“The basest and meanest of all sins is theft.” “God give us men. A time like this demands
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor—men who will not lie.” What says our blessed Lord? “Woe unto you, Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers; therefore, ye shall receive the greater damnation.” Look at another case of theft, if possible, still more aggravating. An active member in a professedly evangelical church, borrowed a thousand dollars in gold, a widow’s dowry to support her declining years; and not long after this money was secured, the borrower (a wolf in sheep’s clothing!) placed the whole of his property in a position so as to prevent the poor widow from ever being able to collect a farthing of her money. Nor is this a solitary instance of barefaced iniquity in the same individual, who is living in a house richly furnished! “Let righteous laws for public good designed,
Chain up these wolves and tigers of mankind:
They have themselves no right to such employ,
To live like vultures—only to destroy.” Any one jewing another for the sake of obtaining an article for less than its real value (when able, at the same time, to pay the full price), is a thief. A faithful minister of the gospel, who keeps a boarding-house to sustain his family, informed us, a short time since, that a church-member, professing great sanctity, had defrauded him out of some hundreds of dollars by jewing and screwing him down every year in the price of board! And this same jewer and screwer is in affluent circumstances, wealthy—money enough and to spare. “Gold banished honor from the mind,
And only left the name behind.” “O man of God, flee these things.”