THE ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH.
This is what a prophet says:— “Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!” Isa. 5:8. Thus speaks an apostle:— “Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are rusted; and their rust shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out; and the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous One; He doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.” James 5:1-7. And all this we see. Witness the piling up of vast fortunes in a few years, months, and days, such as the world never witnessed before, and this at the expense and toil of the many. The world is heaping up its riches. In a little over a half century “Great Britain has more than trebled her wealth; France has quadrupled hers, while our own country, since 1850, has multiplied in riches sixfold.” The wealth is also being gathered into the hands of a few. Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, of Brooklyn, N. Y., a prominent business man and writer on economic questions, estimated (Forum, for November, 1889, and January, 1891) that $43,367,000,000, or seventy per cent. of the wealth of the country, is owned by 182,000 families, or by one and four-tenths per cent. of the population. Nine and two-tenths per cent. of the families own twelve per cent. of the wealth; while the rest of the families, eighty-nine and four-tenths per cent., own but eighteen per cent. of the total wealth. Mr. Shearman says: “The United States of America are practically owned by less than 250,000 persons, constituting less than one in sixty of its adult male population. Within thirty years, the present methods of taxation being continued, the United States of America will be substantially owned by less than one in 500 of the male population.” In a second article he contends that this is an under-estimate. Banquets are spread in palaces which cost from $100 to $300 per plate or guest, while in the very shadow of these palaces men and women in the image of God famish. Ten thousand dollars apiece are paid for pet dogs, for whose benefit a footman and maid are employed, while sweet babies die by the hundreds for want of proper food. One hundred thousand dollars are lavished upon a single dress while many go daily to death clothed in rags. Children of God are slaughtered through hunger, famine, and cold, while those who profess His name live delicately. They multiply their costly and unused garments till they are moth-eaten, while many die of exposure. They heap up gold and silver and treasure till it rusts, corrodes, cankers, while thousands suffer in extremest poverty. They become wanton in pleasure and feasting, while myriads die from starvation. This is a sign of the last days—the two extremes—and that most marked in a republic! And yet God would not have His people join with the revolutionists. “Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.”