THE ROOT AND THE TREE by Charles M. Stone

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 29, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 35.

THE ROOT AND THE TREE.

By Charles M. Stone

THE census returns are now being published, and some of our large cities are disappointed because their increase of population has been no larger than the figures show. But this is not surprising, as many of them had expected to show an increase of as much as fifty per cent. during the last ten years. However, some of them have very nearly done so. The city of Buffalo, for instance, shows a gain of nearly thirty-eight per cent., having added to her population 96,555 since 1890. That city is now credited with 352,219. The gain in many of our other large cities has been marvelous. There seems to have been an exodus from the country; for the population of the nation has not increased in any such ratio as the population of the cities. This movement from the country to the cities seems to be in harmony with the prevailing spirit of these days. The men who make large fortunes live in the cities. The countryman who would be wealthy must do as the wealthy do, and he seeks his fortune in the city, content in cases to live for years on a very small income if only he may learn the secret of the accumulation of wealth. Country girls and boys flock to the cities by thousands to find employment as apprentices at various trades, clerks, bookkeepers, stenographers, etc., because parents "do not want their children to have to work as hard as they have had to work." Therefore they are educated for "positions," that they may have a better prospect of "getting on in the world," a better prospect of learning the ways of winning wealth, of "securing a competency."

And there is direct connection between the increased population of the cities, and the increased want and misery of the populations; a direct connection between the rapid increase of the social evil, and the overcrowding of centers of population. This migration downward is forcing downward the wage scale of thousands who were already struggling bitterly with poverty. As thousands crowd in, other thousands are crowded down, until the clerkship gives place to the sewing needle, and the working hours are stretched over to midnight, if by any possible exertion the cries of the hungry may be stopped; and to many there seems to be no opening but the wide-swinging door of evil, no employer but sin; and sin is there in every phase and shape and color. The tree of iniquity gains a prodigious growth by this abnormal and ever-increasing migration—and its root is "the love of money," the desire for wealth and luxury. It is a terrible object lesson, this misery that grows out of "the love of money."

Man can not pander to the love of money, and be laying up treasure in heaven at the same time; for "where your treasure is there will your heart be also." In such times as this, when the love of money seems to be the ruling passion of the world, the Christian needs to "set his face as a flint," to "stablish" his "heart," yielding all to God, and trusting Him, while seeking to save others from the ruin of the world.

C. M. S.