IF WRONGS COULD SPEAK

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 11, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 19.

IF WRONGS COULD SPEAK.

If stolen money, like laying hens, could cackle, what a racket there would be in some men's pockets and premises. If stolen goods, like chanticleer, could only crow, how many persons would be broken of their rest and kept awake by night. If the hire of laborers—kept back by fraud—could talk, like Balaam's beast, what braying would din some employers' ears. If the wrongs of the widow and the orphan could speak, how many unjust ones would be continually troubled by the ringing of voices in their ears, saying, “Give us our rights.” If some lordly mansions—reared by ill-gotten gain—could articulate, many a stone would cry out of the wall, and many a brick and beam from the timber would answer it: “Woe to him that procureth wicked gain for his house, that he may establish his nest on high.”

If all things unfairly gotten and wrongly detained could be set free and remanded to their rightful owners, what a wonderful exodus would there be from house to house, from person to person, from purse to purse, from capital to labor, from labor to capital. If some individual, going from house to house, could enter the parlors and chambers—plain and princely—whose furniture was bought with other men's money, and could set the several articles in motion—each in the direction of its rightful owner—what a movement there would be among the mirrors, what a rattling of silver-plate, knives, forks, and spoons; what a hustling of chairs and tipping of tables; and would not many a bed take up itself, and walk?

If evil spirits, at the present day, could enter into the various forms of property gotten by fraud—something besides swine would rush into the sea! Many a fat fancy horse—in the carriage or under the saddle—would make its way rapidly down “the steep,” and choke rider and all, in the depths.

“As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.” It is a great thing to have a conscience void of offense toward God and men; a great thing to be able to say: “I have wronged no one—corrupted no one—defrauded no one.”—Sel.