Usury a Thief | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 19, 1879

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 24.

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Usury a Thief.

A FATHER has three sons, between whom he desires to divide his estate, value at $30,000.

He has two farms worth $10,000 each, and $10,000 in money.

To William and Henry he gives the farms, and to John the money.

William and Henry have the land, and each possess strong arms and skillful hands.

They have but to touch the rich resources of nature with the hand of labor and wealth leaps forth.

But before the productive forces of nature and the skill and labor of the boys can co-operate in the production of wealth, improvements have to be made, buildings constructed, teams and tools purchased, ground broken, seed provided and some crops cultivated, harvested, and sent to market. They must have money. John has money, but it will earn nothing, neither can he eat, drink, or wear it. It is useless to him as was Robinson Crusoe's keg of gold on the desolate isle to which he was banished.

If the father had divided land and money equally between the brothers, each would have been amply supplied with all that was necessary to insure prosperity, but William and Henry must borrow John's money to render their land productive, and John must rent or hire out his money for usury, for of itself it possesses no productive elements.

So John loans his money to his brothers for an indefinite period, taking a mortgage on their farms, bearing six per cent. semi-annual interest, and goes to work at his trade as a carpenter. The boys all marry and raise families.

John, by skill and industry accumulates a competency at his trade, and is not compelled to call on his brothers even for annual interest.

William and Henry also raise families, and plod along, well-to-do farmers, surrounded by everything that serves to make life happy.

In about twenty-two years the three brothers have each a son of mature age, whom the parents desire to start in life on as good a footing as their father placed them.

William and Henry take an inventory of their wealth, and find that on the $20,000 originally invested, they have made the usual three per cent. and their estates are each worth now $20,000. John calls on them for a settlement and payment of the principal and interest. Upon a careful calculation, his principal being $10,000, to which add semi-annual interest compounded, as is the practice in all banks, brokerage and money transactions, there is due him from each brother $20,136, sweeping their entire estates, and leaving them $136 in debt each.

Such is usury.