The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1897-08-31

whose hearts the greed of gold has not
burnt out all traces of humanity and
fair dealing and of that divinity
should be within U.s." But not many
mighty nor many rich shall be called.
Il was so of old. They who form great
syndicates and trusts to rob the people
and they who gather where others
have sown would be foremost among
those who would cruelty Him. For
it was He who said it and we know
that His saying is true that a rich man
can no more enter into the kingdom
than a camel can pass through the eye
of a needle. This saying may offend
some. His sayings did in His day and
'many left eff following after Him."
The great evil of this day is the wor
ship Of wealth, and it makes no matter
to it's Worshippers that We know that
every vast estate is necessarily accu
mulated by robbery of the people-for
there is a moderate limit in the nature
of things to the accommodations which
can be made by diligence, and thrift
and economy and honest industry.
The free opportunity for honest accu
mutations is the glory of u institu
tlons, but these vast estates are not
made in that way. They r made by
processes which should consign their
holders rather to your penitentiaries.
Their very siz9 proves they are not
honest accommodations. Was Christ
the Son of God9 He said that such
rich men could in no wise enter the
kingdom Of God. If it was true when
He said it, it is true to day. The SO
called ministers of God who pardon
such ofenses because of the gift Of a
small part of the sums stolen to col
leges, to churches, and sometimes to
the ministers Themselves are no whit
Better than the sellers Of indulgences
whom Luther scourged out of Gar
many.
Our people are being robbed by
wholesale. They do not receive the
just rewards of their labors. They are
being ~pauperized and kept in want
while a few men by trick and combina
tions, are gathering to themselves the
earnings OF a continent. Yet how many
ministers, how many leading church
members, how many church papers
are denoUncing the robbers and the
wrong as the Master did, and as it is
still written in His words How many
indeed are pursuing an opposite course?
I condemn no man. Let each ones
own conscience answer him.
Search all history and you will find
no age when the robbery Of the just
earnings Of the masses was more sys-
tematic, more shameless and less re-
sisted than to day. There was never a
time when the worship OF greet riches,
however badly acquired, was more
open than now. While the pure in
heart are communing with the invisible
| God on the summit, amid the clouds
and darkenness that are round about
Him, vast numbers, and among them,
as of old, many Levites are bowling
down to the calf of gold, and they say
to US "these be thy Gods, o Israel"
You know that when Moses and Joshua
reproached him with his conduct,
! Aaron laid the fault on the people and
said that to please them he had thrown
the gold ornaments into the fire and
there had come out his calf" imply
ing thet it was accidental Ghough he
did not dare to say SCI and that he was
in no wise responsible. So in this
country, in which the public opinion Of
today can bee me the law to morrow,
he who like Aaron does not enlighten
it, but on the contrary, without resist
ence to the robbery Of the people, bows
down to those who have a q Tired their
earnings, in effect says with the idola'
tiers of old, we did not do it, we merely
cast the gold into the fire, or permitted
it to be done, and there came out this
calf" Hence we are not to blame for
worshipping it. For my part, I believe
that something more is required and
that resistance to wrong is obedience
to God.
TO ALLIANCEMEN.