I fancy I can still hear the murmur of angry dissent pass round as I
read to my reverend brethren this indignant plea for a higher
interpretation of the petition for daily bread than that which passes
current with the unthinking, self-indulgent world. Nevertheless, this
manifestation of feeling was not general, and I thoroughly agree with
Mr. Ruskin that the world has, from the first, used this prayer
thoughtlessly and blasphemously; and probably will continue to do so to
the end, when the thoughts and imaginations of all men's hearts shall be
revealed, and no more disguises shall be possible; when the masked
hypocrite's smile shall be torn from him and reveal the covetousness
that breeds in his heart to its core; when the honourable man shall no
longer be confounded with thieves, nor the usurer and extortioner be
courted and bowed to like an honest man.
The veil that hid the true Christ, as Mr. Ruskin has well remarked, was
removed in the breaking of bread with the disciples at Emmaus. As the
Master, so the true disciples. They too may be known both by the
spiritual breaking of the Bread of Life in the Holy Communion (though
the canting hypocrite too may be found polluting that holy rite); but
more especially in the union of the sacred ordinance with obedience to
the scarcely less sacred command of Christian love and charity to the
poor. There may be the empty profession, but there will be none of the
reality of the religion of the Gospel, unless we are partakers of the
bread broken at the Lord's Table, or unless we eat the bread earned by
the honest labour of our hands or of our brains, or share some of our
bread with those, the Lord's brethren, whom He has left for us to care
for in His name. The absence of either of these three essential
conditions just lays us open to the charge of flaunting before the world
a false and spurious Christianity. In the plain words of our friend, our
bread not being fairly got or fairly used, is stolen bread.
But I would willingly believe that it is only by a strong figure of
speech that we clergy are here again emphatically called upon to act the
part of inquisitors by pointedly demanding of every member of our flock
a precise account of the manner in which he earns his livelihood. Still,
if the answer was not a surprised and indignant stare, I believe the
great mass of men would probably be able to give an answer which should
abundantly satisfy themselves and us, until Mr. Ruskin threw his own
light upon the answer and demonstrated that the notions of modern
civilized society are not in accordance with the highest teaching.
According to our ideas, the artisan, the tradesman, the merchant, the
members of the learned and the military and naval professions, all those
engaged in the various departments of government work, from the cabinet
minister down to the last office clerk,--all these use the labour of
body or of mind, and in return receive the necessaries or the luxuries
of life for themselves and their households. Men who are, if they
please, exempt altogether from such labour, as large landed proprietors,
are certainly under a temptation to lead a life of ease and leisure. But
it is very seldom that we are offended with the sight of a landlord so
unmindful of social duties as to take no personal active interest in the
welfare and conduct of his tenants, or forgetful of the responsibilities
to his country imposed upon him by his rank and position.
It is to be hoped that Mr. Ruskin does not in all solemn seriousness
really expect that after a fair examination of the modes of life of all
these people, "an entirely new view of life and its sacraments will
open upon us and them." Is it indeed a fact that "the great mass of men
calling themselves Christians do actually live by robbing the poor of
their bread, and by no other trade whatsoever"? Mr. Ruskin is always
terribly in earnest in whatever he says, and we must look for an
explanation of this sentence in the very decided views he holds upon
interest of money, which he calls usury.
Mr. Ruskin classes Usury and Interest together. Here are some of his
strong words upon this subject: "There is absolutely no debate possible
as to what usury is, any more than what adultery is. The Church has only
been polluted by indulgence in it since the 16th century. Usury is any
kind whatever of interest on loan, and it is the essential modern force
of Satan." This was written September 9th of this year. In "Fors
Clavigera," Letter lxxxii., p. 323, he challenged the Bishop of
Manchester to answer him the question, whether he considered "usury to
be a work of the Lord"?[16] In the same letter, to place his heavy
denunciation against the wickedness of usury in the best possible
company, he pleads: "Plato's scheme was impossible even in his own
day,--as Bacon's New Atlantis in _his_ day,--as Calvin's reform in _his_
day,--as Goethe's Academe in his; but of the good there was in all these
men, the world gathered what it could find of evil."
[16] See _Contemporary Review_, February 1880.
Let us look a little closer into this matter. It is not because a man
with fearless frankness breasts the full torrent of popular persuasion
and universal practice that he is to be thrust aside as a fanatic, with
hard words and unfeeling sneers concerning his sanity. Here, again, I
avow my persuasion that Mr. Ruskin is, in one sense, too far in advance,
and, in another, too far in the rear of the time; and while I attempt an
explanatory justification of the modern practice, I admit that it is
only "for the hardness of our hearts" and because the golden age is
still far off.
The Mosaic law was severe against usury and increase, forbidding it
under heavy threatenings among the faithful Israelites, but allowing it
in lending to strangers. "If thy brother be waxen poor, then thou shalt
relieve him ... take thou no usury of him, or increase" (Lev. xxv. 35,
36). "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money,
usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury. _Unto a
stranger_ thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt
not lend upon usury" (Deut. xxiii. 19, 20). "Lord, who shall abide in
Thy tabernacle? ... He that putteth not out his money to usury" (Psalm
xv. 1, 5. See Ezek. xviii. 7, etc.) And to come to the Christian law, we
have the mild general principle: "If ye lend to them of whom ye hope to
receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to
receive as much again.... Lend, hoping for nothing again, and your
reward shall be great" (Luke vi. 34, 35).
So far the Law of Moses and the Gospel.
But our Lord, in the Parable of the Talents, appears to actually
sanction the practice of loans upon interest: "Thou oughtest, therefore,
to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should
have received mine own with usury" (Matt. xxv. 27). The preceding verse,
the 26th, may well be understood to be a question--Didst thou indeed
think so? It does not even indirectly attribute hardness and oppression
to our Lord.[17] I am quite aware that it may be replied that this is an
instance of those strong audacious metaphors, where the fact used by way
of illustration is instinctively overleaped by the mind of the hearer to
arrive at the lesson which it marks and emphasizes; as when the Lord is
represented as an unjust judge, or Paul speaks of grafting the wild
olive branch upon the good, or James refers to the rust and canker upon
gold and silver, or Milton speaks of certain bishops as "blind
mouths."[18] But in all these cases, the hyperbole is manifest; it is an
untruth or a disguise, which not only does not deceive, but teaches a
great truth. Our Lord's reference to money-lenders or exchangers appears
to lend an indirect sanction to a familiar practice.
[17] The owners of five talents and of two talents are commended
for making cent. per cent. of their money; but the man who hid away
his one talent, as French peasants do, and brought it to his Lord
untouched and undiminished, received a severe rebuke.
[18] Lycidas. See "Sesame and Lilies," p. 27.
The Law of Moses, therefore, rebuking the practice of lending for
increase among brethren and encouraging it in dealing with strangers,
combined with the well-known avarice of the Jews to make them
money-lenders on a large scale, and at high rates of interest, to the
prodigals and spendthrifts, the bankrupt barons and needy sovereigns of
the middle ages. Money was rarely lent for commercial purposes, and to
advance the real prosperity of the borrower. It was generally to stave
off want for the time; and principal and interest, when pay-day came,
had generally to be found in the pastures or strongholds of the enemy.
High interest was charged, on account of the extraordinary
precariousness of what was called the security. Grinding and grasping
undoubtedly the money-lenders would be, from the hardship of their case.
Reckless extravagance and lavish profusion were, in those non-commercial
ages, highly applauded. The spendthrift and the prodigal was the
favourite of the multitude; the rich money-lender was hated and abused,
while his money-bags were sought after with all the eagerness of
hard-driving poverty. They reviled the careful and economical Israelite;
they looked with horror upon his vast accumulations of capital, and
never remembered to thank him for the safety they owed to him from the
violent hands of their own soldiers and retainers.
All this went on until the sixteenth or seventeenth century. I have
before me a very curious old book, lent to me by Mr. Ruskin, entitled,
"The English Usurer: or, Usury Condemned by the most learned and famous
Divines of the Church of England. Collected by John Blaxton, Preacher of
God's Word at Osmington, in Dorsetshire, 1634."
The language throughout the book is of extreme violence against all
manner of usury. The compiler gives a collection of the most emphatic
testimonies of the greatest preachers of the day against this
"detestable vice." Bishop Jewell calls it "a most filthy trade, a trade
which God detesteth, a trade which is the very overthrow of all
Christian love." There is, it must be admitted, no sort of argument
attempted in the long extract from Bishop Jewell's sermon to demonstrate
the wickedness of the practice against which he launches his fierce
invectives, but he certainly brings his sermon to a conclusion with a
threat of extreme measures "if they continue therein. I will open their
shame and denounce excommunication against them, and publish their names
in this place before you all, that you may know them, and abhor them as
the plagues and monsters of this world; that if they be past all fear of
God, they may yet repent and amend for worldly shame."
This was Bishop Jewell preaching in the middle of the 16th century; and
such were the strong terms very generally employed by good and
thoughtful men at that day. Bacon (Essay 41) says that one of the
objections against usury is that "it is against nature for money to
beget money!" Antonio, in "The Merchant of Venice," asks:
"When did friendship take
A _breed_ of barren metal of his friend?"
And his practice was "neither to lend nor borrow by taking nor giving of
excess," which brought upon him the malice and vindictiveness of the
Jew--
"that in low simplicity
He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice."