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<PAGE 385>
STUDY VIII
THE CRIES OF THE REAPERS
The Conservative Element of Society--Peasants, Farmers--New Conditions
in Christendom--Agrarian Agitation--Its Causes--Gold and Silver
Standards are Factors--The Scripture Prediction Fulfilling--
These Things Related to the Battle of The Great Day.
"Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to
deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath." `Zeph. 1:18` THE thoughtful
student of history, while following our theme and noting the truthfulness of
the facts presented and the reasonableness of the conclusions drawn, may still
feel uncertain as to the outcome. He may say to himself, "The writer forgets
that there is in the civilized as well as in the semi-civilized countries a
large, a predominating social element which is extremely conservative, and has
always constituted the backbone of society--the farmers." But not so: we
have not forgotten this fact, and we recognize its importance. Looking back,
we see that Europe would frequently have been thrown into the convulsions of
revolution had it not been for this very conservative element. We see that the
revolutions in France were chiefly instituted and carried on by the working
class of the larger cities and that the element which finally brought rest and
peace was the conservative peasant-farmer. The reasons for this condition of
things are not difficult to find. (1) The farmer's life contains less of excitement
and social friction. (2) His mind is less drawn to the advantages of wealth,
and <PAGE 386> his ambition for wealth and
luxury lies comparatively dormant. (3) He is more or less attached to the soil,
and learns to depend on it alone, trusting to nature's rewards in return for
labor. (4) The measure of education and consequent mental awakening and activity
amongst farmers has always heretofore been quite limited. As a result of all
these conditions, the farming class of the civilized world has long been pointed
to as an example of frugal prosperity and contentment.
But the last thirty years have witnessed a wonderful
change in the affairs of farmers--in many respects a very
advantageous change. The farmers of the United States,
Canada, Great Britain and Ireland have always been on a
different footing from the farmers of the remainder of the
world. They are neither serfs nor peasants, nor ignorant,
nor dull, but intelligent, even when not educated. Then the
Civil War in the United States had the effect of drawing together
representatives from every part of the country and
immigrants from all parts of the world, and it furnished a
certain kind of education--knowledge of things and affairs.
It lifted the ideas of farmers more completely than ever out
of the rut of centuries, and brought them into contact and
sympathy with the sentiments and ambitions which move
city life. As a result the old log schoolhouse no longer satisfied
the ambitions of the country boy and girl, and with the
increase of higher schools and colleges and seminaries came
also the increase of literature (especially newspapers),
which has been a remarkable factor in the development of
the people of the United States--foreign-born as well as native-born
citizens. The result here has been that to agriculture
has been applied much of the system and tact which
belong to city business life, together with a multitude of inventions
which have tended to decrease the drudgery of the
farmer and to vastly increase the product of his land. As a
<PAGE 387>
result of these conditions not only has the country population
vastly increased, but the city population has kept
pace with it, and yet, beyond supplying food for our own
ninety millions, we are able to distribute to the remainder
of the world nearly eight hundred million dollars worth of
farm products annually--about eight-tenths of our total exports.
This until the last twenty-five years has meant great
prosperity to American farmers; and with all this prosperity
came to the farmer a share in life's comforts and in the
general desire for wealth and luxury, and consequently a
measure of dissatisfaction with his conditions which, nevertheless,
are far superior in many respects to those of farmers
in other parts of the world.
Meantime, the Franco-Prussian war exercised a somewhat
similar influence upon the peoples of France and
Germany--to a much less extent, however--and their
awakening has come in a different manner. The animosity
between France, the conquered, and Germany, the conqueror,
which has prevailed since their war, has induced
both countries, and indirectly induced Italy, Austria and
Russia, to establish a military training system which lays
hold upon every young man of those countries and compels
his instruction in military tactics and discipline, and incidentally
his contact with numbers of his fellows. All this
furnishes a most beneficial education; besides, in the barracks
certain hours are devoted to book-studies. While the
maintenance of these standing armies has seemed to be a
terrible crime against the peoples of these various nations,
removing from the channels of domestic activity one to
three years in the life of each male member of society, it has
nevertheless, we believe, proved a wonderful influence for
enlightenment; and the nations mentioned are awakened,
energized and ambitioned as they never were before. And,
of course, in proportion as education has come in, and a
<PAGE 388>
measure of contact with the conveniences and comforts and
luxuries of city life and wealth, proportionately a measure
of discontent has sprung up--a feeling that others are prospering
better than they, and that they must be on the lookout
for a favorable opportunity to better their conditions--
a laxity in morals has also been engendered.
Meantime, the shackles of ignorance and superstition
along religious lines have also been giving way, although,
the influence of Papacy and the Greek Church is still very
great. And while it is only half believed that the priest,
bishop and pope have power to consign to purgatory, or to
eternal torment, or to admit to heaven, yet their power is still
to a great extent feared, reverenced. On the whole, however,
a great change has come over all classes from the religious
point of view. The tendency amongst Protestants has,
like a pendulum, swung to the opposite extreme, so that, although
forms of godliness and piety are still observed, much
of the true reverence has departed from the Protestant masses.
The so-called "higher criticism" and theories of evolution
have practically destroyed reverence for the Word of God.
And these theories blending now with oriental Theosophy
are making shipwreck of the true Christian faith of hundreds
of thousands, both in Europe and America.
All of these influences, it should be observed, have already
for some years been tending toward a change in the
attitude of the class heretofore known as "the conservative
yeomanry of Christendom." And now, just at a critical juncture,
we behold some mighty influence which gradually
yet assiduously has been at work, and is now at work, undermining
the prosperity of this conservative class. For the
past twenty years farmers of the various civilized nations
have been finding it more and more difficult to gain a competency
or a share in the comforts and luxuries of life. True,
<PAGE 389>
the prices of their products have recently gone somewhat
upward. But this is more than offset by the cost of improved
machinery, etc., they hoping, nevertheless, that the increase
of production would more than compensate; and hoping
also that, somehow or other, prices would by and by maintain
a proper equilibrium instead of fluctuating to their
continued disadvantages.
While the American farmer has been beset with these
conditions, his European brother was faring even worse;
because his conditions were less favorable: (1) To start with,
he had oftener a rented farm, and a smaller one comparatively.
(2) He had not the same facilities for obtaining
improved machinery. For these reasons the European
farmer has not been at all able to offset each fall in price of
wheat by a larger production in quantity; and he has suffered
proportionately more than his American brother, except
as he turned his attention to the sugar beet.
Philosophers, statesmen and scientists have been giving
the subject some consideration, and very generally have
hastily come to the conclusion that every fall in price of
wheat is wholly the result of "overproduction." Believing that
they have found the true answer, they drop the matter
there. But some, more careful, have studied the question
out, and examined statistics, and find that it is not true that
the granaries of the world are being stored with vast supplies of wheat
for the needs of coming years. They find on the contrary that
comparatively little wheat is carried from year to year, and
that practically the world is producing no more wheat than
is being consumed.
Mr. Robt. Lindblom, a member of the Chicago Board of
Trade, made a study of the subject, and in a communication
to the Agricultural Department of the United
States Government, dated Dec. 26, 1895, said:
<PAGE 390>
"The aggregate production of wheat, in the principal
wheat growing countries, has not increased; for while it is
true that some of the wheat countries show an occasional increase,
it is equally true that other countries show a corresponding
decrease. In order to be absolutely impartial, let
us take the last crop from which we have complete returns,
namely that of 1893.
"As regards foreign crops, I use the figures furnished by
the special foreign correspondent of the Board of Trade
and compiled by the secretary of the Chicago Board of
Trade, and in regard to exports and domestic crops I use
the figures of your department. I am compelled to omit the
comparison as regards Austro-Hungary, because I have not
in my possession the figures for 1893, but outside of this I
beg to submit to you a statement showing the production of
wheat in all the principal countries for 1893, as compared
with 1883:
1893 1883
England...................... 53,000,000 76,000,000
France.......................277,000,000 286,000,000
Russia.......................252,000,000 273,000,000
United States................396,000,000 421,000,000
Germany......................116,000,000 94,000,000
Italy........................119,000,000 128,000,000
India........................266,000,000 287,000,000
------------- -------------
Total.............1,479,000,000 1,565,000,000
"From the above it will be seen that in 1893 the principal
wheat growing countries in the world produced 86,000,000
bu. less than ten years before, while, according to your figures,
the production in Argentina has increased only
60,000,000 bu. during the same time. In 1871 Great Britain
produced over 116,000,000 bu. of wheat; and in two years
preceding and succeeding that year the crop was
105,000,000 bu., or an average for the three years of
109,000,000 bu., while this year the crop is slightly over
48,000,000 bu., according to the figures furnished by the
special foreign correspondent of the Board of Trade, residing
in London.
"If it were true that the United States were being supplanted
<PAGE 401>
security. In 1896 all the world's gold, coined and uncoined,
was figured at less than sixty hundred million dollars
($6,000,000,000), while the public and private debts of the
United States were estimated at more than three times this
sum. Russia had been trying for years before 1873 to return
from a debased paper money to a silver standard, and as
she could not get silver enough she is still on a paper basis.
We mention these matters to show that the fall of silver was
premeditated; that it was caused, not by the law of supply and
demand (it was more in demand than gold in 1872, and
brought a premium over gold), but by legislation.
But is it conceivable that the representatives of the
people of all the nations of "Christendom" entered into a
conspiracy against the heathen and against their own farmers?
No: the facts do not bear out such a conclusion; but
rather indicate that the money power (which we shall term
"Shylock") engineered the scheme so as to deceive legislators
as to the results to be expected. We have the testimony
of Prince Bismarck, and of many United States'
Congressmen, to this effect. Thus, "by fraud," the thin wedge
of legislation was inserted between the two halves of the
world's money, with the effect of depreciating silver and
doubling the value of gold; and now, when the evil is
discerned, statesmen stand aghast at the extent of the
rupture, and realize that the restoration of silver to its
former place would work hardship and loss to the creditor
class in offset to the injury and loss already experienced
by the debtor class by the debasement of silver. Besides,
"Shylock" having obtained an advantage so valuable
(doubling the value of all his possessions and incomes),
would permit society to go into convulsions of panic or
revolution rather than lose this grip upon the financial
lifeblood of humanity. "Shylock" has the power to enforce
his demands. He controls the numerous class of borrowers
<PAGE 402>
who are supplicants at his bank-counters: he controls
the national governments, all of which are borrowers, and
he controls the press, by which the public is encouraged to
trust "Shylock's" honor and benevolence and to fear his
anger and power. In addition, a very large and influential
class of salaried officials and clerks and skilled workmen
find that their interests are in accord with "Shylock's" policy;
and if not his supporters, they are lukewarm or cool in
their opposition to his policy, and inclined to say little or
nothing against it.
Among the many testimonies respecting the deception
and fraud practiced, the following few will suffice:
SENATOR THURMAN said:
"When the bill was pending in the Senate we thought it
was simply a bill to reform the mint, regulate coinage and
fix up one thing and another, and there is not a single man
in the Senate, I think, unless a member of the committee
from which the bill came, who had the slightest idea that it
was even a squint toward demonetization." Congressional
Record, volume 7, part 2, Forty-fifth Congress, second session,
page 1,064.
SENATOR CONKLING in the Senate, on March 30, 1876,
during the remarks of Senator Bogy on the bill (S. 263) To
Amend the Laws Relating to Legal Tender of Silver Coin,
in surprise inquired:
"Will the Senator allow me to ask him or some other Senator
a question? Is it true that there is now by law no American
dollar? And, if so, is it true that the effect of this bill is to
make half-dollars and quarter-dollars the only silver coin
which can be used as a legal tender?"
SENATOR ALLISON, on February 15, 1878, said:
"But when the secret history of this bill of 1873 comes to
be told, it will disclose the fact that the House of Representatives
intended to coin both gold and silver, and intended
to place both metals upon the French relation, instead of
on our own, which was the true scientific position with reference
<PAGE 403>
to this subject in 1873, but that the bill afterward
was doctored."
Hon. WILLIAM D. KELLEY, who had charge of the bill, in
a speech made in the House of Representatives, March 9,
1878, said:
"In connection with the charge that I advocated the bill
which demonetized the standard silver dollar I say that,
though the chairman of the committee on coinage, I was
ignorant of the fact that it would demonetize the silver dollar
from our system of coins, as were those distinguished
Senators, Messrs. Blaine and Voorhees, who were then
members of the House, and each of whom a few days since
interrogated the other: 'Did you know it was dropped when
the bill passed?' 'No,' said Mr. Blaine, 'did you?' 'No,' said
Mr. Voorhees, 'I do not think that there were three members
in the house that knew it.'"
Again, on May 10, 1879, Mr. KELLEY said:
"All I can say is that the committee on coinage, weights
and measures, who reported the original bill, were faithful
and able, and scanned the provisions closely; that as their
organ I reported it; that it contained provision for both the
standard silver dollar and the trade dollar. Never having
heard until a long time after its enactment into law of the
substitution in the Senate of the section which dropped the
standard dollar, I profess to know nothing of its history; but
I am prepared to say that in all the legislation of this country
there is no mystery equal to the demonetization of the
standard silver dollar of the United States. I have never
found a man who could tell just how it came about or
why."
SENATOR BECK, in a speech before the Senate, January
10, 1878, said:
"It (the bill demonetizing silver) never was understood
by either House of Congress. I say that with full knowledge
of facts. No newspaper reporter--and they are the most vigilant
men I ever saw in obtaining information--discovered
that it had been done."
<PAGE 404>
Did space permit we could quote similar forceful language
from many others. The very title of the bill was misleading;
it was called: "An Act Revising the Laws Relative
to the Mint, Assay Officers and Coinage of the United
States"; and the demonetization of silver was hidden by (1)
the provision of section 14, that a gold dollar should
thenceforth "be the unit of value"; and (2) by section 15,
which defines and specifies the silver coins, but entirely
omits to mention the "standard" silver dollar. The Act of
June 22, 1874, finished the killing of the "standard" silver
dollar without so much as naming it, by simply providing
that no other coins except those mentioned in the Act of
1873 should be minted. And President U. S. Grant, whose
signature made the act a law, it is said, did not know of its
character, and so declared four years after, when the effect
began to be apparent. Indeed, few but the long-headed
"financiers" took much notice of specie, as the nation had
not yet resumed specie payments and this was supposed to
be a helpful preparatory step in that direction.
Mr. MURAT HALSTEAD, editor of the Cincinnati Commercial
Gazette, was one of the able men of his day. The following
from his pen under date of October 24, 1877, is
quoted from the New York Journal:
"This, the British gold policy, was the work of experts
only. Evasion was essential to success in it, and possibly because
coin was not in circulation, and, being out of public
view, it could be tampered with without attracting attention.
The monometallic system of the great creditor nation
was thus imposed upon the great debtor nation without
debate."
The following words are publicly credited to the late Col.
R. G. INGERSOLL:
"I do ask for the remonetization of silver. Silver was demonetized
by fraud. It was an imposition upon every solvent
man, a fraud upon every honest debtor in the United
<PAGE 405>
States. It assassinates labor. It was done in the interest of
avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest men."
That the effect would be what it is was foretold by numerous
statesmen upon the floors of Congress as soon as the
true situation was realized--1877 to 1880. Some were blind
to the issue, and some were quieted by self-interest, and
some relied upon the advice of "financiers," but others
spoke valiantly against the wrong.
The late Hon. JAMES G. BLAINE said in a speech before
the United States' Senate (1880):
"I believe the struggle now going on in this country and
in other countries for a single gold standard would, if successful,
produce widespread disaster in and throughout the
commercial world. The destruction of silver as money, and
the establishment of gold as the sole unit of value, must
have a ruinous effect on all forms of property except those
investments which yield a fixed return in money. These would be
enormously enhanced in value, and would gain a disproportionate
and unfair advantage over every other species
of property. If, as the most reliable statistics affirm,
there are nearly $7,000,000,000 of coin or bullion in the
world, very equally divided between gold and silver, it is
impossible to strike silver out of existence as money without
results that will prove distressing to millions, and utterly
disastrous to tens of thousands. I believe gold and silver
coin to be the money of the constitution; indeed, the money
of the American people anterior to the constitution, which
the great organic law recognized as quite independent of its
own existence. No power was conferred on Congress to declare
either metal should not be money; Congress has,
therefore, in my judgment, no power to demonetize either.
If, therefore, silver has been demonetized, I am in favor of
remonetizing it. If its coinage has been prohibited, I am in
favor of ordering it to be resumed. I am in favor of having it
enlarged."
The late SENATOR VANCE said later:
"The power of money and its allies throughout the world
have entered into this conspiracy to perpetrate the greatest
<PAGE 406>
crime of this or any other age, to overthrow one-half of the
world's money and thereby double their own wealth by
enhancing the value of the other half which is in their
hands. The money changers are polluting the temple of our
liberties."
The United States' Government despatched official letters
to its representatives in foreign countries, requesting reports
on monetary affairs. The report of Mr. Currie,
Minister to Belgium, widely published, is a remarkable
showing, in harmony with the experiences of the people of
the United States. He reports the following reply to his
questions given by the Hon. Alfonse Allard, Belgian Director
of Finance:
"Since 1873 a crisis, consisting in a fall in all prices, exists
continually, nor does it appear possible to arrest its progress.
This fall in prices, reacting on wages, is now evolving a
social and industrial crisis.
"You ask me why we returned in 1873 to monometallism,
limping though it be. I can conceive no other reason, unless
that it was to please a certain class of financiers who profited
thereby--a class supported by theories invented and
defended at that time by some political economists, notably
by members of the Institute of France.
"You ask what influence these monetary measures have
had in Belgium on industry and wages? Money, which was
already scarce in 1873, has become still scarcer, and that
fall in prices which was predicted has taken place. The average
fall in the price of all the products of labor is 50 per
cent since 1873--that of cereals over 65 per cent. Industry is
no longer remunerative, agriculture is ruined, and everybody
is clamoring for protection by duties, while our ruined
citizens think of war. Such is the sad condition of Europe."
In a letter to the National Republican League (June 11,
1891), Senator J. D. CAMERON said:
"The single gold standard seems to us to be working ruin
with a violence that nothing can stand. If this influence is to
continue for the future at the rate of its action during the
<PAGE 407>
twenty years since the gold standard took possession of the
world, some generation, not very remote, will see in the
broad continent of America only a half-dozen overgrown
cities keeping guard over a mass of capital and lending it
out to a population of dependent laborers on the mortgage
of their growing crops and unfinished handiwork. Such
sights have been common enough in the world's history,
but against it we all rebel. Rich and poor alike; Republicans,
Democrats, Populists; labor and capital; churches
and colleges--all alike, and all in solid good faith, shrink
from such a future as this."
English financiers know very well why the farmers of the
world, and especially the farmers of the United States and
Canada, who export wheat, are suffering; and they sometimes
confess that it is their own selfishness. For instance, we
quote from the editorial columns of the Financial News
(London), April 30, 1894, as follows:
"We have frequent diplomatic differences with the
United States; but, as a rule, there is seldom associated with
these any sense of animus between the peoples of the two
countries, and squabbles pass over and are forgotten. But
now we are encouraging the growth of a feeling that, on a
question which affects the prosperity of millions of individual
Americans, this country is inclined to entertain views
unfriendly to the States. We know, of course, that the unfriendliness
is accidental, and that our monetary policy is
controlled by purely selfish considerations--so purely selfish
that we do not mind seeing India suffering from our action
much more than America does...
"Senator Cameron points a plain moral when he remarks
that if the United States would venture to cut herself
adrift from Europe and take outright to silver, she would
have all America and Asia at her back, and would command
the markets of both continents. 'The barrier of gold
would be more fatal than any barrier of a custom house.
The bond of silver would be stronger than any bond of free
trade.' There can be no doubt about it, that if the United
States were to adopt a silver basis tomorrow, British trade
<PAGE 408>
would be ruined before the year is out. Every American industry
would be protected, not only at home, but in every
other market. Of course, the States would suffer to a certain
extent through having to pay her obligations abroad in
gold; but the loss on exchange under this head would be a
mere drop in the bucket compared with the profits to be
reaped from the markets of South America and Asia, to say
nothing of Europe. The marvel is that the United States has
not long ago seized the opportunity, and but for the belief
that the way of England is necessarily the way to commercial
success and prosperity, undoubtedly it would have
been done long ago. Now, Americans are awakening to the
fact that, 'so long as they narrow their ambition to becoming
a larger England' they cannot beat us. It has been a
piece of good luck for us that it has never before occurred to
the Americans to scoop us out of the world's markets by going
on a silver basis, and it might serve us right if, irritated
by the contemptuous apathy of our government to the
gravity of the silver problem, the Americans retaliate by
freezing out gold. It could easily be done...There have
not been wanting, of late, indications of growing irritation
with this country for its dog-in-the-manger attitude towards
a question (the silver question) that is convulsing two
continents, and gravely compromising the future of the
poorer states in Europe."
That the farmers' cry, that reward for toil is kept back by
fraud, is general to all gold-standard countries--to all
Christendom--we quote as follows:
Under date September 22, 1896, the New York World
published a lengthy cable message, signed by leading agricultural
men of Europe, met as an International Agricultural
Congress, at Budapest, Hungary, addressed to the
then Presidential candidate W. J. Bryan. It said:
"We wish you success in your struggle against the domination
of the creditor class, which during the past twenty-three
years has secured both in Europe and America, monetary
legislation destructive of the prosperity of your farmers and others
...We believe that, failing such restoration (of silver to
<PAGE 409>
money privileges), the gold premium throughout all Asia
and South America will continue to rob the farmer (of
America and Europe) of all rewards for his toil, and that
your election may avert from Europe serious agrarian and
social troubles now pending."
The New York World, under date of September 24, 1896,
published the following words of Prince Bismarck to Herr
von Kardorf, leader of the Free Conservative Party in the
German Reichstag:
"I am too old to go to school over the currency issue, but I
recognize that, although I acted in 1873 on what I regarded
as the best advice, my action was too precipitate in view of
the results which have followed.
"The one class that we cannot afford to estrange is the
farming class. If they are convinced, and they assure you
they are convinced, that agricultural depression is peculiar to these
monetary changes, our government must review its position."
The present extreme depression of silver, and of all commodities
sold on a silver basis, came very gradually--for
two reasons. (1) It required time and manipulation to depress
silver, a commodity still in great demand by more
than one-half the world's population. (2) Silver mine owners
and others directly interested, together with statesmen
who foresaw the coming evil, pressed their arguments so
forcibly in the United States' Congress that expedients were
resorted to, such as the Remonetization Act of 1878, and
the Silver Purchasing Act of 1890. But expedients were
found impracticable. Silver must either be a money with
full, equal power with gold as legal tender, or else it must be
considered a merchantable commodity like diamonds,
wheat, etc., and be subject to fluctuations according to supply
and demand; and when in 1893 the last of these expedients
was repealed, silver at once dropped to one-half
the price of gold, and all the evils of its demonetization were
felt to their full in 1895, except as the consequent panic
may be far-reaching, progressive and enduring.
<PAGE 410>
Here, then, are the facts:
(1) The reapers of the world's harvests, the farmers of
"Christendom," are in distress, notwithstanding modern
machinery, and are crying out loudly to fellow citizens and
legislators for relief. (These cries are stopped temporarily by
the rise in the price of wheat, caused probably by certain
shortages in southeastern Europe, in Russia, Australia and
Argentina; but just as soon as these conditions change, and
the whole world has its average crops, the price of wheat
may follow the price of silver down to 43 cents--except circumstances
intervene to alter conditions--and the cries of the
reapers will ring out in greater desperation than ever.)
(2) Legislators realize the difficulty and how it came
about, and declare that it came by fraud, by the deceptions
of financiers, the money-doctors.
(3) Legislators who see that it would cost a panic, and
probably a revolution, to correct the resultant unfavorable
conditions conclude that, as the disease cannot be worse
than such a remedy, they would best do nothing so radical.
Hence silver will never be restored--remonetized 16 to 1.
(4) It is admitted on all hands that this "fraud" is not only
crushing and discouraging the farmers, but also that it is
angering and embittering this hitherto greatest conservative
element of society.
(5) All the thinking people of the world are agreed that
the laboring and mechanical classes of Christendom are
ripe for a revolution which would sweep present social institutions
with a besom of destruction, and that, if the large
and hitherto conservative farming element were to join the
ranks of the discontents and revolutionists, the combination
would be irresistible.
(6) Evidences on every side are that a very few years will
suffice to bring about such an uprising.
<PAGE 411>
Whoever will compare all these facts with James' prophecy
must be impressed with its accurate fulfilment, point by
point, and should set it down as another indubitable testimonial
to the divine foreknowledge of our day and its affairs,
as preparations for the great time of trouble which is
to make ready a highway for Immanuel and his glorious
reign of peace on earth and good will toward men.
Let us read James' prophecy (5:1-9) again:
"Come now, you rich, weep and lament over those miseries
of yours which are approaching. Your securities have
become worthless, and your garments have become moth-eaten.
Your gold and your silver have become rusted; and
the rust of them will be for a testimony against you, and
will consume your bodies like fire. You have heaped together
treasures for the last days. Behold! that reward
which you have fraudulently withheld from those laborers
who harvested your fields, cries out; and the loud cries of
the reapers have entered the ears of the Lord of armies! You
have lived delicately, in self-indulgence, upon the land and
been wanton. You have nourished [fed] your hearts in the
day of [your] slaughter. You [your class] condemned, you
[your class] murdered the Just One [Christ], and he resisted
you not." [Can it be that the Lord wished us to notice that
the Jewish bankers and financiers, more than others, are
prominent in this fraud of keeping back the wages of the
reapers? and is there therefore special significance in the
words, "You killed, you murdered the Just One?"]
"Be you patient, then, brethren, till the presence of the
Lord [who will adjust matters righteously--lifting up him
that is poor and him that hath no helper, and taking vengeance
on all evildoers]. Behold the husbandman, anticipating
the fruit of the earth, waits patiently for it--until he
shall receive both the early and the later harvest. Be you
also patient, establish your hearts, because the presence of
the Lord has approached. Add not to each other's sorrows,
brethren, that ye be not punished [also]; behold, the Judge
is standing at the doors."
<PAGE 412>
The Rule of Equity
"Hail to the Lord's Anointed,
Jehovah's blessed Son!
Hail, in the time appointed,
His reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression,
To set the captives free,
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity.
"He comes with succor speedy
To those who suffer wrong;
To help the poor and needy,
And bid the weak be strong;
To give them songs for sighing,
Their darkness turn to light,
Whose souls, condemned and dying,
Were precious in his sight.
"To him let praise unceasing
And daily vows ascend;
His kingdom, still increasing,
Shall be without an end:
The tide of time shall never
His covenant remove;
No, it shall stand forever,
A pledge that God is love."
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BIBLE
TRUTH KEYS