THE MONEY POWER IN THE LIGHT OF THE PROPHETIC WORD.
THERE is no more startling development of the last quarter century than that of the money power, and its hold upon the nations and the manhood of the nations. It has been truly said that the people of the various civilized nations of earth are no longer under the governments of their respective nations, but are ruled by “The Invisible Empire,” the money power. As the well-known historian, Prof. John Clark Ridpath, LL.D., remarks (Arena for June):— “Not a nation in the world is exempt from the dominion of the Universal Monarchy. The political autonomy of every one has been surrendered, openly or covertly, to the will of a ruler whom none have seen, but before whom every State and principality, every republic and kingdom and empire, bends a supple knee.” “More than twenty thousand millions of war debt resting upon the nations of the world! . . . Twenty thousand millions of debt, and every dollar of it owned by the Invisible Empire! The interest at four per cent. amounts to eight hundred millions of dollars a year. And it is intended that this principal and this interest account shall run forever. While civilization continues—as long as mankind shall be organized into nations—so long will this intolerable incubus rest day and night on the labor of the world. Under the horrid nightmare every workingman in every country under the sun becomes and remains a slave. It is needless to say that such a debt will absorb the entire property of the world. It will drink the ocean dry. It will suck up, at the rate of eight hundred millions a year, the whole wealth of mankind, and then demand another planet to satisfy the vacuum in its infernal maw.” And this Invisible Empire is the Money Power. The nations of earth owe the Money Power the vast debt of twenty thousand millions. They pay—or the producers in the nations do—to the Money Power, year by year, the annual $800,000,000 of interest, while in all the world there are but 660,457,000 in gold coin! But we wish to call the attention of the reader to other facts, namely, That there is a power above that of the Invisible Empire, the Ruler of the Universe; That He foresaw the intense selfishness and greed of men to enrich themselves at the expense of their fellows; That He foresaw the skill and craft which would be employed in the mad ambition to use men as things, and so grasp the wealth of the world; That He foresaw that this ambition would be, humanly speaking, successful, and that riches would be “heaped together” “in the last days;” That He foresaw that this disregard of the poor and lowly of earth would arouse their hatred of the rich and lead to violence and crime; and, therefore, That He warns the rich of the evil which will come unless the power of wealth shall stay its hand and the rich man shall regard the poor as himself, and minister to his needs; That He foresaw that this warning will not be heeded, and rapine and bloodshed will certainly follow, and the rich be left desolate. And yet God does not sanction violence, but appeals to His suffering and oppressed children to be patient to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will right all wrongs. All this and more is told by the “more sure Word of Prophecy.” We have space for only three quotations, and shall be as brief as possible, commenting at times in brackets. The first prophecy is from the Epistle of James:— “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted; and their rust shall be for a testimony against you [in the day of judgment], and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up [“heaped together,” common version] your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields [a class representing all laborers], 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 [of war, of misery, of want, on the part of many]. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one [by oppressive laws, by force of circumstances]; he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.” James 5:1-7, R.V. This is a striking prophecy, declaring that woe will come upon the rich from those who are oppressed. Here is another from a more ancient prophet; it voices the Spirit of God in humanity crying out against its oppressions:— “Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that canst not look on perverseness [that is, to approve it], wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he; and makest men [God’s children] as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? He taketh up all of them with the angle, he catcheth them in his net, and gathereth them in his drag [wily schemes, by which men are controlled]; therefore he rejoiceth and is glad. Therefore he sacrificeth unto his net, and burneth incense unto his drag [glorifies and exalts his schemes]; because by them his portion is fat, and his meat plenteous. Shall he therefore empty his net, and not spare to slay the nations continually?” “Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; . . . a haughty man, that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as hell [sheol, the grave], and he is as death, and can not be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations [witness the world trust of the Standard Oil Company, and other world-wide confederations], and heapeth unto him all peoples. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Wo to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges [bonds, stocks, deeds, mortgages]. Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city, and to all that dwell therein.” Hab. 1:13-17; 2:4-8, R.V. Blood is not shed by violence alone. The life current may be tapped and its vitality diminished by other means. Insufficient food and drink, unsanitary surroundings, excess in labor, excess in charges for the necessities of life, are all sapping the life-blood of millions. But what does wealth have to do with these?—Simply this: Capitalists and wealthy corporations control these things. In the great teeming cities the power of wealth controls dwellings, fuel, provision, and even affects the air we breathe. In the country the great railways often swallow up all profit from the produce of the land, in excessive rates. And yet the thought of the rich man is not to oppress; it is simply to advance his own interests. The oppression is not meant; it is incidental, not objective to his plan. He regards it with indifference, as something deplorable, but which can not be helped. But “Hast Thou not said that what is done
Unto Thy least and humblest one
Is even done to Thee?” God regards it, and will remember His children and the injustice done them. But here is yet another prediction:— “And the songs of the palace [where the rich dwell] shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: the dead bodies shall be many; in every place shall they cast them forth with silence. Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail.” See Amos 8:1-12, R.V. These are God’s merciful forewarnings of coming dangers and perils, that both rich and poor may be saved. The duty and refuge of the rich are given in the following scripture:— “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” 1 Tim. 6:17-19. See also Luke 12:15-21; Matt. 6:19-21. God’s message for the poor, even the oppressed and afflicted, is, “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” James 5:7. Do not yield to the clamor of those who know not God. Neither anarchy nor rebellion is the remedy of the Christian. His hope is in God. The very condition of things as regards capital and labor, monopoly and industrial slavery, is a strong, clear evidence that we are “in the last days,” and that Christ’s coming is near. The Christian knows that human or Satanic rule is brief at best, and that God is just, loving, all-wise, eternal; and will leave his case in God’s hands, rather than resort to violent measures. Reader, in what is your hope? Is it in vain riches, which fly away, or which, at the longest, you must soon leave, even tho you heap them to the heavens? Is it in anarchy, nihilism, violence, politics, to overthrow the power of wealth? You may destroy men or systems; but you will not heal the wrong. Or, better, eternally, heaven-higher better, is your trust in the power and life and light of the love of Christ? There you are safe; for those who put their trust in Him “shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.”