Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1888-08-25
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IS OF royalty, whether born or bred,
Of ecclesiastical or military nobility.
The day OF kings and thrones and
religious courts or military honors is
past. What VIC work for and earn
American nobility in the
highest degree.
Property is a trust; life is q SER
vice ; the poor are the beneficiaries;
the duty OF the trustee is to give
them food in due season the Judge
ment is an accounting; the self.ser-
yer is an Improbable servant; the
server of his age and race is a faith
full and wise servant, who has prov.
ed his capacity for rulership. This
is not figure; it is not Oriental ina.
gerry; it is not theological fiction;
it is plain, simple matter offact, pro
sale truth. The man who takes his
property to be his own and uses it
on himself is as truly guilty of EN-.
bezzlement as the clerk who filches
from his employers till. No Bible
student doubts this; but not many
Bible preachers are accustomed to
preach it, and fewer still of Bible
Christians adopt and act upon it.
Our country is rich. What made
it sol We have been digging coal
and iron out OF the Pennsylvania
hills, and pumping oil out of its
reservoirs; we have been gathering
grain from the wheat fields Of Dakc.
Ia, and cotton from the cotton fields
of Texas, and silver from the Rocky
Mountains, and Gold from the Pa
cific coast. Whose are they : Who
stored them theref .
It is His who put it there; and for
use of it or abuse of it we shall &C.
count to him. 1t is ahopefnl sign OF
American civilization that never be,
fore in the worlds history were there
so many men of wealth using their
wealth as trust, not as q private
possession. / visited, not long since,
one of the largest single mine own,
ers in Pennsylvania. He had built
up in the wilderness village with
FIVE thousand population. No roof
covered more than two tenements;
every tenement had about it ground
for q garden plot. The day school
was kept open ten months in the
year; evening schools afforded spe
cial studies; u great hall furnished
them with opportunity for every
kind of recreation, from ball to
lecture; a free library and reading
room gave an evening lounging'
place free from beer and tobacco;
there was not liquor shop in the
town; the ladies of the mansion
equipped every year Christmas.
tree for the children Of the village,
dressing many out OF the hundreds
of dolls with their own hands; but
what was best of all, the owner of
mine, and land, and cottages lived
in the midst of his workingmen, and
administered with his own hands
the estate which furnished the one
thousand workingmen with employ
ment, the five thousand villagers
with bread, and homes, and life. |
thought how it would have delight
ed the heart of Grim old Carlyle to
have visited Drifton, and how even
John Ruskin would have found
something to praise in such a min.
ing community.
Iurge that the power to make mon.
ey, like any other power, is trust
bestowed on the possessor for hu.
manity. The preacher who preach.
es for bis salary, not for the spiritual
well being of his parishioners, is
mercenary the physician who prac.
tees for his fees, not to cure the
sick, is a merceDary the lawyer
who pleads for his honorarium, not
for justice, is mercenary the poll
tician who enacts laws for what he
can make, not for the community, IS
a mercenary no less the manufac.
turer, the merchant, the trader, the
man on Change, who transacts his
business to make money, not to give
the community its meat in due seas.
on, is a mercenary. In the history
of the nineteenth century, the doc
trine that wealth is trust must
stand by the side of the doctrine
that labor is an honor and liberty is
an obedience. The materialism that
threatens the American Church is
not the materialism OF Herbert
Spencer. 1t is the materialism of
the railroad, the factory, the shop;
the materialism that puts thinghood
above manhood that does not know
that things were made for man, not
man for things-that God gives us,
not Irishmen to build our railroads,
but railroads to build Irishmen not
Hungarians to dig our mines, bat
mines to develop manhood In Hun.
gariang.
The American Revolution determin.
ed our right to try it [selfgovern-
menC on this continent without fear
of foreign Intervention a civil war
determined our right to try it with.
out fear of domestic disruption. We
have still to work the problem ont.
Whether q people diverse in race,
religion, and industry can live hap.
PLY and prosperously together, with
no other law than the invisible law
of right and wrong, and no other
authority than the unarmed authori-
ty OF conscience, is the question
which America has to solve for the
world.