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Tous les autres exemplaires origlnaux sont filmAs en commenpant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'iilustration et en terminant par la dernlAre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernlAre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols — ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols y signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent 6tre filmte A des taux de reduction diffirents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reprodult en un seul cliche, ii est fiim6 d partir de I'angle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'Images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 h %ry 'H;:',. ''--rt'if^- ;>• ;,' '■ *;■ .•7-< ANTI-USURY TRACTS. BY WILLIAM l^ROWN, U^^*^^-^^ :"■ '■^■■#r;:'t' A SHORT SERMON FROM AN OLD TEXT. Matt. XXV, 21. The frequency with which wc have heard the parahle of the Talents urged as an excuse for the practice of lending on interest, must be our apology for introducing, into the present scries, a matter having, in reality, so little bear- ing upon the subject. The propriety or impropriety of lending on interest is not to be gathered from anything said in this beautiful and instructive parable. It was alto- gether foreign to our Lord's intention to inculcate any precept bearing upon the subject of usury. The design of the parable, among other things, is to teach menkind the nature of the responsibility under which they rest to their great Master in the employment of the different gifts and opportunities be- stowed upon them, and to illustrate the important doctrine of reward for the righteous or those who profitably use their talents, and punishment for the wicked or those who neglect and despise the means of grace. Although, therefore, these various talents are represented under the emblem of money, and although the slothful servant is condemned because he failed to put out his means to the exchangers that usury or increase might be received for its use, it would be as unreasonable to conclude that our Saviour thereby expresses anything either in approbation or in condemnation of the practice of usury, as it would be to conclude that the hard, austere, and Nabal-like character ?o applicable to the usurer pourtrayed in verse 24th, is descriptive of the Divine Redeemer who uttered this parable. If such an interpretation could by any means be put upon the 27th verse, then we might Avith equal propriety conclude that Christ commends the conduct of the unjust judge in the parable of the importunate widow ; or the equally wicked conduct of the dishonest steward, who though ashamed to beg and unable to dip, was expert enough at falsifying his master's accounts ; or that the large hearted Solomon, in Proverbs xx, Hi. comracuds the mean practice of pledge taking M'hen warning his reader? against i)utting trust in abandoned liber- *./.'» 1 iiJOC^i: — 2 — tinea. Those, therefore, who would urge this parable as an evidence of our Lord's approval of that practice everywhere else held forth in scripture as a vice, greatly mistake the purport of the parable itself and introduce a prin- ciple of interpretation which would reduce the Bible to the level of the Koran, and resolve its holy and beautiful precepts into a mass of palpable contradic- tion and meaningless absurdities. If such a construction could, by any pro- cess of reasoning, be put upon the parable, then we have the precepts of the new testament brought into direct collision with those of the old, and our Saviour commending to his people a practice destructive of their peace, because ever associated with debt, and in direct opposition to apostolic injunctions. We may look at the subject from another though much less conclusive point of view. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that our Lord does in reality commend the taking of usury. What follows? Plainly this — that the parable proves too much and places the usurer on the horns of a dilemma. For it commends the taking of usury, a practice which, according as they interpret the word, the advocates of the credit system loudly condemn. It may not be out of place to take this opportunity to add a few additional reflections on the meaning and application of the term usury. I have, in another place,* 'endeavoured to explain the meaning of the word usury. Modern expositors, generally, have put a false gloss upon the word, towards which they have probably been more influenced by the practice of the age than the spirit of the text. The Hebrew word Neshech, to bite, cut, or pierce with the teeth, is employed to denote usury or increase. It is repeatedly used in the same sense with the Hebrew words Tarbith and Marbith, simple interest or increase. As, for example, in Leviticus xxv, 36, 31, " Take thou no usury of him or increase'' — either of thy brother, the stranger, or the sojourner — where the words Neshech and Marbith are both used. Nothing could bo plainer or more explicit than these anti-usury texts. Neshech is the word used figuratively to denote what is understood by the words Tarbith and Marbith, both of which have the same meaning and are derived from a root signifying increase. It is a word used generally and figuratively to express lending on interest, and has no reference to any particular rale. Had it been lawful to take interest, it would have been as absurd to have fixed a limit as to have iixed a price for merchand-se, for every one is, in that case, entitled to aim at the highest price. If the word usury denoted only an exorbitant rate, then the inference would be plain that a certain rate was permitted. But this notion cannot for a moment be entertained, for we are forbidden, in the same sentence, to take any increase at all for our loans ; and here usury is not distinguished from increase, but placed in apposition with it to show that it denotes the same thing. The fact is, all loans imply necessity on the part of the borrower, — a necessity, in the circumstances, not to be compared with that which prompts a man to engage in barter — and accordingly all exactions of interest are hateful in the sight of God. No man will * See Hii'X's Merchants' Magazine, May. 1869. 3 of our 1*6 as a prin- iKoran, Itradic- \y pro- I of the id our J peace, lostolic borrow who does not need to do so. No man who does not need to borrow ought to be encouraged in speculation. The mind instinctively recoils from the idea advanced by certain expositors, that a profit for the loan of money is as just as a profit on the sale of merchandise. No man can be held guiltless who provides the means by which another is involved in debt. God will therefore have us to give in charity what we must not lend for gain. The necessity of sales or barter is quite a different affair, with which charity has nothing to do. However serious and solemn the charge, there can be no doubt that the all but universal practice of the christian world is, in respect to lending on interest, in direct violation of the law of God. t The word usury has no specific reference to money alone. In Deuteronomy xxiii, 19, it is used to denote the increase of money, victuals, and goods gen- erally. In Leviticus, xxv, 31: "Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase," it is evidently to be understood that the lending of the victuals for increase is the same thing with the lend- ing of the money on usury. So also in Ezekiel. Though the injunction is here conveyed in different terms, the criminality of the act is the same, the person who lent his victuals for increase being equally guilty with one who lent his money on usury. Neither here, nor in any other of the kindred pas- sages, is there the slightest intimation of a lawful or legal rate of interest. It is the opinion of nearly all the ancient commentators, both Jewish and Christian, that lending on interest is entirely forbidden, and this is the view which has been held by the Church and by all the great and good within her pale up till comparatively recent times. The opinions of the different modern expositors whose works I have had an opportunity of consulting betoken so much ignorance of the great principles involved that they are hardly worthy of special refutation. If the lending of money on interest were an ordinary mercantile transaction to be judged of by ordinary mercantile rules, the impo- sition of a legal rate would be simply absurd. As it is, the imposition of a legal rate, whatever may be said as to the probity of the intention, legalises a vice. And in this act of legalised vice, the Church is but too prone to find excuse for that system in which she is herself so largely involved. Hence, by slow degrees, has a fatal tampering with the word of God resulted in an evil of colossal magnitude which now darkens and overshadows every civil- ised land, and which is the source of endless contentions, sorrows, and strife. We may designate a " legal rate of interest " as an unhappy compromise between good and evil, between the spirit of charity and that of an unbridled lust for gold, and too readily has the Church adopted the "legal rate" as a cloak for its sin. This restraint has, for hundreds of years, been a standing evidence to the world of those feelings regarding this vice which have been indelibly stamped upon the human mind. So far as the law is restrictive, it t According to Sir E. Coke, Usura dicitur ab «»u e.t are, quia dalurjiro usu, teri$ ; or, wiura rftcitur, quasi ignis urens. If the latter dorivaiion be correct, tl.u Hebrew and the Latin ore equally expressive. is a good law, protecting society in general and the poor in particular — so far as it is permissive, it is a bad law. The " legal rate " is a fabrication of the human brain, engrafted upon the word of God, antagonistic to the pure and holy precepts of that word, but withal a very happy idea for ministers who in- dulge in borrowing and lending and for a church not over particular in the way of raising the wind. Thus, with shame let it be said, the church of the living God, which ought to be an impersonation of everything holy and beautiful, does a happy stroke of usurious business with its funds through the agency of banks and kindred institutions. But docs not this violent dealing come down upon her own pate? She thus involves others in pecuniary obligations, but how many churches and missions groan under loads of debt I Professing to aim at owing no man anything, she somehow or other grievously misses the mark. She is, like a drowning man, continually clamouring to be delivered out of those disreputable situations in which debt has placed her, and yet her actions and teachings constrain men to be stinted in their measure of help. For indebted men can hardly, in their givings, be either consistent, conscien- tious or liberal. The law is a comprehensive one, embracing every species of loan on increase, whether the result of ecclesiastical polity or of commer- cial usage. One of the most serious results of this system is that, in time of panic, the means of the church are dissipated with those of commerce. True, there is the usual deceptive ledger inscription or a plentiful tender of worth- less paper, but the means, the means, are not in the strong box. The whole subject has a most important bearing on the progress of the gospel, and the comfortable maintenance of that ministry, the value of whose labors to this fallen world can never be sufficiently estimated. Not till the teachings of the church and of the schools are in accordance with the precepts of the Bible, can we expect large, steady and permanent support to the gospel of Christ, for all must admit that the credit system is one which eminently diverts men's minds from the peaceful duties of religion. It is one by which the social machine is everywhere completely overworked and overdriven. If the views I have expressed are correct, well may every heart tremble at the thought of the misery, sorrow, and sin which have for generations followed in the train of the credit or usury system, and never with more fatal results than in our own days. A calm and disinterested survey of the broad effects of this vice in all its bearings cannot but leave a fixed impression ■^hat it is one which has most powerfully prostituted the church and debased the general character of the christian world. I believe the church to be the grand conservator of the rights and liberties of man, and well it is for the human race that she is not soon moved from her position. She will, no doubt, long adhere to her present opinions, but the day will come when thickening events will bear this subject down upon her with tremendous force. Then, Bible in hand, shall she go forth, the teacher of the nations, and be made the happy instrument of weav- ing the garlands of domestic bliss and social joy around the pillars of eternal truth according to all the pattern showed to her in the Mount. — ticular—so [ri cation of pure and rs who in- in tlie way tho living beautiful, agency of ome down Jations, but )fe8sing to misses the 5 delivered nd yet her e of help, conscien- ry species f commer- in time of rce. True, of worth- rhe whole I, and the ors to this ngs of the the Bible, Jf Christ, ly diverts v^hich the Q. If the le at the llowed in •ults than in all its ias most ir of the lie rights oot soon present J subject I she go jf weav- r eternal 4" Often have I looked, with increasing admiration, upon an old portraii in my possession evidently drawn by a master hand. No painting in the most celebrated gallery can compare with it — its lines are original and perfect, its colouring inimitable, and no lapse of ages can tarnish its striking beauty. The longer we behold this picture the more we admire it. You will see it, reader, in the lifteenth Psalm. Let us look at it, once again, in all its full length beauty. Is it not the divine ideal of a man, perfect in all his parts, comely in all his proportions? Will you, or I, presume with sacrilegious hand, to mutilate this glorious model, to deface this perfect picture 7 Ah I who shall abide in His tabernacle? Who shall dwell in His holy hill? " He that putteth not out his money to usury." The ordinary ideas of modem expositors are fairly set forth as follows by Professor Pairbain, in his deeply instructive Exposition of the Prophet Eze- kiel : — " Perhaps what will strike most readers m the present day as chiefly peculiar in the description given of the righteous man, is the stress laid upon the abstaining from iisury : ' He hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase.' We fiind the same prominence, however, given to this feature in the still briefer description of the righteous by the Psalmist in the 15th Psalm : ' putteth not out his money to usury.' It arose in both cases from the strict prohibition in the law against lending money for interest to an Israelite. In several of the passages, it is clearly implied that the money to be lent was to the poor, which consequently ought to have been done in a . spirit of brotherly love, and not for the purpose of taking advantage of their necessities, and turning the loan into an occasion of trouble and oppression. The word denoting usury (from the verb to bite or eat) has respect to this vexatious and selfish mode of dealing with a brother's poverty. But as the law permitted the lending of money on usury to str. n