BREAKING POINT OF DISCONTENT
Bishop Lawrence, of the Episcopal Church, recently spent some time in Wall Street, “seeking to raise a few millions there, toward the fifty million dollar church pension plan” for caring for superannuated preachers. The Wall Street Journal said the bishop “was astonished to find so many cases of wealth suddenly thrust upon an heir who had never been educated to deal with an income and its relation to personal expenditure, the church, charities, and the advancement of one’s fellow man.” The bishop gave as an illustration, the case of a young man who had always received from his father an allowance of spending money, but suddenly inherited an income of a hundred thousand a year. The young man said, “The wonder is that I did not go to pieces under such sudden freedom and large income.” Another young man, suddenly inheriting a large fortune, expanded his household and automobile expenditures, servant hire, etc., only to find that his liabilities were increasing and his pleasures and freedom decreasing. As suggested by the Wall Street Journal, in commenting upon these facts, “millions and millionaires have been made quickly in this country.” Large fortunes are indeed suddenly thrust upon many men at this time. Millions and millionaires are indeed made quickly; and the discussions of socialism, and the voices from the laboring men, are the unmistakable symptoms of the consequent disease that is becoming deeply rooted in the social system of the world. These conditions of concentrated wealth are growing more and more in every nation. Perhaps they have been developed more suddenly in this nation, but they are nevertheless quite as strong in other nations of the world. Men have many theories concerning them; and in the presentation of these theories, the discussions are becoming more and more pronounced and angry. The reaping time cannot be long delayed. When a few men, comparatively, have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend annually, while others do not know which way to turn for bread, there can be but one result. The discontentment will finally reach the point where it will break over all bounds; and revolution, anarchy, and violence will be the consequence. The Bible has strongly pictured these things for this time. Among the most striking prophecies of the sacred Word are those pertaining to the disturbances that will be created in the world over the questions of wealth and poverty. And God does not give us one sign alone to tell us when the end is approaching. He gives us very many of them; and among the many unmistakable signs which the reverent believer in God’s word was to note as showing the approaching end, is the great amassing of wealth, and the perilous times that grow out of it. Who can regard the conditions of this time without a conviction of some great, impending event, whose forerunner is strife, revolution, and anarchy running riot? Only he who studies carefully and trusts in the infallible statements of the divine Book can have a sense of calmness before this approaching storm.