the Sultan. His government might be overthrown in a day, but it would take ages to lift up that empire of prostrate slaves and to cultivate in them the self-assertion and self-reliance necessary to a free people.
Every man who loves his country and his race must view with alarm this growing feeling of subordination and cringing disposition. It is the very reverse of that democratic spirit or consciousness of equality that must prevail to secure the permanency of our republican institutions.
- It destroys fraternal sympathy. Two classes are found in every modern community. The one is the laborers with muscle or brain, the other class, those whose property produces for them. Between these classes there is a great wall fixed. It cannot be expected that they will mingle harmoniously and be in sympathy in civil and social relations. Producing and non-producing classes can never be congenially associated.
The question is frequently discussed in church circles, "How can the laboring man be attracted to the churches?" The discussion often presumes that the non-laboring man does find the church congenial. If he does, all efforts to win the other class will be in vain. The church itself needs to correct its teachings and reform its spirit.
The moral law commands "Six days shalt thou work," and there is no release because a man has property. So long as a man has brain or brawn he is bound by that law. If he is not, he is not a moral man, and has no rightful place in the church of God. Honest, upright, industrious Christian men, engaged in all lines of production for human needs, may be congenial and co-operate most harmoniously, but they never can be made comfortable in association with those who are unproductive and idle, yet living in luxury.
- Usury promotes that "Covetousness which is idolatry."