alone
suggests, commands, compels it. How can we expect the Chinese to accept
the Bible from us while we bring opium to them in return? British
Christians might bear to China that life for which the Chinese seem to
be thirsting, were it not that British merchants are bearing to China
that death which the best of her people loathe.
A bloated, filthy, half-naked laborer, hanging on at the harbor, has
gotten a shilling for a stray job. As soon as he has wiped his brow,
and fingered the coin, he walks into a shop and asks for whisky. The
shopkeeper knows the man—knows that his mind and body are damaged
by strong drink—knows that his family are starved by the father’s
drunkenness. The shopkeeper eyes the squalid wretch. The shilling
tinkles on the counter. With one hand the dealer supplies the glass,
and with the other mechanically rakes the shilling into the till
among the rest. It is the price of blood. Life is taken there for
money. The gain is filthy. Feeling its stain eating like rust into his
conscience, the man who takes it reasons eagerly with himself thus:
“He was determined to have it; and if I won’t, another will.” So he
settles the case that occurred in the market-place on earth, but he has
not done with it yet. How will that argument sound as an answer to the
question, “Where is thy brother?” when it comes in thunder from the
judgment-seat of God?
Oh that men’s eyes were opened to know this sin beneath all its
coverings, and loathe it in all its disguises! Other people may do
the same, and we may never have thought seriously of the matter; but
these reasons, and a thousand others, will not cover sin. All men
should think of the character and consequences of their actions. God
will weigh our deeds; we should ourselves weigh them beforehand in
his balances. It is not what that man has said, or this man has done;
but what Christ is, and his members should be. The question for every
man through life is, not what is the practice of earth, but what is
preparation for heaven. There would not be much difficulty in judging
what gain is right and what is wrong if we would take Christ into our
counsels. If people look unto Jesus when they think of being saved,
and look hard away from him when they are planning how to make money,
they will miss their mark for both worlds. When a man gives his heart
to gain, he is an idolater. Money has become his god. He would rather
that the Omniscient should not be the witness of his worship. While
he is sacrificing in this idol’s temple, he would prefer that Christ
should reside high in heaven, out of sight and out of mind. He would
like Christ to be in heaven, ready to open its gates to him, when death
at last drives him off the earth; but he will not open for Christ
now that other dwelling-place which he loves—a humble and contrite
heart. “_Christ in you_, the hope of glory;” there is the cure of
covetousness! That blessed Indweller, when he enters, will drive
out—with a scourge, if need be—such buyers and sellers as defiled his
temple. His still small voice within would flow forth, and print itself
on all your traffic,—“Love one another, as I have loved you.”
On this point the Christian Church is very low. The living child has
lain so close to the world’s bosom that she has overlaid it in the
night, and stifled its troublesome cry. After all our familiarity with
the Catechism, we need yet to learn “what is the _chief_ end of man,”
and what should be compelled to stand aside as a secondary thing. We
need from all who fear the Lord, a long, loud testimony against the
practice of heartlessly subordinating human bodies and souls to the
accumulation of material wealth.
[_May 13._]