MONEY:
NATU  RE,:IISTOBR, JS I S, AND
RESPONSIBILITIES.
PHILADELPHIA:
AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,
No. 146 CHESTNUT STEET.
LONDON:
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.




NoE.-The American Sunday-schoo Union have made an
arrangement with the London Reigios Tract Society, to publish, concurrently with them, such of their valuable works as
are best suited to our circulation. In making the selection,
reference will be had to the general utility of the volumes, and
their sound moral tendency. They will occupy a distinct place
on our catalogue, and will constitute a valuable addition to our
stock of books for family and general reading.
As they will be, substantially, reprints of the London edition,
the credit of their general character will belong to our English
brethren, and not to us; and we may add, that the republication of them, under our joint imprint, involves us in no responsibility beyond that of a judicious selection. We cheerfully
avail ourselves of this arrangement for giving wider influence
and value to the labours of a sister institution so catholic in
its character and so efficient in its operations as the London
Religious Tract Sociey.
*  The present volume is issued under the above arrangement.




CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Page
THE MONEY-MAKER: A SHORT LESSON IN SOCIAL
ANATOMY...                                5
CHAPTER II.
MONEY-MAKING: HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH..     20
CHAPTER III.
THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY: A FEW WORDS ABU..
CAPITAL.......  4
CHAPTER IV.
MONEY CURRENT: A FEW WORDS ABOUT GOLD, SILVER,
AND BANK NOTES........74
CHAPTER V.
THE MORALS OF MONEY: THE FALLACIES AND FAILINGS OF MONIED MEN...  ~. o   132
ii




iv                 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
Page
MODELS FOR MONIED MEN: BENEVOLENCE SPEAKING
BY EXA)MPLE.~~.161
APPENDIX.
ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OP SAVINGS' BANKS... 189




MONEY.
CHAPTER I.
THE MONEY-MAKER: A SHORT LESSON IN SOCIAL
ANATOMY.
THE subject of this little volume is MONEY; that
powerful agent which sets in motion the various
and complihated wheels of society, and without
which the whole mighty machine would speedily
come to a pause. Not less important also is the
influence of money on individual interests. So
greatly has it been prized by mankind, that
it has even been boldly defined as an object,
the  possession  or non-possession of which
makes the difference whether life be an enjoyment or a task; whether it be a walk over a
smooth verdant lawn amidst fragrant flowers
and aromatic shrubs, or a wearisome journey
through thorns and briers. Poets have sung,
moralists have declaimed, and philosophers
have speculated, respecting money. It is the
object which has occupied the mind and enthralled the affections in all ages. Five thousand years have rolled along their course, but
amidst the mighty alterations which the lapse
1*             v




6                  MONEY.
of time has wrought, no abatement is witnessed
in the eagerness with which the vast mass of
mankind pursue money as the great object of
life. Knowledge, however, has - poured light
upon this as upon all other subjects. If it has
not led men to love money less than their forefathers did, it has at least enabled them better
to understand the laws which regulate its production and distribution; it has shown also
that although a power liable to great abuses,
it deserves to be rescued from the indiscriminate
denunciations in which some have indulged,
and to be viewed in the light of a beneficial
and social agent devised by God for the welfare
of men.
It is not our intention, in the present treatise,
to speak of money merely as it is known to our
readers in the familiar shape of gold and silver
coin, or bank notes. While largely adverting
to these topics, we shall take, in their proper
places, a more comprehensive view of the subject. It will be our aim accordingly to show,
in a popular manner, the wisdom of the present constitution of society, of which money
is the grand mainspring. We shall then endeavour to explain the mode in which that
material wealth of which money is the representative is acquired.  The history of gold,
silver, and other symbols of value will next
pass in review; the uses and abuses of money
will be likewise noticed; and  some examples will be furnished of men who largely
benefited their day and generation by the right




THE MONEY-MAKER.             7
employment of this great talent. The philosophy, history, use, and abuse of money, form,
in short, our theme.
We have said that money is the great motive
power which sets in action the complicated
wheels of society. It is necessary, however, to
a full comprehension of this statement, that
the principles upon which society has been
framed by the all-wise Creator should be clearly
understood, especially as very erroneous theories have been widely disseminated, not only
on the continent but in our own country, upon
the subject-theories which would discard the
use of money, and propose as its substitute
some wild and untried organizations of labour.
If these views were merely speculative we
might pass them by without concern, but they
are eminently practical, and if carried out would
inflict enormous injury upon our social interests.
They would cripple the money-making energies
of the social system, and this we do not scruple
to regard as one of the worst evils of a temporal
kind which could befall us.  When society is
i' making money," it is acquiring a larger stock
of those things which add to the convenience and
happiness of its members. Hence it is a serious
thing when society ceases to grow rich.  We
may know then that the limit of future comfort
is not far off, and that an epoch of privation is
about to commence.
Society is often spoken of, in the language
of personification, as a sentient being. This
analogy is not altogether fanciful; there is




8                  MONEY.
much truth in it. Like the human body, it is
endowed with " many members," each of which
is fitted to discharge a distinct " office," while
all are absolutely inter-dependent on each
other.  On examining our own physical constitution, we find it to be a most ingeniously
constructed mechanism.  The hand, the eye,
and the ear, are marvels; so also are the bloodvessels and nerves, by means of which a constant and instantaneous communication is kept
up with every corner of the system. But if we
contemplate society with an eye to its internal
arrangements, we shall be struck with contrivances, if we may so call them, equally
remarkable.  We see a vast array of different
talents and employments, a wide labyrinth of
passions and pursuits, all working together with
a wonderful degree of harmony, each falling in
with, and aiding the peculiar action of the rest.
It is true we can also perceive here and there
much that is unsightly and that betokens imperfect action; but this no more weakens the
general impression of consummate design, than
the diseases which sometimes disfigure the human
body succeed in blinding our eyes to its admirable mechanism.  In the human body, moreover, we are aware of the presence of something
which we denominate LIFE, an energy distinct
from physical organization, though closely connected with it, and on the maintenance of which
the harmony and even the existence of the whole
depends. Nothing in physical organization can
compensate the loss of life. The hands may




THE MONEY-MAKER.             9
be exquisitely fashioned, every limb may have
been cast in the most perfect mould, the face
and head may rival in nobleness the inimitable
sculptures of Canova; but let this inward energy
expire, the embers of this mysterious fire die
out, and ere long the whole will return to its
original dust.  So also, apart from the outward
arrangements of society, we discern in it a principle of life which keeps the vast system stirring.
Life is one of the grand features of society; we
hear it in the rattle of our crowded streets, in the
hum of the exchange, in the roar of the factory,
in the shouts of its thousand operatives, in the
shriek of the steam-engine, in the din of Billingsgate and Covent Garden, and the strange music
of our " city cries."  We see the same in the
pressure of man on man in the pursuits of
trade, in the eagerness of competition, the multiplicity of inventions, the rise of new professions in  response to  the  call of newly
developed wants, in  the  onward movement
which carries society along with it to different,
and almost always better conditions of existence. If we look within us we find the sources
of this public life in the zest with which we
give ourselves up to business, seeking at every
step to make it the means of promoting the
well-being of ourselves, and of those whom
Providence has made dependent upon our
exertions.   Where  these  private  impulses
are most vigorous, as in Britain and  the
United States, society travels at the quickest
pace, trades and manufactures are developed




10                MONEY.
with the greatest energy, and a constant advance is made in civilization; but where these
industrial impulses are weakest, as in Turkey,
there society stands still, and ultimately falls to
pieces.
We are justified, then, in regarding society
as an organized body, pervaded by a vital
force, upon  the maintenance  of which  its
functions and even its existence depend; but
before proceeding to the inferences which such
an illustration suggests, we will pause before
one or two of the chief phenomena which
society presents. The contemplation of these
will show us the comparative excellence of its
working, as well as the magnitude and responsibility of the task which those persons undertake
who rashly propose to innovate in the very
fundamentals of the social system.
One of the most remarkable facts which
characterize the existing social system, is the
ease with which the diversified wants of large communities are met. This involves an amount of
individual distribution and combination which
no degree of wisdom and energy could have
arranged beforehand.  How innumerable are
our wants! Where shall we begin to reckon
them?  First in importance are those which
relate to subsistence.  What a quantity and
variety of food do we require! Simple bread
and water will not do. We must have food of
a dozen different kinds and flavours; we must
have the produce of the dairy, the garden, the
vinery, the orchard; we must have tea and




THE MONEY-MAKER.            11
coffee, chocolate and  spices, and our table
must be occasionally replenished with oranges,
raisins, tamarinds, and pine-apples. Next to
food we must perhaps place dress and the means
of shelter.  Here, too, our wants, real and
artificial, are all but numberless. Canvass, it is
true, would answer the purposes of covering,
and a blanket would furnish us with all the
warmth we could desire; but who would be
content with these?  No! our limbs must be
wrapped in hose and flannel; cotton must be
covered, to suit our taste, with all the novelties
of colour and design; we must have linen and
cloth and silk and fir; grasses and gossamer
must furnish an array for the head, while the
hides of animals must yield a defence for the
feet. To mention our houses is to add another
legion to the catalogue of our wants: our chairs,
tables, carpets, curtains, earthenware, pictures,
glasses, musical instruments, besides the various
articles required in the construction of the
dwelling itself; how many hands are needed to
provide them! In whatever other direction
we look around, the prospect is equally boundless and diversified. It may safely be said that
an English family of the middle class requires
hundreds of separate professions in order to
enjoy an average amount of the comforts and
conveniences of life.  And how different are
these professions from each other I How menial
and laborious are some, how skilful and artistic
are others! How high do some stand in public
estimation, how low do others fall I Who shall




12                MONEY.
decide which of these professions a man shall
enter?  Who shall guarantee that all shall be
well supplied?  Who shall arrange that all
may work into each other's hands, so as to
agree in time and place with the supply of our
wants?  It may be confidently affirmed that
no amount of energy and forethought which
has ever yet been found possessed by any man,
or number of men, would be sufficient to do
this.  Yet how completely and regularly is it
done for us! A vast population divides itself
of its own accord into distinct groups, each of
which forthwith enters upon some department
of labour; the mine, the factory, the warehouse,
the shop, each is filled with voluntary occupants, while others cross the seas to bring over
the productions of other lands. Whenever a
want is felt to a sufficient extent to produce a
demand, then labourers at once are found,
striving to furnish a supply. All this is done
without coercion, without other than individual
design; no central committee issues its decrees,
no policeman is called in to enforce a theoretic
organization of labour; every. man is free to
work or remain idle, and to work in just what
sphere he pleases.  How marvellous the law
which thus reconciles the freedom of the individual with the welfare of the whole! What
a striking display of Divine wisdom! How
completely are the communistic inventions of
modern times anticipated and outdone!
Social phenomena hardly less remarkable are
seen in the almost uniform price at which tea




THE MONEY-MAKER.            18
same article can be purchased throughout an
extensive district, and the general employment of
the people in those departments of labour which
are likely to yield most profit. If we had to
frame a social system, it would be most important to secure, by some means, both these
objects. It would be unfortunate, if not unfair,
for those who live in Lancashire to pay twice as
much for the necessaries of life as the inhabitants of Kent and Devon. It would be difficult,
perhaps impossible, to effect this equalization
by any artificial plan, whereas it is accomplished
with ease by individual enterprise, acting in
obedience to the great law of supply and demand.
The merchant wants to get the highest possible
price for his commodities; this is in general the
single point about which he troubles himself. It
is nothing to him at what price they may ultimately be sold, nor what may suit the convenience of the people of London, Lancashire, or
Devon; his anxiety is just to obtain as much as
he can in return for his merchandise. But this
motive answers the purpose of the most profound combination and the most benevolent intentions.  If his goods will fetch more a thousand miles off than they would at home, after
deducting the expense of carriage, he will not
hesitate to send them there. But if a considerable
number of merchants, each acting on the same
plan, send so many commodities to one place
that its inhabitants have more than their proper
share, the price will instantly fall as compared
with that attainable at other markets, and the
2




14                MONEY.
superabundance will soon be directed thither.
Beautiful as the winding of a fertilizing stream
is the course of the world's produce. Calmly it
flows on in the path marked out for it by Providence, cheering now the rural hamlet, and
anon spreading its beneficence in the heart of
congregated thousands.
How important is it that the enterprise of a
community should be directed into the most
profitable channels I The working man understands this very well as applied to the narrower
interests of home. He is well aware that the
aggregate income and consequent condition of
his family depend upon their being employed in
that kind of labour in which the highest wages
can be obtained, and he would count it ruinous
to toil for ten shillings a week if, by turning his
attention to something else, he could earn thirty.
The mode in which he employs his labour evidently determines the comparative poverty or
affluence in which he lives. All this is equally
true of the entire commonwealth. It is of the
utmost importance that the capital and labour
of every community should be employed in
those particular pursuits which will prove most
lucrative; this is, indeed, decisive to a great
extent of national prosperity or ruin. At the
same time it is obvious that no artificial arrangements, no decrees of the state or the commune, would be able to accomplish this object;
it would require an extent of knowledge, a
depth of wisdom, and an array of coercive
power, never yet beheld in combination. But




THE MONEY-MAKER.             15
what we could not secure by any artificial plan
is arranged for us by Providence in the present
constitution of society. The work is divided
into an almost infinite number of shares, and
each individual in entrusted with one.  The
entire community is probably making, under
any given circumstances, the best possible use
of its resources, since every member of the community is held by the strongest motives to make
the best possible use of his own. In the busy
world around us, every person is on the look out
to improve his condition; to ascertain, namely,
whether he can employ his labour more profitably.  From the lowest grades of handicraft to
the highest ranks of capital and skill, we find all
animated with one desire. Is it a sinful or dishonourable desire?  By no means.  When
properly regulated it is quite the opposite. We
recognise in it one of those indications too often
overlooked, which proclaim the footsteps of an
almighty Architect.
We will select one more ill ustration of the working of our social system, and it shall be furnished
by the numerous instances of success in life which
attract our attention on every hand. Abused as
this success may at times be, and too eagerly
pursued as it is by some individuals, it yet
forms an admirable arrangement of Providence
for stimulating the active energies of the various
individuals of which society is composed. We
will take the pursuits of commerce and manufactures.  What a multitude of striking facts
meet us here! May it not be said without




16                MONEY.
exaggeration, that we see around us a generation of princes whose fathers were peasants?
Every valley of our manufacturing districts
teems with traditions of successful industry.
Everywhere individuals can be pointed out,
now occupying the highest positions of social distinction, Who once tended the loom, or whose
parents were once the occupants of some
humble cot which has since become a sort of
rudely classic ground to the operative employed
in the neighbouring factories. It is there told
how one person who was raised some years ago
to the magisterial bench, came into the district
at first a poor youth from Scotland, carrying
all his treasures in a handkerchief; and how,
some forty years since, two brothers seated
themselves on an eminence, which is now
covered with a grove of dark pines and crowned
with a handsome monument; ate their frugal
meal-the purchase of their last penny, and
surveyed the broad valley beneath, which was
hereafter to become but a half of their ample
possessions. Similar facts have become historic.  A great man recently summoned away
from us, whom history will place in the foremost rank of British statesmen, regarded it
as an honour to call himself "the son of
an  Englishman, the  founder of his own
fortunes, by dint of honest and laborious exertion in the pursuits of active industry."*
But it is not in one department alone that such
instances of elevation have occurred; in science,
* Sir R. Peel's inaugural address at Glasgow.




THE MONEY-MAKER.            17
literature, politics, and the legal profession we
see the same; men who were once obscure,
breaking their way through intervening obstacles to positions of reputation and influence;
slowly but surely rising from the foremost class
of some country grammar school to a seat in
the cabinet, or a place on the judicial bench.
Such posts, it is acknowledged, are seldom won
without difficulty.  In order to reach the goal,
talents must be industriously developed, and
circumstances promptly and perseveringly improved. But is this a disadvantage?  None but
those who join imbecility or indolence to ambition would think it so. Before we are permitted to grasp the prize it is well to be forced
to work for it. The efforts occasioned by such
a necessity are the costliest part of the reward.
It is the discipline acquired in rising to greatness which fits the successful aspirant, with the
grace of God, for standing on the giddy height.
Here is, in fact, another proof of the Divine
wisdom in the arrangements of society. If a
man by some unexpected reverse or sudden process found himself placed at once in a position
of great power, he would be very prone to
arrogance and self-conceit; but when, as in the
existing order of things, such a position can be
reached only by a patient struggle with outward obstacles, and the diligent application of
his personal talents, he acquires at the same
time a certain moderation of spirit which is the
true safeguard against the perils incident to an
exalted station. It is also true that the nunmber
2*




18                MONEY.
of those who succeed in realizing wealth and
greatness can never be very large; the mass
of mankind must always occupy a level far
beneath. But it is also true that no man can
rise by legitimate means without drawing others
after him. All connected with him  are the
better for his elevation, and the greater the
number of persons who attain to eminent success, the greater is the number of those who
are partially successful; the success of a few
raises the average well-being of all.
We have thus glanced at some of the more
striking phases of the social system  already
presented to the reader's notice. We might
adduce many more of the same character, but
these will suffice to show the high degree of
excellence which distinguishes the present constitution of society. The advantages we have
contemplated are such as could not be dispensed
with. If they were not enjoyed, communities
could not exist. It is obvious, we think, that
these benefits could not be secured by any
artificial arrangements; the vast amount of
contrivance, oversight, and authority, which
would be required, is itself sufficient to render
that impossible.  The important objects we
have considered must be secured by  laws
which influence the individual in his separate
character, or not at all. Varied as these laws
are, they may be all traced back to the operation of two simple principles-the disposition
which every person feels to promote his own
interests; and the perfect right with which he




THE MONEY-MAKER.              19
feels himself invested to do this, provided only that
he trench not on the equal rights of others.
It were easy, did space permit, to vindicate
these principles, and to show their superiority,
especially when tempered by the precepts of
Christianity, over those propounded by social
theorists in our own day. But we have brought
these questions before our readers merely as
they are connected with Money.  Money is the
power which sets in motion the springs  of
action which we have now described, or, to
vary the simile, it is the life blood which gives
energy and warmth to the whole frame of the
body corporate.  Were society to be cast in the
mould prescribed by the theories of Owen and
others, money, it has been asserted, would no
longer be required; but inextricable confusion,
we may be assured, would inevitably follow any
attempt to introduce a substitute for it.* As
it now  exists, money furnishes a short and
admirable mode of distributing to each individual that exact portion of the wealth of society
to which he can prove himself legitimately
entitled; it is adapted alike to the largest and
the minutest operations; (so marvellous and
multifarious indeed is its agency, that it may
be questioned which is more wonderful, the
structure of society itself, or money, which
gives vitality to its diversified operations. )
* The scenes of distress which occurred in Paris during the
French revolution, when the government interfered with' the
purchase of bread, and distributed it in accordance with
certain artificial regulations, powerfully illustrate the anarchy
and confusion which would follow any attempt to do away with
money as a distributory medium.




20                 aOriT.
CHAPTER II.
MONEY-MAKING: HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.
IT is our object in the present chapter to show
the mode in which society gradually becomes
rich, and arrives at a state when the use of
money as a circulating medium  is required.
This state of things is popularly supposed to
be accomplished whenever a country abounds
in gold and silver. We need hardly, however,
remark that there is a certain amount of misapprehension on this view of the subject. A
country may possess heaps of gold, and yet, in
one sense, be poor; while another (as was the
case with  Scotland during the last century)
may possess scarcely any bullion, and yet be
rich in all that constitutes real material wealth.
Gold and silver are, indeed-apart from their
metallic uses - only  the representatives of
wealth; and in devoting our consideration,
therefore, in the present chapter, to the mode
in which society grows rich, we shall have to
deal with a state of matters, much of which
precedes the use of the precious metals in any
form.




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        21
In contemplating society as it is exhibited in
the history of mankind, we find it universally
progressive. Sometimes this tendency has been
manifested chiefly in a fruitless struggle with
outward obstacles, and still oftener the process
has been arrested in the lapse of centuries by
some political catastrophe; but its existence is
unquestionable.  A  number of emigrants fix
upon some suitable spot as their future home:
let us mark the result. Their stock consists at
first merely of a few tools and weapons; these,
and the strong arms which are prepared to
wield them, are the young foundations of wealth
and empire.  Soon the forest resounds with the
woodman's axe, and the first step is presently
taken in the path to greatness; a village of mud
cottages, interspersed with patches of cultivated
land, which is covered, as autumn advances,
with its.first harvest. Visit the same spot after
the lapse of fifty years: those rude huts have
given way to streets of brick or stone; over the
tops of the few trees which still remain as the
hoary representatives of a fallen dynasty, the
domes and turrets of civic structures meet
the eye, while all around we see the fruits of
industry in a profusion of gardens,.orchards,
corn-fields, and meadow-lands.  Let another
half century pass by, and what see we now?
A spacious city, a very mart of commerce, the
floor of whose exchange is trodden by merchants
from  every clime.  Wherever we turn, our
attention is attracted by objects of public interest, from countless mast-heads we see waving




22                MONEY.
the colours of all nations, while our ears are
incessantly dinned with the ioise of the steamengine or the rattle of the loom. The houses
of the wealthy abound in evidences of intelligence and taste, and even the poorest-survey
his cottage, examine his stock of food and
clothing, and then say how much better is he
off than the best of those poor wanderers who
cleared the first acre, and ate their first thrifty
meal beneath the shelter of a wattled cabin.
This is the process which has taken place
wherever men have dwelt together, from  the
time when "Asshur went forth and builded
Nineveh," down to the latest settlement among
the prairies of the "far west."  Wherever
intelligence and industry join hands, a career
of prosperity commences, something is continually won from the earth over and above
what is required for present wants; this serves
as a stepping-stone to a still greater surplus,
which becomes in time productive of one still
greater. Not only does wealth increase, but
a corresponding expansion takes place in the
physical and intellectual resources of the state;
science, philosophy, literature, and art exhibit
the signs of regular and rapid growth.. Discovery succeeds discovery, and every day renders
all natural resources more completely subservient to the wants If man; splendour rears its
halls and palaces, sculpture moulds its monuments and statues, while poetry diffuses all
around the harmonies of song. If we compare
man as he appears in this advanced stage of




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        23
civilization with his former self, when he reared
his hut on the edge of the forest, we experience
the same impressions as when the eye passes
from the sapling oak of yesterday to the still
blooming veteran of a thousand winters. We
feel that a glorious creation has slowly acquired
birth and being-a creation finer, perhaps, even
than the old mountains and bottomless seas; a
commonwealth of men, a congress of kings;
and this result has been attained, not by theory,
not by a laborious induction of facts, not by
adopting any artificial system, not even by
aiming deliberately at its accomplishment, but
simply by obeying the practical impulses with
which the human bosom is inspired.
But some would deny that a highly civilized
condition is either the happiest or the most
natural to nlan. The savage state is lauded as
preferable to ours, or at least that normal stage
of civilization when women were all clad in
russet and men in "sober grey;" when, according to a pleasant fiction, all had enough,
and none had anything to spare; when architecture soared no higher than the thatched
cottage, and mankind seemed as if they begged
permission to "squat" upon the earth's surface,
instead of grasping its dominion with a master's
hand. i To this we reply, that whatever attractions such a state may seem  to wear, it is
indebted for them exclusively to our own fancy.
This faculty is sufficiently affluent to connect
ideas of romance with a company of naked
savages, and construct an arcadian republic out




24                 MONEY.
of tomahawks and wigwams.  But such conceptions are merely poetic dreams.  Man, in
an uncivilized state, is ignorant, sensual, superstitious, and we know that such qualities cannot
comport with happiness.  Equally groundless
is the supposition that in a savage state the
wants and resources of mankind were ever
accurately balanced. It might, perhaps, be
safely asserted, that the possession of a bare
competence is only possible when society has
become civilized. Society itself never pauses,
it always fluctuates between progress and decay,
and those principles which do not lead to
wealth, will soon plunge it in poverty. Five
hundred years ag, England was incomparably
poorer than it is at present, but it does not
appear that the struggle for subsistence was the
less arduous. The poor man found as much
labour required to feed his children with beans
and barley as the factory operative experiences
in providing his family with the finest wheaten
flour. The hardest day's work an Englishman
is required to undergo, and for which he is
remunerated with a thousand domestic comforts,
is not half so hard as that which barely suffices
to keep the North American Indian above the
point of absolute starvation. Still less can it
be said that such a primitive state is natural to
man.  A  state of nature, when man is the
theme, is not composed of nakedness, ignorance,
penury, and brutal coarseness. It might be so
if, as some philosophers have thought, the
progenitors of the human race crawled out of




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        25
the ground like snails, or made their way up to
humanity through a dreary set of piscatory
and apish transmigrations. It would then be
reasonable to suppose that their first scale of
living was not much higher than the beaver's,
though even on this supposition it would not
follow that any stage of improvement, short ot
the very highest, is his final goal. But the
circumstances which attended man's introduction to his earthly abode were so refined, that a,
savage state could never be anything but an
unspeakable degradation, an unnatural state,
which he was bound, as soon as possible, to
quit for ever. On looking back, we obtain in.
Paradise, a faint glimpse of our true social
elevation.  Then man was happy, his mental
faculties vigorous, and his outward condition
all that could be desired. Civilization came.
arrayed in her native radiance, and lavished
her treasures on the holy pair.  True, sin
poured its vial on the lovely scene, and our
next glimpse of man presents him to us in a
sadly altered state; but his natural elevation is
still that of his earliest days, which, by a long
redemptive process, must be reached again.
Hence every department of human progress is
beheld centering in the same design; the consolidation of society, the growth of wealth, the
cultivation of science and art, combine with the
specific influences of Christianity in restoring
man to that which alone can be regarded as his
proper and natural condition; in raising theentire race to that pitch of moral and physicall
8




26                  MONEY.
perfection which marked the commencement of
its career.
The first step in the acquisition of wealth
is a recognition of the rights of property. These
Tights are not factitious; they do not exist by'virtue of any social compact; they are inherent
in our nature, and all they ask from us is a
recognition of their validity. No doctrine in
the compass of social science is more important
Tthan this.  It is the key-stone of the arch
-which conducts us across the foaming abyss of'chaos, and lands us on the rock of order. Deny'these rights, and society falls to pieces; admit'them, and little more than tLeir consistent
application is required to raise it to the highest
state of material well-being.
A recognition of the rights of property tends
to the acquisition of wealth, by insuring to
-every man the fruits of his own labour. Selfinterest is the mainspring of social life. The'mechanic, the merchant, the capitalist all agree
in this, each consults his own welfare, each
asks, " What will be most profitable to myself?".and this determines the fate of every transaction.
All the exchanges at this moment taking place
in the various marts of Europe, have been'arranged in the full confidence that they Will
prove advantageous to both the parties concerned, and a reasonable doubt of this on either,side would have prevented them  from  being
"made. In contemplating the movements of selfinterest, we stand in the engine-house of the
world, and behold the power which moves a




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        27
large portion of the machinery of human
affairs. It is not our object now to vindicate
this principle; we believe it, as we have before
said, when regulated by Christian principle, to
be legitimate and most beneficent: but let us
simply look to facts.  What merchant would
sit up early and late in his counting-house if he
knew that at the year's end he was not to have
the disposal of the fiuits of his toil?  What
operative would rise cheerfully at the sound of
the factory bell, stint his meal hours, and perhaps work on till near midnight, if he had no
hope of receiving proportionably higher wages?
What prudent farmer would spend all his
capital in improving his land, if he knew he
should be deprived of it at the next rent-day?
Such conduct would, under ordinary circumstances, be in the highest degree unreasonable.
Since the chief motive to labour arises from
the prospect of owning its results, whatever
tends to promote the security of property may
be regarded as a source of wealth. The stronger
the guarantee afforded that whoever expends
his labour in any enterprise shall reap its fruits,
the likelier is it that society will grow richer.
To the superior stability of every species of
right in free states may.we ascribe the commercial eminence they have generally attained.
Enterprise shrinks into inactivity beneath the
touch of despotic power. Naboth's vineyard
was lost when it attracted the cupidity of Ahab;
and it is mentioned as a rare instance of mag



28                 MONEY.
nanimity in an absolute sovereign that Frederic
the Great of Prussia permitted a windmill to
stand within sight of the royal palace, out of
deference to the owner.  The peasantry of
Wallachia are said to exist in a state of the
most abject wretchedness, and yet it is believed
that most of them have a hoard of gold in the
vicinity of their dwellings. They are driven to
wear this show of poverty by the extortionate
conduct of their governors, whose tenure of
office depends upon the amount of money they
are able to wring from the people. It is instructive to reflect that, while money is thus suffered
to lie unproductive beneath the soil, the Danube,
which flows in the immediate neighbourhood, is
almost unnavigable for want of calital.  But it
is not political corruption alone which, by rendering property insecure, prevents the acquisition of wealth; faction, revolutions, wars, crime,
will produce the same effect. So also will those
social arrangements which prevent the outlay of
capital, by withholding proper security for its
remuneration.
After the rights  of property have been
recognised, the next step in the acquisition of
wealth is the appropriation of the soil. It has
been found that wherever the land is held in
common, no considerable improvement takes
place in the condition of the people.  Tribes
who depend for their subsistence upon the
earth's raw produce, retain the same savage
character for ages; while those who settle upon
and cultivate some one spot soon become civi



HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        29
lized.  The New Englander enjoyed no advantage over the aboriginal tribes of North
America; the climate and. geographical peculiarities of the country were the same to all:
yet while our Anglo-Saxon  brethren  have
grown in two centuries to the proportions of a
great nation, the native population has become
all but extinct. One reason of this is obvious.
The Saxon proceeded at once to a division of
the land, giving every man a fixed portion to
possess and cultivate, while the Indian still
retains the nomadic habits of his ancestors. A
country whose inhabitants subsist on its spontaneous produce, must be very thinly peopled.
This single fact is full of gloomy inferences.
Scarcely any intercourse can take place among
such a people; the very law of their existence
is separation, the presence of any considerable
number at the same spot being absolutely forbidden by the capacities of the soil.  Thus
forcibly held asunder, they soon become positively hostile to each other; strangers to the
cementing influence of fellowship in productive
industry, they resemble two beasts of prey contending for the same heap of offal.  But these
evils are not the worst; we discover a truly
tragic depth of misery in the necessity which
exists for a constant curtailment of the population, so as to keep it within the limits fixed by
a scarcity of food, for it is well remarked by
Adam  Smith, that although. poverty tends, in
the first instance, to multiply rather than diminish the human species, yet it is extremely
3*




30                MONEY.
unfavourable to the rearing of them to maturity.
The thinness of the  population in a poor
country proves, not that fewer in proportion
are born, but that a greater number die.
The importance of the appropriation of the
soil, considered as a step in social progress,
springs from the fact that all our wealth is
derived ultimately from this source. The most
necessary articles of subsistence, such as wheat,
rice, and potatoes, are the immediate fruits of
agriculture. Good pasturage is necessary to
supply us with milk, cheese, and the various
kinds of animal food. We should soon have no
skins, no leather, no woollen clothing, no beasts
of burden, if there were no vegetable produce.
Flax, cotton, tea, coffee, are derived from the
same source, and without the mulberry-tree
the silkworm would soon perish.  The most
splendid furniture with which our drawingrooms are adorned, may be traced to its home
in the forest or the mine; our fairest crystals
once lay hid in the obscurity of sand and
rock. Even the treasures of genius, themselves
drawn from  a higher source, must be unhoarded by earthen instruments.  The poet's
pen was once a goose's quill, the artist's pencil
is drawn from the camel's hide; and the very
material to whose care the painter consigns his
imperishable productions once waved in the
cotton-fields of Georgia, or gambolled on a
sheep's back among  sunshine  and  flowers.
Imagine these varied gifts of the earth withdrawn, and how wretched would our condition




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        81
become! But trace them to their home, and
we find them all springing from the application
of labour to the soil under the law of selfinterest. The world's market is stocked with
wealth, because some millions of landowners find
it profitable to develop the capabilities of the
soil.  But let all appropriation  cease, and
every portion of it be as much the property of
one man as another, and all activity would
cease too; we should sink from wealth to competence, from competence to scarcity, and from
scarcity to ruin.
Next to the recognition of the rights of
property, and the appropriation of the soil, the
most important step in the acquisition of wealth
is the division of labour. The first guarantees
the enjoyment of the fruits of labour, the second
converts into property the material to which
labour is applied, while the third increases the
productiveness of labour itself.  Dr. Adam
Smith ascribes the discovery of the principle of
divided labour to the advantages which men
would soon experience in confining their attention to one kind of work. Archbishop Whately
objects to this view, that it accounts for the continued application of the principle, but not for
its first adoption, and traces the arrangement to
its being found that many operations of the
same kind could be carried on at the same time,
and by the same means.  Thus a person who
had occasion to fetch a bucket of water from
the spring could carry two buckets with little
additional trouble.  A  courier between two




32                MONEY.
towns could convey two hundred letters almost
as easily as one. If a man required a few wooden
pales in order to fence his garden, he would find
that when the tree was cut down and severed in
the required lengths, it would cost him comparatively little more trouble to supply his neighbour with the same article. Thus the principle
could not fail to be discovered at the very outset of civilization, and when once discovered it
was too valuable a boon to throw away.
The increased  productiveness  of labour
through the distribution of its various branches
among as many different workmen, arises,
according to Adam Smith, from  the superior
dexterity which a person soon acquires when
he confines himself exclusively to one set of
operations, from the time which is saved by
keeping to the same routine of work, and the
greater inventiveness which is produced by
directing the attention chiefly to one department.  A single pin is valueless to a proverb,
yet on its way to the toilet it passes through
eighteen distinct processes, each of which in
large manufactories, is a separate branch of
labour, and the cost of production is diminished
by this means more than two hundred and fifty
times.  The vast increase of wealth and convenience which may be ascribed to the adoption
of this simple principle is beyond conception.
If the reader happens to be a lady, will she
reflect a moment upon the history of the material which sometimes constitutes her morning
dress? That fine cotton fabric could only have




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        38
been produced by the labour of thousands.
How many were employed in cultivating the
original plant; in sowing, tending, picking it,
and at last shipping its produce to the ports of
Europe.  The ship which brought it over the
Atlantic is itself the representative of a series
of distinct trades, including the woodman, the
miner, the nailer, the carpenter, the  ropemaker, and the weaver.  From the merchant's
warehouse to the draper's shop how  many
metamorphoses did the cotton undergo? Two
or three preparatory dressings, as many sets of
spinners, then the weaver, bleacher, and calicoprinter. But each of these includes in itself a
crowd of distinct professions. What a complication of contrivances is the mechanism employed,
from the steam-engine to the spinning-jenny, the
loom and the printing-machine! What a history might be written on the various chemical
processes alone; the preparation of the mordants, the procuring of the drugs, and the
mixing of the colours! How many designers
are employed to sketch those elegant patterns
which often hold the fair purchaser in suspense
between equal beauties, and how much skilled
labour is required to transfer those patterns to
the wooden block or the copper roller, before
they can be stamped upon the cloth! A curious
instance of the numerous processes required to
bring to perfection some articles of mere luxury
is found in the history of the more expensive
kinds.of tobacco pipes.  The material itself,
which is called ecume de mer, is a kind of




34                MONEY.
fuller's earth from the south of Crim Tartary.
The first rude shape is given to the pipes on the
ground where the material is first dug, by
pressing them into a mould, and leaving them
to harden in the sun. They are then baked in
an oven, boiled in milk, and rubbed with soft
leather. In this state they are taken to Constantinople, where they are bought by merchants, and sent in caravans to Pesh, in Hungary.  They are then soaked for twenty-four
hours in water, after which they are turned
upon a lathe. From  Pesh they are taken to
Vienna, whence they are distributed through
the markets of Germany.
If a person who makes two blades of grass
grow where only one grew before, adds to the
riches of mankind, how large an accession of
wealth is due to an arrangement which makes
labour many hundred times more productive
than it would have been without it! That this
arrangement does increase the productiveness of
labour is unquestionable. If every man had to
make his own clothes, graze his own cattle, kill
his own meat, how heavy and slow would be
the progress of society! We do that best and
quickest which we do oftenest. But not only
is increased facility the result of the division of
labour; by concentrating our attention on one
process we discern more easily new and better
ways of doing it. Hence the use of machinery
may be ascribed to the same principle. Let no
one think otherwise of this than of a great
blessing; so long as it is not labour that man




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.       85
wants, but the fruits of labour, whatever increases the productiveness of labour must be a
benefit to mankind, since it must tend either
to multiply their comforts or diminish their
toil. An objection has been urged against the
division of labour that, by simplifying the work
of the operative, it makes him a mere machine,
and weakens his intellectual powers by not
calling them  into exercise. In our opinion
such an objection is groundless. We may rest
assured that the mind will always find something to do. The simpler the work on which
a man is employed, the more freely may he
allow his mind to revert to other and more
pleasing topics, and the greater the mental
elasticity he will carry into his leisure hours.
A person whose sole employment during twelve
hours has been to see that a machine does its
work properly, must be in a far better condition
for spending an hour at night over some bracing book than if he had performed that work
himself. Besides, there can be no antagonism
between good tendencies. If the instrument to
which we are mainly indebted for our social
comforts becomes, in proportion to its perfectness, the means of intellectual annihilation to
those who employ it, where would be the wisdom of the social architect? But experience
confutes the objection. We venture to say that
there is not a more intelligent body of operatives in the world than that part of the population of Lancashire and Yorkshire which is
engaged in the cotton and woollen manufac



36                MONEY.
tures; while farm-labourers, whose occupations
exemplify, on the authority of Adam Smith, the
division of labour to the least possible extent,
have always been reckoned to be, as a body,
inferior in point of mental activity to the mechanics of our large towns. Should it be said
that this superiority is owing, not to the division
of labour, but to the better opportunities of
mental culture afforded in our large towns, we
reply that large towns themselves, with their
numberless appliances of civilization, are the
offspring of this very principle, and that we find
here an additional proof that the conditions of
wealth and popular intelligence are not opposed,
but are invariably and indissolubly one.
The division of labour leads at once to
exchange.  When every person provided in the
best way he could for his own wants, he had no
occasion to barter with his neighbour.  His
condition might not be one of comfort, but it
was at least one of independence.  As soon,
however, as each confined himself to one depart
ment of labour, his independence was at an end.
Very few of his personal wants could be supplied by his own exertions, and for the rest he
would have to seek the co-operation of others.
The smith, for instance, who worked all day
long at his forge, would make many more nails
than he would require for his own use, but he
would stand in need of food and clothing, articles which could not be produced within the
walls of his smithy. The farmer, the butcher,
the grocer, would each find himself in a similar




ROW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        37
position; they would respectively have more
grain, more meat, and more sugar than they
would be able to consume themselves, while
each would stand in need of what the others
could supply. In these circumstances exchange
would  naturally take  place.  This process,
however, is merely a matter of convenience. It
does not increase the  aggregate results of
labour; it simply affects their ownership, but
at the same time it developes a new principle
which occasions a positive increase of wealth.
It is plain that, since all wealth is the produce
of labour, the productiveness of labour is just
the measure of wealth, and whatever insures
that labour shall always be expended so as to
be most productive must be a valuable aid to
social progress. This useful principle is competition. This principle, though acting with
the greatest force in the most civilized communities, must have exerted a powerful influence
even in the earliest times. Things soon- began
to. be distinguished  as cheap or dear, and
traders instinctively exercised their prerogative
of carrying their commodities where they would
fetch the most. If it were not for this wholesome check, no prudential obligations would lie
upon the producer.  He might turn his attention to pursuits for which he had no natural
aptitude; he would have no powerful motive to
economy, industry, and self-culture; secure of a
market whatever the quality or the amount of
his own exertions, he would soon become careless and inactive. On such a system we should
4




0Sb                MONEY.
have ne guarantee that society put forth onehalf its energies, or that the energy it actually
put forth was not wasted by being misapplied.
Competition renders these evils impossible. Its
tendency is twofold-to force both individuals
and nations into those departments of effort for
which they are most fitted, and to compel them
to put forth the largest possible amount of skill
and labour.  Such coercion may not be altogether pleasant, but it is salutary; as much so for
the individual as for the state.
A crusade has been waged for some time
past, with a considerable measure of popular
applause, against the principle of competition,
and clamorous demands are made, not only in our
own country, but on the continent, for its exclusion from the social code. No doubt conmpetition is a principle which requires to be regulated
by Christian maxims; we but must demur to the
propriety or even the possibility of complying
with the above demand.  The most direct way
of acceding to it would be to fix the lowest price
at which articles shall be sold; but what would
be the effect of such a step? It would certainly
enable the imprudent or inferior tradesman to
sell his goods at more than their natural price, but
the difference would be so much abstracted from
the pocket of the purchaser.  Not only would
he have to pay more, but the extra price would
indicate a corresponding amount of clear loss in
the aggregate amount of social wealth, inasmuch as fewer inducements would be held out
to ingenuity and effort. If such an arrange



HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.       39
ment were adopted in one trade, it ought to be
allowed in all. The most incompetent craftsman ought to be allowed the privilege of fixing
the exchangeable value of his productions. But
it is plain that this would be a system of virtual
pauperism, and that society would thus inflict
upon itself a huge tax on behalf of those who
least deserved such a boon.
But instead of fixing the price of commodities, a more complicated expedient has been
proposed. It has been suggested that, instead
of each endeavouring to surpass the rest, all
should work in common, contributing to, and
drawing upon, a common fund.  This is pure
socialism, the principles of which we have
before noticed, and little danger need be apprehended from  such a source.  The principle
which is now opposed to competition is co-operation, and to this our remarks will be confined. The co-operative theory, if we may
judge from  recent experiments, is altogether
distinct from socialism, and ought not to assume
the same name. A  number of individuals
belonging to a common profession agree to
raise money among themselves, or on mutual
credit, with a view to engage in business on
their own account.  Such an association may
be somewhat novel in its aim, but the principle
on which it is founded has been carried out in
numberless instances by individuals who would
have repudiated any approximation to socialism.
It is, in fact, a joint-stock conpany, the menbers of which agree to work themselves, and so




40                 MONEY.
secure double profits. It is a mistake, however, to speak of co-operation and competition
as things opposed. Competition is thoroughly
co-operative, and the success of co-operation
depends upon its being thoroughly competitive.
A firm composed of fifty partners act as much
on the principle of competition as if there were
only two.  Among themselves they are co-operative, but the point at which they dovetail
with society is and must be competitive.  If,
therefore, societycan be rescued from its miseries
only by putting down competition, it is evident
that co-operative associations do not touch the
case.
To co-operative associations thus simply constituted, and resting for success entirely upon
the excellence and cheapness of their productions, no objection, as far as principle is concerned, can be preferred.  The chief effect of
such associations would be to add so many
more to the existing number of competitors,
and thus increase the severity of competition.
But one all-important question yet remains,Will they answer?  The prudential test is the
only one which can be properly applied, but
this, we fear, must prove decisive.  Destitute
of special privileges, forced to obey the inexorable laws of political economy, it is difficult to
imagine how they can succeed, considering the
peculiar perils to which they are exposed.
Either the adoption of a too popular basis will
prevent business being  transacted with  the
requisite measure of rapidity and precision, or




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        41
else the entire concern will be left to the discretion of a few individuals, in which case it
will insensibly slide into their own hands.  If
we may take one with which we were to some
extent personally acquainted as an illustration
of the manner in which all are carried on, our
hopes of their success would be far from sanguine.  Every question was there settled by
" universal suffrage," a principle which, whatever
it may be in politics, is obviously inapplicable to
business.  Not a farthing was disposed of without putting it to the test of a lengthy discussion;
and very often, before the members determined
what course to take, the time for action had
gone by.  It was also  painful to mark  a
jealousy of superior abilities, and a preference,
in making official appointments, for men whom
the rest could easily "manage," rather than
those whose talents would be likely to insure
success.  Those members of the society whose
intellects were not the brightest, were apt to
imagine that a plot lay hid beneath every proposal they could not comprehend, yet still,
tenacious of their rights as partners, they were
determined that no measure should be adopted
which did not force their assent, and thus they
became a mere set of " obstructives."  An
intelligent and highly skilled mechanic, who
once belonged to the association adverted to,
assured us that if his own business were carried
out on the same principles, it would not be
worth a shilling in six months.
The last step in the progress of wealth
4*




42                MONEY.
is  international commerce.  The  immediate
occasion of this is found in the difference which
exists between the productions of various climes,
and their general suitableness to the use of
man. Perhaps no two soils can be found which,
in return for the same amount of labbur, bring
forth the same article in the same degree of
perfection. Countries consisting of low alluvial
plains find pasturage most profitable; those
which enjoy a dry soil and clear atmosphere
abound in grain.  Some situations are peculiarly favourable to the vine; others to flax,
cotton, or the sugar-cane; while others, owing
to their mineral treasures and peculiar geographical advantages, are most suited to manufactures. While the productions of different
nations are so various, all men have nearly the
same wants. The tea which pleases the Chinaman is a luxury in Britain; while our cutlery,
earthenware, and textile produce find a ready
market in any part of the earth. Providence
seems by this arrangement to have provided
for the friendly intercourse of mankind, and in
proportion as it has been recognised and carried
out have the best interests of mankind been
promoted.  The tendency of commerce is to
diminish the frequency of war, and, next to the
special influences of the gospel, is the most
powerful agent in the work of civilizing the
globe.
The pecuniary advantages of commerce consist in its enabling us to exchange articles
which cost us little labour for others which




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.       43
though perhaps equally inexpensive in the
country where they were produced, would require here a much larger outlay; and when two
nations mutually exchange their cheapest productions for those which, if produced at home,
would be the dearest, the greatest possible
addition is made in that instance to the wealth
of the world.  This statement admits of a
simple illustration.  It is well known that
oranges are imported in large quantities into
this country from Spain and Portugal; but it
is not impossible to grow oranges here at home.
By special care they may readily be produced
in hot-houses, as the gardens of our nobility
attest; but as they cannot be produced at home
at nearly so low a rate as that at which they
can be imported, their domestic cultivation is
confined to the purposes of horticultural science.
If they could not be produced at home for less
than twopence a piece, while at Seville they
could be purchased for a halfpenny, and the
expense of their carriage would not be more
than their original cost, it is evident that by
going to a foreign market we should effect a
saving to the amount of one-half. If we had
previously expended half a million annually in
the growth of oranges, we should, by turning
importers, save ~250,000, and should  be
richer to precisely that amount. But it may
happen that at Seville, while oranges are cheap,
cotton cloth is dear. By manufacturing the
article at home it might cost them twenty shillings a piece, while we could afford to let them




44                MONEY.
have it for one-fourth of that sum. Hence,
instead of receiving payment for their oranges
in money, they would find it more advantageous
to take the amount in goods of that description.
These might be sold in Seville at least fifty per
cent. cheaper than the home manufacture, and
would involve a clear saving of one-half their
annual outlay in cotton goods. Thus, in commerce, both parties are benefited, and their
joint profits represent the clear increase which
it contributes to the aggregate wealth of mankind.
From the very earliest times it has been the
practice of nations to exchange with each other.
The silver with which Abraham  bought the
field and cave of Machpelah is called " current
money of the merchant;".and the Ishmaelites,
to whom Joseph was sold, were carrying spices
into Egypt.  As exchange is mutually profitable, separation is the chief hindrance to
commerce, and hence camels and ships were
always its efficient promoters, the  former
bridging the desert, and the latter the sea.
The Phoenicians were the navigators and merchants of the old world; they were carriers
and barterers for all nations. Tyre and Sidon
were flourishing commercial cities in the time
of Solomon, and both seem to have engaged
with that monarch in several commercial enterprises.  The celebrated Tadmor, whose ruins
still prolong something of its former magnificence, was probably built with the view of
promoting the caravan trade between Palestine




HOW SOCIETY GETS RICH.        45
and the Persian Gulf.  From  Eziongeber, a
port on the Red Sea, a fleet, conducted by
Syrian navigators, sailed to Ophir and Tarshish, and brought back to Solomon and the
king of Tyre apes, ivory, peacocks, and gold.
It is thought that the Hebrew term bedil, in
the book of Numbers, should be rendered tin.
The " brass" which was employed in making
the utensils of Solomon's temple, like that
which was extensively used among the Greeks,
was in reality bronze, or a mixture of iron and
tin; but this latter metal the ancients obtained
exclusively from  Spain or the British Isles.
The Romans were never a mercantile people,
and, with the exception of Alexandria, no city
appears to have risen to special commercial
eminence, till Venice rose amidst the waters
of the Adriatic.  The Crusades stimulated the
desire for intercourse with the east, and poured
a golden tide into the coffers of the wary merchants of St. Mark. Then, as in olden times,
the treasures of India were brought to the
shores of the Mediterranean, from whence they
were  carried by the Venetian ships to the
various markets of Western Europe.  The
discovery of America in the fifteenth century
opened a new field for commercial enterprise,
and the discovery of the route to India by the
Cape of Good Hope, transferred for a time the
commercial sceptre to the Portuguese.  On the
emancipation of the  Netherlands from  the
Spanish yoke, the flame of commercial enterprise burst forth  in the United Provinces.




46                MONEY.
The Dutch flag waved on the shores of Africa,
Asia, and the new world, but in its turn drooped
before the one which since has known no rival.
Our country has long been the commercial
metropolis of the globe; our ships are carriers
for the world; a large proportion of the aggregate merchandise of mankind is carried in
British vessels; our manufacturing energy,
seeking an outlet for itself, has opened channels
of intercourse with the most distant and barbarous lands. But we would not wish, if it
were possible, to be alone in this magnificent
work. Our brethren of the United States, true
to their origin, and backed by natural resources in some respects superior to our own,
will soon be by our side. Let both welcome
each other to the post of honour, and inscribe
on the flag which they jointly bear in the van
of the world's progress-" ONE-INDISSOLUBLY
ONE-IN JUSTICE AND LOVE FOR EVER."




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONET.       47
CHAPTER III.
THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY: A FEW WORDS ABOUT
CAPITAL.
WE have considered -in their natural order of
development the various steps which lead to the
acquisition of wealth: we now proceed to consider the same subject in another and still more
interesting point of view; with regard, namely,
to the two co-efficients which always concur in
its. production.  Capital and labour may be
regarded as twin powers, born at the same
moment, gifted with the same length of existence,
fitted to accomplish in concert what neither
could possibly accomplish by itself. So far
from being opposed, they are necessarily co-operative, and whatever fluctuations await them in
society, they must live or die together. Labour
is the parent of capital, and capital is the soul
of labour. Destroy either, and the acquisition
of wealth becomes a vanishing dream.
1. What is capital?  We will suppose a
number of persons intent upon reclaiming fifty
or sixty acres of that boggy land which abounds
in the west of Ireland. The task we shall




48                 MONEY.
suppose is considered practicable.  Appropriate
manures are abundant and within easy reach.
A certain method of procedure will assuredly
bring this wet and rotten soil into a condition fit
for bearing the best produce. But twelve months
must pass away before any results can be
obtained, and several years before the projectors' expectations can befully realized. How
then shall the persons be sustained in the meantime? Their families will daily need food and
clothing, they themselves will require tools to
work with, as well as horses and carts for the
conveyance of soil.  The ground, as it is reclaimed, must be fenced off, and superfluous
moisture carried away by means of drainage.
It is certain that, how profitable soever the
enterprise might prove, until these resources
are provided from some quarter, it cannot possibly be undertaken.  Labourers may offer
themselves by thousands, some such employment may be their only refuge from absolute
starvation; but the condition is imperativesome person must find them  implements and
food; deny this and they may perish in the midst
of natural affluence.  The necessity for capital
is still more evident in the case of manufactures,
since here it is requisite to provide materials
as well as tools and sustenance.  To-morrow
morning a hundred thousand persons will proceed to the factories of Manchester; but what
would they do if, on reaching their respective
places of employment, they found no employer
to receive them, no materials, no machines, no




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.        49
workshops? Perhaps their first impulse would
be to commence working for themselves; but
how many obstacles would rise in opposition to
this design! Factories must be erected, materials purchased, and costly machines set up.
When their ingenuity and labour had converted
these raw materials into useful articles, they
would be no nearer the end of their exertions
till money or other commodities had been procured in exchange.  Even this might not prove
a very easy matter. No doubt articles of real
utility may generally be sold at some price, but
there are seasons when this price would do
no more than defray the cost of material, if it
did even that, leaving nothing for the labourer;
and goods, if they are to remunerate the owner,
must be kept back to await a higher demand.
Hence labour is useless without some fund out
of which the labourer can be provided with
tools and materials, as well as sustenance for
himself and family, till his labour has actually
become productive; and everything which fur
nishes those resources, everything which is employed in setting the labourer to work, whether
it is fixed in buildings and machinery, or floating
in the shape of money between manufacturer and
merchant, master and man, is called CAPITAL.
2. Let us now ask, How is capital produced?
The original source to which the production
of capital must be ascribed, is the liberal
return which, in the arrangements  of our
Creator, the earth makes to any one who bestows labour upon it  Referring to the illus5




50                MONEY.
tration already adduced, if the produce of fifty
acres, which we supposed a number of persons
to be bent upon reclaiming from the bogs of
Ireland, was only sufficient to replace, without
surplus, what had actually been expended in
raising it, those persons would necessarily be
obliged to confine their efforts to the quantity
of land at first inclosed. Twelve months' produce being only able to keep them during an
equal period, they would live, to use an expressive saying, from  hand to mouth, with
nothing to spare. If this had been the case
universally, not only could mankind  never
have grown rich, but if the present laws which
regulate the increase of the human race had
been in force, they must always have pined in
misery, since there never could have been any
surplus on which to maintain families, or maintain the labourer till his labour became remunerative.  But Providence has ordained a very
different state of things. The produce of fifty
acres is found sufficient not only to cover the
cost of production, but to furnish a wide margin
of profits. Our Irish cultivators would find
themselves at the year's end not only repaid for
the money which had been expended in food,
clothing, and implements, but possessed of a
considerable quantity of commodities to be disposed of as they saw fit.  They might now
look beyond their fifty acres; having saved
enough to support several additional labourers
during the next twelve months, they might now
inclose a larger plot of ground, of which, at the




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.         51
end of the year, they would naturally possess
the profits. It is plain that no limits need be
set to such a process but those which spring
from the capabilities of the soil. They might
go on, bringing district after district into cultivation, till their farms inclosed all the waste
land in the country.   The annual surplus
might then be  turned into other channels,
employed in shipping, mining, manufactures,
or any other remunerative pursuit, the aggregate amount always increasing, and its capacities accordingly always becoming greater. All
existing capital arose in this manner.  It was
at one time or other saved out of the results of
labour and previous capital, and the earliest
capital was that which God provided in the
spontaneous productions of the earth which
sustained a spare population during the first
operations of agriculture.
Capital thus springs originally from the prolific abundance of the earth's natural resourcesfrom  the goodness of the Creator, who has
ordained that wherever man puts forth his five
talents they shall presently be increased to ten.
It is useful, however, to regard it as savings, as
the excess of income beyond expenditure, since
the production of capital is thus exhibited in
connexion  with  our  own  personal efforts.
When, in a primitive state of society, the husbandman, after replacing the corn and clothing
required while awaiting the  harvest, found
sufficient grain in his storehouse to supply the
wants of the coming season, he had so much




52                 MONEY.
capital; and if the mechanic who receives
twenty shillings weekly manages to put by two
shillings out of that sum, he adds by so much
to the national capital; his weekly savings
increase the fund which can be employed in
the remuneration of labour.  Every properly
economical act has the same tendency. Every
farthing legitimately rescued from expenditure
helps to provide a fund from  which may be
drawn the means of more largely increasing
trade, and raising the demand for labour; and
money, however invested, whether in building
clubs, freehold land societies, an insurance
office, or the savings' bank, becomes an efficient
servant to the commonwealth.  Those institutions do not suffer it to lie idle; it is at once
put out to the most profitable use, that in
which it will, in its turn, yield the largest increase to existing capital.
3. We have seen that capital thus produced
has a natural tendency to accumulate; let us
glance at the chief circumstances which favour
or retard its accumulation.  One point most
essential to the accumulation of capital is the
supply of cheap materials.  Other things being
equal, a country where the raw staple of manufactures is most abundant must beat its neighbours in the chase of wealth. It seldom happens,
however, that this equality exists.  We see
here one of the many proofs of a harmony of
interests pervading the entire conditions of
humanity.  Raw materials being generally the
products of agriculture, are  cheapest in a




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.         53
country but thinly populated. There, however,
skilled labour is the dearest. In a populous
country, on the other hand, labour is comparatively cheap, but raw materials are dear. Thus,
in the United States cotton must be cheaper by
the cost of carriage than it is at Liverpool; but
theisuperior cheapness of labour in this country
nevertheless enables us to manufacture cotton
goods at less cost than the Americans.
Equal in importance with cheap material is
the natural price of labour, that price which
capital can afford to pay and yet remain profitable.  This price is regulated by laws as
fixed as those which determine the relation of
electricity and thunder, or the flow and ebb of
the tides. Labour, like every other commodity,
like capital itself, finds its own level. Any
attempt, by artificial means, to raise it above
tnat point is as unwise as to resolve that water
shall not freeze when its temperature sinks
below freezing-point.  When wages can ascend
above any given rate  they necessarily will
ascend above it, and the attempts to prevent
this would be as futile as to stop the progress of
the tides.  Strikes are not necessary to ascertain the proper price of labour.  When capital
can afford higher wages, it soon becomes its
interest to offer them.  It would, too, be well if
the forcible measures which are frequently put
in operation to raise wages were simply unsuccessful, but in proportion as they are persevered in they cripple capital; they diminish
the only fund which can pay wages, and the
5*




54                 MONEY.
entire carrying out of the theory on which they
are based would consummate the ruin of trade,
and the commercial downfall of the country.
Our prosperity is not guaranteed us by any
special law. Amidst the competition of nations
we have kept uppermost, but we have no exclusive right to that position; humanly speaking, we retain it only so long as we are able to
retain it by the law of cheapness.  No two
petty shopkeepers in a country village are more
thoroughly competitive in their mutual relations
than, for example, England and the United
States.  Our goods are purchased only while
they can be obtained more cheaply here than
elsewhere, and our workshops would soon be
all silent if the palm of cheapness passed into
other hands. The comparative impunity with
which we have borne the disastrous effects of
strikes demonstrates the strength and elasticity
of British resources. We see here how impregnable our commercial position may continue if we do not abandon it in sheer madness.
With labour cheap, and yet constantly becoming more skilled in consequence of the spread
ofeducation, we may hope that, with wise conmmercial regulations and the blessing of Divine
Providence, our commercial advantages will
be long continued.
Facilities of cheap and rapid intercourse are
an important auxiliary to the growth of capital.
The goods of a manufacturer, except the very
small portion he may retain for his own use,
are only valuable as they can find a market,




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.        55
and the expense of sending them there must be
reckoned into the cost of production.  Cartage
forms a familiar item of expense in building
operations, and every farmer reckons that the
virtual price of manure depends upon the distance he may have to send for it.  In some
countries the want of roads presents insuperable
barriers to commerce. The interior of Mexico,
for instance, abounds in vegetable produce
which would find a ready sale for exportation
if it could only be brought down to the coast;
but such are the difficulties in the way of inland
communication, that the price of wheat is often
found to be doubled within the compass of a
few miles.  The principal obstacle to the cultivation of cotton in India is the want of cheap
and easy modes of conveyance.  In bringing it
over the vast plains of Iindostan so large an
addition would be made to its original cost, as
to leave no chances of its competing successfully with that which we import from  the
United States.  The immense sums invested
in highways, canals, and railroads, present in
a very striking light the expensiveness of carriage.  At the close of 1850 there were six
thousand three hundred miles of railway in
operation within this country, which had been
executed at an average cost of ~40,000 per mile,
involving a total expenditure of ~250,000,000.
The railway receipts for the year 1851 amounted
to ~15,000,000 sterling, a great part of which
was spent in merely changing the localities
of things, without adding anything to their




56                 MONEY.
intrinsic value. We see here the immense ad
vantage of cheap intercourse. An arrangement
which would diminish the expense of carriage
one-half, would add from one source alone between seven and eight millions annually to the
national wealth.  But speed is as important an
element in locomotion as cheapness; or rather,
a slow process cannot be cheap. While goods
are in the act of transfer they are dead to commerce; they are of no use to the buyer, the
seller, or any one else. It would be deemed a
great sacrifice to lend a person ~50,000 for
three months without interest, yet goods in
passing from place to place resemble money
thus lent.  Every tradesman knows the value
of " quick returns."  ~400, if it can be turned
over three times in tie course of twelve months,
will be more profitable than ~1,000 which
returns to the coffers of its owner only once in
that period. The invention of railways, by
shortening the time of transit, tends to promote
quick returns.  A merchant who orders goods
of the manufacturer maynow receive them,
sell them again, and make another purchase
with the money obtained in exchange in less
time than would formerly have elapsed before
their delivery.
4. Let us now glance at the relation which
exists between capital and the remuneration of
labour. This is an important aspect of the
subject, and one which borrows peculiar interest from  the circumstances of the present
time. When the workman is told that cheap




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.        57
labour is essential to the  accumulation  of
capital, he is apt to ask indignantly, Whether
labour is to be bound hand and foot in order to
be offered as a victim at the shrine of capital?
Whether the poor man is to toil for a mere
pittance in order to make a rich man richer?
Such bitter recrimination is altogether groundless; it is the fruit of a misunderstanding.
The interests of capital and labour are not
antagonistic; it is not necessary to offer the
one as a holocaust to the other. The cheapest
labour which can be wanted is labour at its
natural price, and a higher price than this
cannot be asked without damaging the interests
of the employer, and through him  the workman.  It is difficult to say whether a proceeding which fetters capital, and thus renders it less
accumulative, is more injurious to the master
or the workman, sihce it tends to destroy
that without which wages of any amount are
impossible.
The accumulation of capital tends directly
and necessarily to raise the rate of wages, understanding by that term the command of the
conveniences of life which a man receives in
return for his labour. Sometimes a higher pecuniary equivalent may be obtained  in some
branches of labour during the infancy of capital,
before the principle of competition has come
fairly into play; but competition, in proportion
as it lowers the nominal rate of wages, increases
their exchangeable value by lowering the price
of commodities. Rapidly accumulating capital




58                MONEY.
must evidently have the double effect of increasing the demand for labour, and sharpening
the struggle for cheapness.  If the profits of
the past year enabled one thousand employers
each to put ~5,000 into his business, they
would instantly want more men, since ~5,000,000
more money would have to be expended in the
erection of workshops, the purchase of materials,
and the payment of labour.  If they found a
sufficient number of persons to suit their purpose already unemployed, there would be so
many less to compete with those who are
in employment; but if all were already employed they would have to attract workmen by
giving higher wages.  Thus every addition
which is made to the capital of the country
tends directly either to keep wages from sinking, or to raise them  higher.  But such an
augmentation of capital reacts upon the real
remuneration of labour in another way.  A
thousand manufacturers, each employing more
money and more hands, will produce a greater
quantity of goods, and this increased production, unless the demand increase in the same
ratio, must render them  cheaper.  No doubt
competition acts on wages too, by forcing the
employer to economize in every direction, but
its tendency to depress wages is trivial compared with its cheapening power. There is a
limit below which the price of labour cannot
sink, but no limit has yet been found to the
cheapness of production.  By improvements in
agriculture, mechanical inventions, and an




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.       59
extended market, we know not what luxuries
may be brought within the reach of the work-.
ing man.  In this respect a vast change has
taken place within the present century. Is not
the home of the industrious and provident
artisan, in many cases, a palace compared with
what it would have been fifty years ago? Deal
has given way to mahogany; he treads on
carpets instead of sand. When weary he reclines on a sofa, or throws himself, it may be,
in his spring-bottomed arm-chair.  His own
dress is of superfine broad cloth, and his wife
regards silk as no special luxury. If he is a
reading man, every month brings him a packet
of magazines; and perhaps at times he recreates
his family by the sea-side.  Such things could
not have been done formerly; they are the
direct result of capital and competition, the
share which has accrued to labour from the
increase which has taken place in the national
wealth.
The action of capital as one of the factors
concerned in the production of wealth, depends
very little upon its being distributed among
various hands, or gathered within few.  It
matters nothing to the man who has his labour
to sell, whether a hundred thousand pounds is
owned by one individual, or by ten; there it is,
to be made profitable by a remunerative investment of some kind; this is the essential fact
Fwith which he has to do. As far as the labourer
is concerned, the only question which need be
asked is, what arrangements will best promote




60                 MONEY.
the accumulation of capital, and thus increase
the demand for labour? It will even be found,
perhaps, that the interests of the operative
classes are more advanced  by a few  large
capitalists than by many small ones, since in
extensive concerns the business is more economically carried on, and a proportionately smaller
sum is required to maintain the establishment,
leaving more to be employed in the remuneration of productive labour.  The working man
is apt to look with a jealous eye upon a person
of extensive wealth. He sympathizes with the
humble capitalist who is struggling through
many  difficulties  towards  a  more  affluent
position; but in proportion as this struggle,
so kindly regarded, becomes successful, his
sympathetic feelings are changed into those of
envy and dread. This, howsever, is an erroneous
condition of matters.  The wealthiest man in
the state, even if he does not perform a single
act of pure benevolence, provided only that he
does not squander his money in luxury, but
expends it so as to bring in the largest revenue, is
necessarily, not in spite of his wealth, but by
virtue of it, a most useful man.* If his fortune
were divided among a thousand  persons it
would probably be less advantageous to society.
Each, feeling himself raised to a higher position,
would expend more in personal display, so that,
on the whole, considerably fewer workmen
would be employed, and at the year's end a
considerably smaller addition would be made
* Of course we employ the term useful in a restricted sense.




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.        61
to the stock of public wealth.  On such an
arrangement, a thousand persons would  be
richer, but the aggregate of society would be
poorer; a thousand persons would rise from the
class of operatives to that of employers, but
probably double that number would be thrown
altogether out of employ. The centralization
of wealth does not, assuming that it is not
hoarded by its owner,. tend to divide society
between the two extremes of affluence and
poverty; it merely strengthens, to use a different
figure, the advanced guard of society, so that
the ranks behind may advance with greater
ease and safety. Capital cannot accumulate
without tending to make all richer, and whatever arrangement is most favourable to accumulation, is that which  must prove most
beneficial. Recent tables show that there is
in this country an increase in the number of
moderate incomes, and a comparative diminution
in the number of colossal incomes.
5. No truth within the limits of social science
is more demonstrable than that the growth of
capital tends to promote the welfare of all
classes.  When each.individual is doing the
best he can for himself, the entire community
must also be prospering.  We see here another
illustration of the simplicity which reigns
throughout the social structure.  The ladder
by which mankind ascend from the depths of
penury to  competence  and happiness, is so
delicate, so framed in harmony with the very
texture of our nature, that it must evidently
6




62                   MONEY.
be the work of God.  Capital spontaneously
directs itself into the most lucrative channels.
Like a mule upon the mountains, when left to
choose its own path it seldom goes wrong, but
when  coerced  by  the rider it is danger of
plunging down  some fatal precipice.  Every
individual seeks to better his circumstances;
the small shopkeeper is always contriving fresh
means of turning his money to advantage, he
fixes himself in the best situation he can discover, endeavours to win custom, deals in those
articles which yield the highest profit, and
would at any moment throw the whole business
aside if he felt assured that another would prove
more lucrative.*  If we ascend  a few  steps
higher we find the same principles at work, and
so also among the first merchants, bankers, and
capitalists of the land. The great manufacturing and agricultural interests of the kingdom
are self-adjusted  by  the  same laws.  Every
person follows his present pursuit till he finds
it less remunerative than another, which he
instantly chooses in its stead.  Thus, of its
own accord, the public capital always seeks the
most profitable investment; pointing necessarily
towards it as the needle to the pole. If a wise
king, seeing beforehand the necessity for such
an investment of capital, but ignorant of the
means which Providence has set apart to secure
* In this and similar places men are spoken of in general
terms, or as acting universally according to certain general
principles, without taking into account the modifying influences in character and practice arising from religious considerations.




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.         63
it, were resolved to accomplish the same object
by legislation, what a herculean task would
he impose upon himself! what innumerable
laws would have to be enacted! what a multitude of details would have to be kept in view I
what a host of functionaries would have to be
constantly employed! It would be necessary to
puit every capitalist in the land under strict
surveillance, to examine all his schemes, and
forbid the investment of a farthing till its probable value had been gauged by authorized
intellect.  How slow and agonizing would be
the progress of society on such a system; or
rather, checked on every hand, held in such a
state of unnatural tension from all quarters,
how soon would it break in pieces! God has
legislated on this question, and in his own
manner. The voice which said, "Let there be
light," has spoken here in language equally
simple.  Each person, in providing for his own
welfare, provides to a certain extent also for
the welfare of the whole.  The Divine arrangement is, let each person, charitable and just in
all his dealings, employ what he has in that
way which seems likeliest to him  to produce
more.  To oppose this regulation in any way
is only selfish in a state of ignorance, since it
is the only one which harmonizes with the
progress and well-being of society.
When this regulation is strictly observed, its
beneficial results are innumerable. Since no
pursuit can be more remunerative than another
without attracting  capital, and  occasioning




64                 MONEY.
increased production and competition within
itself, it insures the proper distribution of
capital among the various branches of trade,
and guarantees the public that every article
shall be furnished them at the lowest possible
cost.  It stimulates  and  rewards  industry,
suffers no man to vegetate with impunity,
withers the unwatered vineyard, and increases
with substance the diligent hand.  It exacts
intelligence as one of the chief aids to social
development;  the  possession  of knowledge
sufficient to enable each person to choose those
departments of labour which are most profitable, and to acquiesce in the utility of the
general system.  This is one of the chief wants
of society at the present time.  The popular
dissatisfaction which is levelled against capital
can be dissipated only by the schoolmaster.
Not one educated person in a thousand inveighs
against capital; our Owens and Proudhoins are
rare.  But an incomparably larger portion of
the uneducated classes do so, and the only way
to diminish it is to enlighten them.  Yes, it is
a trace of the finger of an almighty Architect,
that capital is necessitated in its own defence to
educate the people. But even knowledge is not
the highest requisite to the increase of capitalthe virtues are still more necessary. Prudence,
industry, sobriety, honesty, perseverance, benevolence, gratitude; and  if these, then also
those Divine principles which are most favourable to their production, are indispensable to
the maintenance of that vigorous social life




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.         65
which God has made the absolute condition of
social progress.
It will be interesting, after this brief view
of the nature and tendencies of capital, to glance
at some of its effects.  Fully to present all
these in their proper magnitude would involve
a history of our social progress during the last
fifty years; but a few facts, selected chiefly from
the admirable work on this subject by the late
Mr. R. G. Porter, will suffice for the end we
have in view.  Let us first glance at the probable amount of our present accumulationsthe fund out of which our future enterprises
must be carried on. One of the great divisions
under which the national capital distributes
itself is that of personal property. A moment's
reflection will show us that it is impossible to
ascertain the amount of this with absolute
accuracy; still we are able, from the produce of
the legacy duty which falls upon that description of wealth, to form an approximate estimate.
Before giving the result of Mr. Porter's calculations, it will be useful to understand the method
by which it is obtained. It is found that the
proportion of deaths annually among the heads
of families, or those who leave property, is
about one in forty-five.  Out of every ten who
die, not more than three leave property of sufficient importance to require a will.  The aggregate value of the  effects belonging to the
remaining  seven  must be far from  inconsiderable, but still as we have no means of
ascertaining its amount, and as it must be




66                 MONEY.
comparatively small, we may leave it out of
view, and consider the personality of the three
wealthy individuals as the amount bequeathed
by the whole.  Thus the capital which pays
the legacy duty in  any one year may be
regarded as having belonged to all the persons
who die within the same, and to bear a similar
proportion to the entire personal property within
the realm, as those persons bear to tile entire
population. But the latter proportion is found
to be, as we have stated, about one in forty-five,
and therefore the capital charged with legacy
duty in the year may be regarded as one-fortyfifth of the aggregate amount of the same species
of wealth in the hands of the community. On
such data, Mr. Porter estimates the value of
personal property held within this realm in
1841 at ~2,000,000,000. This immense amount
has been reached by progressive steps. In 1797,
the capital charged with legacy duty amounted
in round numbers to a million sterling, whilst
during the  next four decades it advanced
respectively to nine, thirty-three, thirty-four,
and forty-two millions.  We may judge by
this test how rapidly we grew in wealth during
the period referred to, an addition of eight hundred millions having been added to our stock
of capital in the twenty-four years preceding
1841. If we turn to that species of property
which consists in land, houses, mines, etc., we
meet with an amount equally startling.  Sir
Robert Peel, in introducing his proposal for an
income-tax in 1842, assumed the annual value




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.        67
of real property at ~72,800,000, which sum at
twenty-five years' purchase is equal to a capital
of ~1,820,000,000.  The advance which has
taken place in the amount of real property
since 1815 is strikingly illustrated in the case
of Manchester and Salford. In the former of
these boroughs the total increase from that
period till 1841 was no less than ~16,716,975,
or 189 per cent., while in Salford the increase
was still greater, being as much as 194 per
cent.
The impression made by figures when they
relate to such vast sums is necessarily rather
vague, and a more definite idea may be obtained by looking at a few of those enterprises
on which our wealth has been expended. We
have already mentioned railways, and the expenditure of two hundred and fifty millions
employed in their construction.  This is a
monument of affluence which has not been
erected without peril; there are thousands,
unhappily, who will never forget the panic
which occurred a few years ago, in consequence
of a sudden and disproportionate investment of
money in railway schemes; but still, the fact
that such a vast amount has been permanently
sunk in merely providing us with better facilities of locomotion, affords pleasing evidence of
the extent of our resources.  During the first
forty years of the present century, 4,400,000
tons of shipping were built and registered within
the United Kingdom. Assuming that the work
was executed at an average cost of ~30 a ton,




<68               MONEY.
we have here an outlay of ~132,000,000.
Probably ~7,000,000 were expended during
the same period in the construction of new
roads, while the annual expenditure of the
various turnpike trusts in England and Wales
amounted in 1840 to more than a million and
a half. The capital sunk in canals is about
~11,000,000 sterling.  It is surprising what
vast sums have been laid out in the improvement of towns and the erection of public buildings.  The corporation of Liverpool, in the
course of fifty years, expended ~1,600,000 on
this object; and a single improvement in Newcastle-on-Tyne was effected at the cost of
~2,000,000.   Since the beginning  of the
century, London has spent ~8,000,000 in the
construction of docks, and  ~4,000,000 in
bridges. If we estimate the places set apart for
the purpose of public worship throughout the
country at 25,000, and allow  to  each  an
average value of ~2,000, we find here an
additional item  of ~50,000,000.  Vast sums
have been spent in supplying our large towns
with water.  The corporation of Manchester
are at present engaged in an undertaking of
this kind at an outlay of ~650,000.  The
agricultural productiveness of the country is
probably twice as great now as it was at the
beginning of the century; and this is all due to
the application of a greater amount of capital
to the soil. But the most impressive illustration of British wealth is to be found in the
growth of our foreign trade.  "The amount of




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.        69
tonnage employed in the conveyance of products
to and from our shores, forms a much better
measure of the progress of our foreign trade
than any computation of their cost in money.
If, then, we contrast the amount of shipping
which  entered  and  left our ports in  the
two years, (1802 and 1836,) we find that in
the former year it amounted to less than half
the tonnage employed in the latter."   The
population of Great Britain is now  nearly
double what it was towards the close of the last
century, and yet it may be safely asserted that
all classes live in a state of much greater comfort now than at any former period.  Work is
not less abundant, the rate of wages is little if
at all lowered, while a very great and general
reduction has taken place in the price of commodities.  What supports the nine or ten millions which have been added to the population?
To furnish them gratuitously with the means
of subsistence would  be a gigantic act of
pauperism, sufficient to bankrupt the richest
state; but capital, leaguing itself with labour,
not only maintains them in a high condition of
comfort, but lays by a surplus which, in the
course of a few years, will suffice for the maintenance of millions more. It heightens our;mpression of the astonishing capabilities of
trade to reflect that our present position has
been reached in the face of an enormous public
expenditure; the money required to carry on
the war with Napoleon having amounted in one
year (1814) to ~100,000,000; and our wars




70                 MONEY.
have laden us with a permanent debt to nearly
eight times that amount. If, in spite of such
obstacles, we have realized so much prosperity,
what would have been the result of uninterrupted peace?  We cannot hesitate to admit
that if those vast sums had been employed in
remunerative industry, "an amount of prosperity would have been experienced that must
have had the happiest effects upon the physical
and  moral condition of England first, and
through England upon the whole European
family."
In the present day, proof is abundant on all
hands that not only is capital increasing, but
that its legitimate fruits have been largely produced in the augmented well-being  of all
classes.* The declared value of our exports in
1840 was, in round numbers, fifty millions; in
1845 it amounted to sixty millions; while in
1850 it reached seventy-four millions. The
returns of 1851 show an increase, as compared
with 1848, of twenty-one millions. While we
have exported more for the use of other
nations, we have also imported considerably
more of their surplus commodities for our own.
The rapid growth of our imports within the last
few years is without a parallel. In 1840 they
amounted to sixty-seven millions, in 1845 to
eighty-five millions, and in 1850 to one hundred millions.  Notwithstanding the largeness
of our exports, a larger proportion of cotton
* See the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on
opening the Budget, 1852.




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.       71
manufactures was retained for home consump.
tion during 1851 than during any previous
yVar. Since 1831, taxes to the amount of nineteen millions have been abolished. Twenty
years ago the sum appropriated to the relief of
the poor was nearly ten shillings per head of
the whole population; in 1851 it was little more
than five shillings and sixpence.  At that
period the number of depositors in savings'
banks was only 412,217, and the sum deposited
~13,507,565; in 1851 the number of depositors was 1,161,838, and the sum deposited
had risen to ~30,184,604, being an advance
from twelve shillings and eightpence to one
pound two shillings and threepence per head of
the whole population. The increase of social
intercourse may be inferred from the fact that
in 1831 the newspaper stamps issued from the
Stamp Office were twenty millions, and in
1851 had risen to eighty millions; and while
the number of letters posted in the former year
was sixty millions, in the latter it reached three
hundred and forty-seven millions sixty-nine
thousand.  Thirty years ago, the whole of our
wool imports were but nine millions seven hundred thousand pounds; in 1851 they were eightyone millions. In exact accordance with the
tendencies of increasing capital, as explained in
this chapter, prices have fallen from twenty to
forty per cent., while wages have scarcely
declined, and in some instances have greatly
advanced. In Birmingham, in 1851, 1,329
new houses were built, almost double the num



72                 MONEY.
ber of any preceding year, and almost entirely
by the smaller class of tradespeople. In the
same place pauperism has declined four-fifths,
while artizans alone have invested ~70,000 in
freehold land societies.  Similar facts might be
recorded of other towns.  In pauper maintenance there has been a diminution of eleven per
cent. throughout the country in the latter half
of 1851 as compared with 1850. The creation
of mills, factories, docks, wharfs, and warehouses goes on apace.  Since 1848, our mercantile shipping has increased by two hundred
and fifty thousand tons, and taken into employ
three thousand additional men.   These are
cheering facts.  We have cause, it is true,
in many respects, for national humiliation, especially in the insane and wicked excesses of a
speculating mania, which subjects us to a periodical panic, and in the condition of our sister
island. Still even here cheering signs of improvement are visible. The unforgotten calamities which  happened  six  years ago  are
teaching us to unite wisdom  and moderation
with commercial enterprise, and prefer safe
profits to brilliant but hazardous measures;
while the social and religious movements now
going on in Ireland are full of happy auguries
for the future, as Popery apparently is losing
its ascendency over the popular mind.  In
these and other causes of the present day we
discern, we trust, a renewing of our youth; the
beginning, not the end of our career. We have
only, under God's blessing, to proceed with




THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY.        73
intelligence and firmness in order to place our
prosperity on an infrangible basis. Nothing
can ruin, no earthly power can subdue, a patriotic and industrious people, whose institutions
are based on justice, and pervaded by a spirit
of true religion. Such, we trust, is our true
prospect.  Every lover of his country must
rejoice at it, while the Christian citizen will
"thank God, and take courage."
1




74                MONEY.
CHAPTER IV.
MONEY CURRENT: A FEW WORDS ABOUT GOLD,
SILVER, AND BANK NOTES
GOLD and silver are the most remarkable constituents of wealth.  They are so not only
because they have a greater value in proportion
to their bulk than most other commodities, but
because the value of all other commodities is
referred to them as its measure and symbol.
If we want to ascertain the wealth of a person,
we ask, How much money is he worth?  If he
is anxious to grow rich, we say he is eager to
make money.  A thousand other articles may
be refused as part of a bargain, but no one
thinks of refusing money.  Gold and silver
resemble the hero  of romance, at whose
approach the strongest bolts fly back, and the
heaviest doors swing open.
Let us briefly consider the nature and origin
of money.  We have mentioned the division of
labour as one of the sources of wealth.  This
principle, when once thoroughly adopted, not
only tends to increase the aggregate riches of
the community, but to change the whole aspect
of its affairs.  At first each man worked for




MONEY CURRENT.            75
himself, supplying his wants as best he could
without the help of his neighbour. This phase
of society, if it was ever anything more than
theoretic, soon vanished.  Mankind found it
mutually advantageous to work for each other.
Instead of bewildering themselves with a Babel
of conflicting occupations, the farmer kept to
his plough, the smith to his forge, and the cobbler to his last. But here a new process commenced. Of the numerous wants the farmer
experienced, his home-grown  wheat would
supply only one. He would therefore have to
divide the remainder of his wheat into so many
lots, and carry them where they could be exchanged for other commodities. This process
was a new era in civilization-it inaugurated
the principle of exchange.
But the process did not stop here; it soon led
to another phenomenon. The function of exchanging was soon assigned to one commodity
in preference to others, and this commodity was
called money. The convenience of this change
would soon be found very great.  The farmer
now, instead of dividing his wheat into as many
different lots as he had wants to provide for,
might, if he so chose, sell all the produce of his
farm  to one person, who would pay him for it
in gold or silver, with which he might at any
moment purchase the articles he might require.
He would thus obtain an imperishable article
in the place of a perishable one. Should he,
owing to a favourable season, obtain more wheat
than was requisite to meet his immediate wants,




76                MONET.
he would be able to turn it into something
which damp could not spoil, nor mice devour.
Moreover, he would be able to use money
with more facility than the produce cf his farm.
He could carry two pieces of gold or silver to
the smith, or the tailor, much more easily than
a sack of corn. Agricultural produce, it is
true, being generally capable of minute subdivision, might be used in purchasing small
quantities of other commodities, but all would
not be equally successful with the farmer in this
respect. The grazier, for example, whose property consisted of so many head of oxen, would
often be unable, if confined to the method of
barter, to purchase the exact quantity of salt or
flour which he might have occasion for. He
would evidently be obliged to buy as much as
would be an equivalent for a single ox, or some
multiple of that value; he could not buy a
quantity equal in value to half an ox, or an ox
and a half. But the adoption of money as an
instrument of exchange would put all such inconveniences aside. The grazier might sell his
oxen, and with the proceeds purchase any
amount of whatever he might require.  For
these and similar reasons money must soon
have come into general use.  So early as the
time of Abraham, it was the common medium
of exchange.  The silver which he weighed to
the children of Heth for the field and cave of
Machpelah, was " current money  with  the
merchants."
Some writers have thrown  considerable




MONEY CURRENT.             77
mystery round the origin cf money. It has been
regarded by some as the peculiar instrument
of taxation; a mere device of kingly tyranny.
This view conceals its true nature. Instead of
being forced into circulation as an arbitrary
equivalent for commodities which had been
forcibly seized in the name of the sovereign, it
was adopted on account of its intrinsic utility.
Money in all ages has been, not a mere symbol
of value, but a real valuable.  Whatever may
have been used for that purpose, whether the
precious metal or any other costly article, it
never purchased more than it appeared to be
worth.  A bank note would cease to circulate
as money if it did not bind the party issuing it
to pay the bearer the sum  specified thereon.
A  thousand pounds not only measures the
value for a certain quantity of goods, but has
itself an equal and independent value of its
own.  The silver which Abraham  paid in exchange for Sarah's burial-place, though  he
could neither eat nor drink it, was as truly a
part of his wealth as his sheep and cattle. The
tastes of mankind have always risen higher
than the mere satisfying their bodily wants.
They have aimed, not merely at living, but at
living in elegance and splendour. Hence, silver
and gold, being appropriate to the purposes of
decoration, constituted as true an element of
wealth as food itself.
As the use of money is simply the exchanging
o)f one commodity for another, convenience
alone determined that silver and gold should
7*




78                 MONEY.
become the common medium of exchange. The
choice of these metals for such a purpose was
not made, however, without good  reasons.
Some of these are evident.  Scarcely any other
article is less liable to decay. A bar of gold
will sustain little injury in the course of a
thousand years.  They are also both hard and
fusible, easily divided into any number of parts
to suit the convenience of the dealer, and nearly
unite the maximum of value with the mininmum
of bulk.  The most important characteristic of
the precious metals is, that they are so scarce,
and the labour required to procure them is so
great, as to secure us from any considerable or
sudden alteration in their value. This is a
fundamental point. If a person, in concluding
some purchase, agreed to pay another in twelve
months' time six quarters of wheat, there would
be a danger of his creditor obtaining more or
less than his due, since the accident of a good
or bad harvest next autumn might raise or sink
the price of that article by one-half, and affect
in such a ratio the terms of the bargain. But
it is impossible that the quantity of gold
in circulation next year should differ so far
from its present amount.  During that short
interval its variation in price will be very
inconsiderable, and hence a payment fixed in
it will fluctuate in value much less than if it
were fixed in corn. But though this is true in
reference to comparatively short intervals, a
different law holds good'when we speak of centuries:  A  quarter of wheat is much more




MONEY CURRENT.             79
likely to retain the same value in relation to
other commodities at the beginning and the end
of an era of three hundred years than a sum of
money.  Of this, Dr. Adam  Smith mentions a
remarkable instance.  "By the eighteenth of
Elizabeth, it was enacted that a third of the
rent of all college leases should be reserved in
corn, to be paid either in kind, or according to
the current prices at the nearest market.  The
money arising from the corn rent, though originally but a third of the whole, is, in the
present times, according to Dr. Blackstone,
commonly nearly double of what arises from
the other two-thirds. The old money rents of
colleges must, according to this account, have
sunk to almost a fourth of their ancient value,
or are worth little more than a fourth of the
corn they were originally worth. Some ancient
rents in Scotland, originally of considerable
value, have in this manner been reduced almost
to nothing." All payments, therefore, which are
intended to be made for centuries to come at a
uniform value should not be fixed in money.
The same quantities of corn will, at distant
times, be much nearer the same value in relation to other commodities than the same quantities of gold or silver.
It is common to speak of barter as a transaction essentially different from one which is
effected by means of money, the name being
applied to an exchange of commodities of one
sort for those of another, as distinct from an
exchange of commodities for coin.  Such a




80                 MONEY.
distinction may be useful, but it has no real
basis. The precious metals are as truly commodities as sugar and cotton.  A purchase is
not essentially different from simple barter,
and whatever we give in exchange for some
other article is money.  Because the merchant finds it more convenient both to the
seller and himself to effect the purchase by
giving the precious metals rather than timber,
salt, or flax, the nature of the process is not at all
altered. It was not mere accident which determined that gold and silver should be used as
money. If these metals had been less durable
or of less value in proportion to their bulk,
some other articles would have been adopted in
their stead. In very ancient times the Greek
or Roman merchant drove his oxen to the
smith's shop to obtain in exchange the productions of the forge; but when, observing
that a piece of gold of a certain size and
quality was regarded as equal in value to so
many oxen, he preferred using it in his commerce with the smith: no mystery was thrown
around the process; he merely chose, fiom
motives of private convenience, to part with one
kind of property rather than another.
It is amusing to observe how many different
kinds of articles have been actually used for
money.  There is evidence that sheep and
oxen  were extensively  employed  for  this
purpose in the earliest ages. The illustration
usually drawn from Homer, that the armour of
Diomede cost nine oxen, while that of Glaucu,




MONEY CURRENT.             81
cost a hundred, will probably be familiar to
the reader.  Hence the first coined money is
supposed to have borne an impress of the
animal whose value it represented. An instance
of this occurs in Job xlii. 11, where it is said,
that every one of Job's friends "gave him  a
piece of money." The term used in the original
is kesitoth, thought by some to denote a sheep
or a lamb, but the most correct translation may
be presumed to be that which favours the idea
of a piece of money bearing a stamp indicating
that it was of the value of a sheep or lamb.
The  generic  name  for money  among  the
Romans, pecunia, points to the same origin,
having been derived from  pecus, signifying
cattle. In some parts of Africa, pieces of cloth,
of a certain size and quality, constitute, so to
speak, the current coin. In other parts of the
same continent, cowry shells serve for money,
and elsewhere cakes of salt. In some parts of
the East Indies, fine porcelain shells answer
the same purpose; and among some of the
American tribes, wampum, or strings of shells,
which may be worn round the waist, serve both
for ornaments and money.  Among the same
people, as also among the ancient Russians, and
all primitive nations, skins were a common
medium of exchange. This fact elucidates that
passage in Job where the patriarch says, " Skin
for skin, (literally, skin after skin,) yea, all
that a man hath will he give for his life,"
pointing to the universal truth that the love of
existence is so strong within the human breast,




82                 MONEY.
that men are willing to purchase it, though at
the cost of all their earthly provisions.
Gold and silver, which now constitute the
principal medium  of exchange among civilized
nations, have been found in abundance in many
different parts of the globe from  the earliest
times.  The first accounts we have of these
precious metals are found in the Scriptures.
The sacred historian, speaking of the river
Pison, probably  the  Euphrates, says, " It
compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where
there is gold, and the gold of that land is good."
Abraham  is said to have been rich " in cattle,
in silver, and in gold;" and Job beautifully
exclaims, at the opening of the sublime passage in which he delineates the nature and
excellence of true wisdom: " Surely there is a
vein for the silver, and a place for the gold
where they fine it."  The comparative abundance of gold at a little later period is proved
by the large supply which the children of
Israel carried with them out of Egypt. The
tabernacle erected out of their voluntary offerings was a costly structure; its walls and a great
part of its furniture were overlaid with gold.
The entire value of the precious metals employed in its construction is estimated by Dr.
Kitto at ~213,320.  Taking into account the
social condition of the children of Israel in
Egypt, and making proper allowances for the
valuable gifts which they received from the
Egyptians at their departure, we cannot but
conclude that in those early days gold was




MONEY CURRENT.               88
very plentiful in proportion to the population.*
We learn again from the sacred records, that in
the time of Solomon gold abounded in Palestine.  The reign of Solomon may be regarded
as an epoch in the history of that metal. He
collected in one year six hundred threescore
and ten talents, probably about ~300,000 in
value of our money, and his ships brought fiom
Ophir 420 talents of gold, or ~190,800.  We
are told in the book of Kings that his throne
was of ivory overlaid with gold, that all the
drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels
of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of
pure gold; none were of silver, for silver was
" nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon,"
who " made silver to be as stones in Jerusalem."
He also made " two hundred targets of beaten
gold; six hundred shekels of gold went to one
target: and three hundred shields of beaten
gold; three pounds of gold went to one shield."
These statements of the inspired volume,
from  which we should infer the comparative
abundance of gold among the nations of antiquity, are strikingly confirmed by profane history.t  Diodorus informs us that Ninus, the
founder of Nineveh, "possessed himself of all
the treasures of Bactriana, among which was
abundance of silver and gold;" and that" Semiramis, the founder of Babylon, erected statues
* The Tabernacle and its Furniture, by Dr. Kitto.
t For many of the facts embodied in this chapter the
author is indebted to the valuable "Lectures on Gold,'!
which have recently been delivered at the Museum of Practical
Geology.




84                MONEY.
of beaten gold, that of Jupiter being forty feet
in height, and weighing a thousand Babylonian
talents, and those of Rhea and Juno equalling
it in size and magnificence." From the accounts
given by Diodorus, it is inferred that Semiramis
had collected as much gold as would amount to
eleven millions of our money.  The tribute
which Darius king of Persia drew from his
various provinces amounted in gold  alone,
according to the calculations of Gibbon, to
~3,250,000. We may jud. of the proverbial
wealth of Croesus, king of Lydia, who lived
540 years before Christ, by the value of his presents to the temple of Delphi, which amounted
to 4,000 talents of silver, and 270 talents of
gold, a sum nearly equal to ~3,500,000 sterling.
The enormous wealth of Pytheus, a Lydian
despot of the age of Xerxes, enabled him to
entertain that monarch with his whole army,
when on their way to invade Greece. He even
offered to defray the whole expense of the expedition, a piece of generosity which Xerxes ill
repaid by putting his son to death, rather than
suffer him, at his father's request, to leave the
army.  The metallic treasures of Pytheus have
been estimated at ~3,600,000 of our money.
Appian tells us that in the time of Ptolemy
Philadelphus the Egyptian treasury contained
no less a sum than ~178,000,000.  The immense wealth of the Romans may be inferred
from the following facts. The sums obtained
by Augustus through the testamentary bequests of his friends amounted to ~32,291,666




MONEY CURRENT.            85
sterling. Tiberius left at his death a fortune of
~21,796,875, which Caligula is said to have
squandered in a single year. The sum required
for the maintenance of the Roman commonwealth was estimated, at the accession of Vespasian, at ~322,916,000 sterling. Csesar, before
setting out for Spain, is said to have been
~2,018,000 in debt, and two of the bribes
which he lavished for the maintenance of his
political power were together more than three
quarters of a million sterling.
It would be interesting to inquire. into the
source from  which the ancients drew  these
immense supplies of the precious metals, but
the intricacy of the subject precludes us from
venturing more than a few general remarks, in
which we shall still avail ourselves of the
guidance of Mr. Hunt.  Humboldt thinks it
probable that large quantities were brought by
the Phoenicians from  western India and the
adjacent coasts of Arabia and eastern Africa.
It is probable that gold was found in abundance
in the countries bordering on the north-eastern
corner of the Black Sea.  Here, Herodotus
tell us, the Massagetae had accumulated an
immense quantity of gold, and here too the
Siberian gold washings have been found so
lucrative that whereas they yielded but ~8,345
in the year 1830, their value increased more
than a hundred fold during the next twelve
years, and are now the source of a considerable
revenue to the  Russian government.  Very
extensive gold-works, evidently abandoned for
8




86                MONEY.
many centuries past, have been discovered on
the south-eastern slope of the Ural Mountains.
They were worked, in all probability, by the
Scythian tribes  to whom  Herodotus refers.
"Their extent  shows  that  the workmen
employed in them must have been numerous,
while an inspection of them proves that only
the rudiments of the science of mining were
then known.  They seem to have scraped out
the gold with boars' fangs, and collected it in
leather bags or packets. Some of the pits are
twenty fathoms deep.  The roots of large firtrees have spread themselves among the heaps
of stones which have been raised against the
sides of the furnaces."  Gold was also procured in large quantities from Ethiopia and
Nubia. Belzoni discovered that an extensive
tract had been worked in the Sahara Mountains,
and Jacobs infers, from a close examination of
the subject, that the produce of. these mines
was not less than ~6,000,000 annually, a large
proportion  of which  must have been gold.
Hence probably  the Pharaohs drew  their
wealth. Here, perhaps, the gold was produced
which was consecrated to the service of God in
the Jewish Tabernacle, and that which along
with costly spices, constituted the valuable presents which the queen of Sheba offered to king
Solomon. The Athenians procured gold from
Thrace and the isle of Thasos; Thessaly also
produced ores which were rich in the same
metal. The Romans.drew  their enormous
wealth from various sources; from Upper Italy




MONEY CURRENT.            87
and Spain; the Novi Alps and Illyria.  From
this last district gold was obtained, partly in
large grains on the surface, and  partly in
mines, in so fine a state that only an eighth
part was lost in the process of smelting and
refining. Its great quantity caused a decrease
of its price by one-third throughout Italy, and
induced the proprietors to employ fewer workmen in order to raise its value.  We have seen
that the wealth of Rome during the Augustan
age was immense, but it soon declined very
rapidly in consequence of the closing of the
mines in Illyria and Spain, and for a long
period the world received no addition to its
stock of the precious metals.
Coming down to more modern times, it is
interesting to notice the traces of gold which
have been found on our own soil. It is probable that the Romans were led to invade Britain
in consequence of the reports they had heard of
its excessive wealth. It is certain that they
worked the Gogofau mines in Caermarthenshire.
Small quantities of gold have also been picked
up in Cornwall from  the earliest times, and in
the reigns of Edward I. and iii., extensive works
were carried on at Comb Martin, Devonshire;
between 300 and 400 miners from Derbyshire
were employed in them, and their produce was
so considerable as to assist the Black Prince in
his wars against France.  In 1390, Richard ii.
granted to John Younge, refiner, all the gold
and silver found in any mine in England, on
condition of his paying a ninth part to the crown,




88                MONEY.
a tenth to the church, and an eleventh to the
proprietor of the soil.  Such was the rage for
gold in the middle ages, that it became one of
the leading objects of philosophic pursuit.  In
1444, a patent was granted to John Cobbe,' that by the art of philosophy he might transform imperfect metals from their own proper
nature, and transmute them to gold or silver."
In the eighth century, the Hungarian gold mines
were first worked, and in the following century
those of Sweden and Norway; but during the
next five hundred years, the quantity of gold
produced from mines was probably not more
than sufficient to make up for the annual waste
of that already in circulation. The discovery
of America in 1492 was soon followed by considerable accession of metallic wealth, though
on the whole, the general impression which
prevails respecting its amount is probably exaggerated.  The extravagant expectations of
Columbus and his companions were greatly
disappointed.  The Indians were strangers to
the arts of mining, and the little gold they had
in their possession had been picked up on the
surface of the earth, or found in the channels
of their mountain streams.  The Spaniards,
however, soon began to search for the precious
metals with the appliances of European skill;
extensive works were set on foot; still, to 1519,
the annual yield of gold was not more than
~52,000. Pizarro landed in Peru in 1527,
and during the next twenty-five years America
forwarded to Spain, according to the calculation




MONEY CURRENT.             89
of Humboldt, ~630,000 per annum  in gold,
which would make the total produce of gold in
America from 1492 to 1545, a period of fiftythree years, about ~17,058,000 sterling, or a
little more than ~321,849 annually. In 1545,
the celebrated silver mines of Potosi were discovered, the annual produce of which for the
next twenty-one years was equal in value to
~280,000 sterling.
It is impossible to think of the sufferings
inflicted upon the American aborigines, in this
merciless struggle for gain, without pity. The
unhappy native soon found that the possession
of gold was equivalent to a sentence of proscription and massacre.  The excesses of the
ruthless hordes which followed the banners of
Cortes and Pizarro to the New World will ever
stand among the most cruel and loathsome
tragedies which pollute the historic page. They
demonstrate to the world that mammon is as
bloodthirsty as ambition, and that the happiness, and the lives of millions are sometimes
as cheap at the shrine of money as at the shrine
of power.  When the natives had yielded to
their invaders all the precious metals in their
possession, they were straightway reduced to
slavery, and forced to ransack the earth for
more.  Hard labour, prosecuted under the lash
of their cruel taskmasters, destroyed those whom
the sword had spared; and if the severities at
first resorted to had long continued, extinction
would soon have covered with its shroud the
hapless race of Montezuma. Avarice at length
8*




90                MONEY.
supplied its own correction, and the fear of
having no slaves to toil dictated the exercise of
moderation. For three centuries, however, the
chiet use which Spain made of her enormous
colonial empire was that of ministering to
domestic luxury. Vast treasures were annually
dispatched to the mother country, which contributed to its immediate wealth at the expense
of plunging it in irremediable poverty. Had
the wealth derived from  the colonies been
employed in stimulating domestic industry, or
been absorbed in the demands of an increasing
commerce, it would have proved a source of
permanent benefit. But instead of being applied to these objects, it was sought merely as
the means of present gratification. Agriculture
was neglected, trade discouraged, but little
capital expended  in  home enterprises; the
nation strove, as far as possible, to live on the
income derived from the precarious source of
its transatlantic possessions, and when this was
cut off it became at once poor. Thus we see
how the colonial wealth which once made Spain
an object of envy to other nations, by discouraging productive industry, the only true
basis of national greatness, conduced to her
present prostration, and thus the selfishness of
her councils became in this way the executor
of its own deserved punishment.
From 1760 to 1769 the value of the silver
produce of the Mexican mines amounted to
112,828,860 dollars. A more liberal policy on
the part of the home government raised this




MONEY CURRENT.             91
during the period 1780-89 to 193,504,554
dollars, and during the next nine years the
aggregate produce amounted to 231,080,214
dollars. The disasters of the French revolution, by diminishing the resources of the state,
obliged the proprietors of mines to depend for
capital upon the advances of private speculators;
this led to a narrowing of mining operations, and
a consequent diminution of their produce. The
severest blow, however, was struck in 1810,
when the Mexican revolution forced most of
the old Spaniards to withdraw  their capital
from the country. The condition of the mines in
1823,upon the establishment of the republic, was
most deplorable. Nearly all the works had gone to
decay, the passages being choked up and the shafts
filled with water. The want of domestic capital
led to the establishment of foreign companies,
by whom the mines were for the most part reclaimed, though at a vast expenditure, and with
no prospect of remuneration for years. Many
of these enterprises, after exciting hopes of large
profits, turned out utter failures.  Humboldt
calculates that the quantity of silver which the
mines of Mexico yielded prior to 1803 amounted
to the enormous sum of 1,767,952,000 dollars.
Notwithstanding the abstraction of such a vast
amount, Mr. Ward declares his conviction that
the mineral treasures of New Spain, so far from
being -exhausted, were scarcely touched-; and
Humboldt gives it as his opinion that the great
mineral resources of Mexico began at precisely
that point where the labours of the Spaniards




92                 MONEY.
terminated. It serves to correct the impressions
likely to be conveyed by such statements to learn
that Mexico, though poorly cultivated, possesses
in her agriculture a greater source of wealth
than all her mines.  Humboldt calculates that
the agricultural produce of Mexico annually,
upon an average of ten years, amounts to
twenty-nine millions of dollars. On the other
hand, the  annual average  produce  of the
Mexican mines amounted, before the revolution
of 1810, to twenty-four millions of dollars,
being less in value by five millions than the
produce of agriculture.*
After a cessation of gold discoveries for more
than three centuries, our own times have witnessed a revival of that excitement which the
tales of the Spanish navigators formerly spread
through Europe.  Ever since the termination
of the revolutionary war between Great Britain
and her North American colonies, a growing
importance has been attached to the extensive
tract of fertile and unoccupied country which
extends from  the western side of the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific.  It was foreseen that
in the spread of civilization westward the time
must arrive when that part of the world would
become the seat of rising states, but no expectation was entertained that its mineral treasures
would soon render its name as synonymous for
wealth as that of Peru.  Scarcely five years
have elapsed since the " diggings" commenced
in California, yet the land is already in the
* Ward's Travei's in Mexico.




MONEY CURRENT.              93
hands of a rapidly increasing population, towns
and villages are springing up in the desert, the
various forms of civil society have been extemporized into existence, and its political rights
been recognised in the halls of Congress. So
early as 1849, nearly 50,000 persons were
conveyed across the Isthmus of Panama alone,
besides those who chose other routes, on their
way to San Francisco, and the ratio of migration has gone on increasing.
While all eyes were turned to California as
the world's El Dorado, a golden beam suddenly
shone forth from  another quarter, which is
invested with far superior interest by its political and social connexion with ourselves.  Australia, as is well known, is an immense tract of
land in the Pacific Ocean, almost as large as all
Europe, with the large island called Van Diemen's
Land at its south-eastern extremity, and separated
from it by Bass Straits about 130 miles across.
Emigration to this part of the world had gone
on rather slowly. Its distance, the comparatively unattractive nature of its soil, and the
bad reputation it had acquired as the seat of our
p)nal settlements, had induced the intending
eligrant to choose some other part in preference.
in its physical characteristics and the extent of
its poptlation, the south-easternsection of this
vast continent is the most remarkable. Here are
found the most considerable rivers and mountains which have yet been discovered within its
limits.  The great eastern chain of mountains
commences at Wilson's Promontory, opposite




94                 MONEY.
Van Diemen's Land, and stretches north and
north-east to the Australian Alps, where it
attains, in Mount Kosciusko, an elevation of
6,500 feet.  From  the Australian Alps, the
range continues toward the district of Moreton
Bay, at a distance of 70 or 100 miles from the
sea, rising occasionally to the height of 4,000
feet.  The principal auriferous  spots which
~ave yet been discovered occur in the flanks
of this mountainous range, or on its lateral
spurs and branches.  The general character of
the gold district will be best understood by
approaching  it from  the  neighbourhood of
Sydney or Paramatta.  Beyond the latter ot
these towns, which lies the furthest inland, we
find for thirty or forty miles a gently undulating plain, only slightly raised above the level
of the sea.  Beyond this the ground becomes
hilly, and slopes gradually upwards for many
m iles, till it reaches an elevation of perhaps
2,000 feet.  The greater part of this sloping
surface is intersected with innumerable gullies
and ravines, "so that its whole area seems
equally divided between the furrows and their
separating walls of rock.  These gullies have
for the most part perfectly precipitous sides, at
the bottom of which there is generally a little
trickling stream, which after heavy rains is
swollen to a fierce torrent.  The higher we
ascend, the deeper and grander do these ravines
become, till they almost assume the character of
great gulfs or bays 1,500 feet deep, with grand
vertical precipices winding  round  them  in




MONEY CURRENT.            95
headland after headland, like the Alps of some
great seashore.  Crossing  these mountains,
which is a work of no ordinary difficulty, we
find ourselves in the Bathurst Plains, a lofty
table-land, more than 2,000 feet above the
level of the sea. About thirty miles across
these plains rises the Conobalas group of hills,
attaining a height of 2,300 feet above the level
of Bathurst.  On the northern flank of these
Conobalas several small streams run down into
the Macquarrie river, and it was upon the banks
of two of these small streams, the Summer
Hiil Creek and the Lewis Ponds River, that
gold was first found.  "The gold was found in
the accumulated sand and gravel, especially in
the inside of the banks of the brook, and at the
junction of the two water-courses, where they
would often check each other.  It was coarse
gold, showing its parent site to be no great
distance, and probably in the quartz veins
traversing the metamorphic rocks of the Conobalas."
The discovery of gold in Australia is peculiarly
interesting, because the way to it was opened by
scientific thought. Sir Roderick Murchison
may be regarded as the true discoverer.  That
gentleman having visited the Ural Mountains,
where gold is found in large quantities, was
struck with the resemblance between  that
district and the great eastern chain of Australia, and so early as 1844, in his address to
the Geographical Society, expressed his opinion
that the latter would prove auriferous. His




96                MONEY.
remarks having been inserted in the Australian papers,. a Mr. Smith, then engaged in
some iron vworks at Berrima, was induced by
them to go in search of gold. His search proved
successful.  He sent his specimens to the
colonial government, offering for ~500  to
reveal the place where they were found. This
offer was declined; the governor engaged, however, if Mr. Smith would mention the locality,
to reward him  according to the value of the
discovery. To those terms Mr. Smith refused
to accede, and it remained for Mr. Hargraves,
who had gained considerable experience in
California, to remake the discovery, and obtain
the reward from government on their own conditions. The gold was found at first in large
quantities.  Some of the facts narrated are
very  remarkable.  Mr. Latrobe, lieutenantgovernor of Victoria, states that he witnessed
the washing of two tins of blue clay, of about
twenty-six inches in diameter, and that "the
yield" was no less than eight pounds' weight
of pure gold. The average produce of the
Ballarat diggings was estimated for some time
at seven hundred ounces per day. Mount
Alexander was still more productive.  The
gold raised there in  December, 1851, was
calculated  by hundredweights, and brought
into the cities on the coast at the rate of two
tons a week.   The  excitement produced
throughout tlhe whole colony by such astonishing discoveries can with difficulty be conceived.
The towns poured their population into the




MONEY CURRENT              97
country. In the district last mentioned 20,000
persons were soon congregated.  This sudden
absorption of labour in one pursuit, joined to
the enormous influx of gold, produced an instantaneous change in the price of every other
commodity.  Wages in the public departments
rose at once fifty or a hundred per cent. Police,
turnkeys, letter-carriers, instead of 4s. 6d.
received from  7s. to 8s. a day.  Labourers'
wages rose from 5s. to 15s. and 20s. a day, and
those of artisans from eighty to a hundred and
twenty per cent.  The price of food rose in
proportion.  The quartern loaf, which could
formerly be procured for 5d., at the beginning
of the present year sold for Is. 3d., and at the
last account for ls. 8d. The price of meat was
doubled, and bacon rose froln 6d. to 2s. a
pound.  House-rent, hotel charges, cartage,
and boat-hire, rose fifty per cent.; clothes,
hardware, and furniture, a hundred per cent.;
and the price of shoeing a horse, formerly 5s.,
was now 25s.  These changes in the price of
commodities may be ascribed chiefly to the
abandonment of ordinary industrial pursuits,
and the sudden increase of the population.
During the last six months of 1851, no less
than  11,000 persons arrived by sea at the
colony of Victoria, and during the first seventeen days of 1852, 2,781.
We have already mentioned the capability
which gold has of resisting the influences of
the atmosphere as peculiarly fitting it for answering the purpose of money; its extreme
9




98                 MONEY.
malleability renders it equally fit for articles of
decoration.  It may be beaten into leaves no
thicker than -' —-o-th part of an inch.  A
single grain may be beaten into a leaf which
will cover 561 inches, or may be drawn into a
wire 500 feet in length. Gold is distinguished
from  nearly all other metals by its extreme
density.  Its specific gravity (its weight as
compared with that of an equal bulk of pure
water) is nearly 191, while that of silver is not
quite 10{, lead not quite 13}, and quicksilver
no more than 11!.  Its greater relative density
is of great use in determining its presence when
other indications happen to be wanting. Should
the miner or washer find a piece of quartz ot
more than ordinary weight, he is seldom  disappointed in finding it auriferous. Such a test
is the more valuable as there are several
mineral substances which have a striking resemblance to gold. One of these is the " yellow
mica."  Dr. Lyon Playfair recently exhibited
a specimen of this mineral, part of a cargo
brought from the Arkansas in mistake for gold,
a mistake which nearly ruined the adventurer
who brought it.  The same professor tells us
that, a short time since, a vessel arrived at a
seaport from  Ichaboe, having as part of its
cargo a number of bags of supposed gold. Two
dealers in the precious metals went to examine
this supposed treasure.  One prudently submitted a specimen to the inspection of a scientific man; but the other, hoping to steal a
march upon his fellow trader, went on board




MONEY CURRENT.              99
in the middle of the night, and bought the
whole at a high price, the material being, in a
commercial point of view, utterly  worthless.
It is important to remember, as a chemical test
of great simplicity, that gold will dissolve when
heated in a mixture of aquafortis and spirits of
salts; or " by throwing a little common salt
and saltpetre into water, and adding a little oil
of vitriol, chlorine will be produced, and the
gold will dissolve."  The gold thus dissolved
can then be brought back to its original state
by other processes equally simple.
Gold generally occurs in a pure state, or at
least so pure that its metallic character can at
once be recognised. Other metals are generally
found in combination with foreign substances.
Iron, copper, tin, and lead, are most frequently
found in chemical combination with oxygen,
sulphur, arsenic, and carbon; so that their presence can only be distinguished by a Acientific
eye; but gold probably in all cases is in a
state of mechanical mixture, not chemical combination.  It is found most frequently on or
near the surface of the earth in veins of quartz
or other minerals, from a few inches to several
feet in breadth; or else in pla)ces not far distant, where it has been carried by the action ot
water, and there deposited.  From  these circumstances spring the  various methods  of
searching for gold.  When sought for in its
original seat, the quartz veins, the process is
very laborious; vast masses of rock have to
be removed, and all the arts of mining to be




100                MONEY.
resorted to.  In other cases the operations are
more simple. Where the gold has been drifted
by the action of water over the surface of the
land, it is generally found to the depth of a few
feet, under a cover of soil, peat, sand, gravel, or
other materials capable of being washed down
from  the neighbouring rocks.  The removing
of this cover in search of the gold underneath
constitutes the "dry  diggings;"  the  " wet
diggings" are those which are carried on in the
beds of rivers.
Considerable excitement prevails at the present time respecting the probable effect which
the rich discoveries in California and Australia
will have upon the value of gold, and consequently on the value of fixed incomes.  It will
aid in forming an intelligent opinion on this
subject to know the ratio of our supply of gold,
both past and present, to the entire stock of our
pecuniary wealth.  It is calculated that the
whole of the money current in Europe at the
time of the discovery of America amounted to
~34,000)000.  That produced in the interval
1492-1599, after making allowance for the
loss by wearing away, probably amounted to
~138,000,000, which added to the former gives
a total of ~172,000,000.  It is further calculated that the quantity which during the same
period was conveyed to Asia in exchange for
its commodities, or applied  to  other uses,
amounted to ~42,000,000, leaving the stock of
gold and silver coin current in Europe at the
end  of 1509, ~130,000,000.   During  the




MONEY CURRENT.           101
interval 1600-1700, our entire supply of gold
was derived from  America, whose mines are
calculated to have produced in the course of
the  century  ~337,500,000  worth  of the
precious metals. Of this, ~33,000,000 were
sent to the Philippine  Islands, India, and
China; ~60,000,000 of gold were employed in
the decorative arts; and if ~34,000,000 is
allowed for diminution in natural wear, losses
by shipwreck, etc., the amount of coined money
in Europe at the end of 1699 may be estimated
at ~297,000,000 sterling.  During the next
century our chief supplies were drawn from
America, the whole of which, including gold
dust from  Africa, and the gold and  silver
produce of Europe, may be set down at an
aggregate of ~800,000,000, or, ~8,000,000
annually.  During the present century the
sources of supply have been more numerous,
and some have grown less fertile. The American mines were estimated in 1840 at ~5,600,000
a year, a sum very considerably lower than
Humboldt's estimate thirty years previous, and
their aggregate amount (excluding California,
of course) has not increased during the last
four or five years.  Carolina, Georgia, and
other parts of the United States, have produced
large quantities of gold, its value having been
in 1828, 46,000 dollars, and in 1841, 542,117
dollars. The great increase of gold, however,
has been from the Russian mines.  In 1830,
the gold washings of Siberia producedfivepoods;
in 1842, 631 poods; a pood being equal to
9*




102                MONEY.
forty pounds troy.  In this latter year the
total produce of the Russian mines, including
those in the Ural Mountains, was 971 poods, or
~1,989,128. 11s., and sir Roderick Murchison
estimates the produce of gold at the present
time in Russia at ~3,000,000 per annum.
California exported gold to this country in
1850 to the value of ~700,000, in 1851 to the
value of ~1,300,000; and if the importation of
the present year (1852) goes on at its past rate,
it will not be less than ~2,000,000.  From
Australia we received last year ~40,000, while
to the end of June in this year we received
~2,600,000, being at the rate of ~5,200,000 a
year, an amount not far from  equal to the
whole produce of the American mines in 1840.
Mr. Hunt says, " It has been estimated by some
that ~23,000,000 of gold and silver will be
added to our store of precious metals this year.
This appears to be one of the exaggerated
statements arising out of the fever of the day:
we shall not receive more than ~11,000,000
from the United States, California, and Australia; and if we receive ~3,000,000 more from
all other sources, it will be as much as we may
expect."
In asking what effect the increased sziuply of
gold will have in raising or lowering its present
value, we must not forget to inquire into the
state of the demand.  This side of the question
is as important as the former, for though the
supply of gold has greatly increased, yet if the
demand for it has increased, or is likely to




MONEY CURRENT.           103
increase in the same ratio, its value will remain
undisturbed.  We may recognise this more
clearly if we select some other article for illustration.  If the quantity of wheat, for example,
at present in the markets of the world were
gradually doubled, the wants of the population
remaining the same, its value would be greatly
diminished. The holder of wheat to the previous
value of ~10,000 would find his property diminished probably by more than half that amount,
and all payments fixed in wheat would be worth
no more than half their former value. But if by
any means whatever, when the quantity of
wheat was doubled, the demand for it was
loubled also, its value  would  remain  unchanged.  We estimate the value of money by
the quantity of commodities it will purchase,
and this is fixed by the quantity of both which
happens to be in the market together. If the
present amount of commodities purchaseable
with money were doubled, or the existing stock
of money were reduced by one-half, that portion of the latter which remained would evidentfy increase in value in the same proportion,
and the converse process would take place if
the existing sum of all commodities were to be
reduced by one-half the present amount, or
that of money were doubled. But if both were
multiplied or diminished in equal ratio, no
change would transpire in their relative value.
This is precisely what facts demonstrate to be
taking place at the present time. The quantity of gold  is being  augmented, but an




104               MONEY.
augmentation equally rapid is going on in the
quantity of commodities purchaseable with it.
We have more money; but our growing commerce and manufactures find it more work to
do. Money is the exchanging mediunl, but we
have twice what we formerly had to exchange;
to avoid inconvenience, therefore, it is desirable
that money should increase to the same extent.
The gold produced during the last two years
seems to have been entirely absorbed in meeting the demands of commerce. The exportation
of coin from England keeps pace with the importation of raw gold. From November, 1850,
to June, 1851, the Bank of England issued
9,500,000 sovereigns, being at the rate  of
18,000,000 a year; and so great has been the
demand for our gold coins, that since November
last there have been  coined  at the Mint
3,500,000 sovereigns and half-sovereigns, and
the rate of production can hardly keep pace
with the increasing demand. Besides the increased demand for the precious metals which
arises thus from their use as money, they are
being employed to an unprecedented extent in
the arts and manufactures, and this must tend
directly to increase the  demand.  In Birmingham  alone, the weekly consumption of
pure gold is one thousand ounces; ten thousand
ounces are used annually for gilding metals;
one establishment in the potteries employs, in
gilding porcelain, etc., ~3,500, and another
nearly ~2,000. It is calculated by Mr. McCulloch, that the total annual consumption of the




MONEY CURRENT.            105
precious metals in the arts is ~6,050,000, or
more than three-fourths of the entire annual
produce of ail the mines in the world during the
last century.  Besides this, nearly ~2,000,000
annually are required to make up for waste
and loss in the existing metallic currency, so
that a supply of ~8,000,000 or ~9,000,000 is
absolutely necessary before any addition can be
made to the quantity of the precious metals in
circulation.  From  these facts alone we may
conclude " that the influx of Australian and
Californian gold will produce but little change
in its value in Europe."
One of the most interesting subjects connected with a metallic medium  of exchange is
COINAGE. In ancient times, gold and silver were
sold by weight.  Abraham  weighed the purchase money of Machpelah, and the sons of
Jacob, when they went to purchase corn in
Egypt, carried their money " in full weight."
In the prophet Amos, the Israelitish merchants
are represented as "falsifying the balances by
deceit." The shekel and talent do not appear
to have been originally fixed and  stamped
pieces of money, but simply weights used in
traffic.  Hence the injunction, " Thou shalt
not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and
a small."  It was customary for the Jews to
have scales attached to their girdles for weighing the gold or silver they received, but the
Cnanaites carried them in their hands. Pliny
tells us, on the authority of an ancient historian,
that until the times of Servius Tullius the




106               MONEY.
Romans had no coined money, bars of copper
being used instead.  Long after the reign of
William  the Conqueror, money was paid into
the English exchequer by weight, and in many
parts of China and Abyssinia the value of gold
and silver is still ascertained in the same
manner.  The origin of coinage may be accounted for on the most obvious principles.
Previous to the reign of William iii., it was the
sworn duty of a public officer, called an almager,
to measure all cloth manufactured in this realm,
and to indicate by a mark that it was of a
certain required  length.  Such a step was
thought necessary to protect the buyer from
imposition; and if really so with an article
comparatively inexpensive, the actual quantity
of which it was so easy to ascetain, we may
conceive how necessary it was felt to have some
method of guaranteeing the quality and weight
of the precious metals. Without such a guarantee, every purchase into which they entered
must have been very slow and precarious, since
in every case the seller would have had to
ascertain, not only their weight, but whether
they contained any mixture of alloy. If this
could have been done without much inconvenience in the case of skilled merchants and large
transactions, it would be different with the
thousand petty exchanges which take place
every day between inexperienced or ignorant
persons. We cannot doubt, from the ease with
which spurious money is circulated even in the
face of existing precautions, that if there were no




MONEY CURRENT.            107
coinage, frauds would be indefinitely multiplied,
and a sense of insecurity produced which would
soon put an end to one-half our presentcommerc6e
The advantages of coined money led to its
adoption at a very early period.  At first,
perhaps, the process of coining consisted simply
in imposing a certain mark upon a piece of
metal to certify its quality, leaving its amount
to be ascertained by weight; but one improvement leading to another, the processes of assaying and weighing were both dispensed with, by
reducing all money to certain denominations,
each possessing a fixed and uniform  value.
Thus, in our own country, that which we now
call a pound was originally a pound's weight of
silver. This was coined into twenty shillings,
and each shilling made exchangeable for twelve
silver pennies. It is evident that this further
improvement must have been very favourable
to commerce, by facilitating the conclusion of
every purchase, the exact value of the pecuniary equivalent being settled beforehand. In
most countries the prerogative of coining has
been assumed by the state, to which it has
often been a source of considerable profit. This
arose partly from  the  seigniorage or duty
which was charged  on  all metals passing
through the mint; but whatever emoluments
might arise from  this practice, which is now
abolished, they were trivial compared with the
immense sums of which the public have been
defrauded by the systematic depreciation of the
coin. This nefarious course has been taken by




108                MONEY.
the state in almost every country in Europe,
whenever its coffers needed replenishing or its
debts grew burdensome.  It has been said that
corporate bodies have no conscience, and the
utterer of this maxim  could hardly wish a
better illustration of its truth than the historic
fact to which we advert.  If a person owed a
hundred pounds while his property was noot
worth more than fifty pounds, he would be
thought dishonest or insane if he proceeded to
give his creditors sixpence for every shilling,
and to insist upon this as a full payment of his
debts. Still more villanous would it be thought
if, having the power, he decreed that such a
change should be legal throughout the land;
that in all future payments sixpence should
count for a shilling.  This would be nothing
less than a robbery upon all who had any
money owing them; it would deprive every
creditor of one-half his rights. Yet this is
precisely what some European governments
have done again and again. The injustice has
not been perpetrated exactly in the way we
have described; this would have been too
flagrant; but the same end has been more
covertly reached.  A  piece of silver, which
ought to have been coined into, say, two shillings, has been coined into three, and those to
whom it was issued at its full nominal value
been cheated to the extent of one-third.  We
have already seen that at the time of the Conquest an English pound consisted of a full
pound's weight of silver.  This was divided




MONEY CURRENT.            109
into twenty shillings, and each of these again
into twelve silver pennies, each shilling being
in weight one-twentieth, and each penny onehundred-and-fortieth part of the original pound.
The coin remained in this state till the days of
Edward i.,when a depreciation took place, which
was continued  under successive  sovereigns,
till, in the time of Elizabeth, a pound of silver
was coined into sixty-two shillings, the real
value of which was thus three times below its
nominal value.  Such a course is not peculiar
to modern times. Ancient Rome furnishes a
remarkable instance.  On the first coinage of
money under Servius Tullius, the as, or pondo,
contained twelve ounces, but in three hundred
years after it was reduced to two ounces, so
that a pecuniary engagement fixed  at the
beginning of that period could be met at its
close with  one-sixth  its original and just
amount.  France, however, affords the most
flagrant instance of this evil on record, since a
livre or pound of the days of Charlemagne
exceeded by sixty-six times the amount to
which it had sunk in 1789. Happily the time
has gone by when such oppressive measures
could be forced upon the world.
When several kinds of metals are used in
money, it is necessary to have one set apart as
the LEGAL STANDARD OF VALUE.  This will be at
once evident if we reflect that the value of the
precious metals, in reference to other commodities, depends, as we have seen, entirely upon the
quantity in which they can be procured. If the
10




110                MONEY.
quantity of gold  now  in  circulation  were
instantly doubled, and commodities and purchasers remained as before, its value would at
once sink one-half, just as the price of wheat
would sink to that extent if the quantity which
is stored in the granaries of Europe were suddenly raised to twice its present amount.  The
same may be affirmed of silver, copper, or any
other metal or article whatsoever. Now if gold
and silver, in all their fluctuations, always rose
or fell in precisely the same ratio-if an ounce
of gold, however large or small the quantity of
other commodities which could be had in exclange for it, were always worth exactly so
many ounces of silver, as far as those metals are
concerned, no one standard of value would be
required.  But we have no security that the
ratio of increase or diminution in the two cases
will be the same. The discovery of a gold or
silver mine might at any time  break  the
balance, and considerably diminish the value of
one in relation to another.  If, then, by the
greater fruitfulness of existing mines, or the
discovery of new ones, the quantity of silver in
circulation were doubled, a dishonest debtor, by
discharging his liabilities in silver, might cheat
his creditors out of one-half their claims.  In
order to prevent the occurrence of such an evil,
the legislature in England has constituted gold
the only legal tender for all payments above
forty shillings.
THE CURRENCY of a country is that portion of
its capital which is employed solely as a medium




MONEY CURRENT.            111
of exchange.  We have mentioned  reasons
which make it preferable that metals should be
used as a vehicle of exchange; the chief of
which is that they have an actual worth of
their own, a sovereign not only indicating value
to the amount of twenty shillings, but actually
possessing it.  There are serious objections,
however, to an exclusively metallic currency,
arising from  its expensiveness.  It must be
borne in mind that money, so far as it merely
serves the purpose of exchange, bears no profit,
it adds nothing to the wealth of the country, it
serves as a passage for commodities from one
person to another, but it does nothing more,
and it is quite open to inquiry whether this
solitary function could not be discharged in a
cheaper way.  Assuming the currency of England to be ~50,000,000, though the probability
is that it is much more, its annual worth at six
per cent. interest is three millions, and this consequently is the rent we pay for the use of a
passage for the transfer of our goods.  But this
is not all we pay; the precious metals, though
very durable, are yet susceptible of wear and
tear.  A process of trituration is continually
taking place in the transit of money from hand
to hand, a palpable proof of which we have in
the smooth appearance of coins which have been
a long time in use. Besides, a large quantity
of coin is frequently lost by fires or shipwreck.
It would be a moderate estimate to set down the
diminution of the currency in these various
ways at half a million annually, which fixes the




112                MONEY.
yearly cost of conducting our exchanges through
the medium of the precious metals, at three and
a half millions.
One of the advantages of BANKS, considered
as public institutions, consists in their lessening
the expense of maintaining a metallic currency
without any detriment to its great advantages.
By their help a large portion of what constitutes
the floating capital of the country is employed
in remunerative undertakings, and thus increases the aggregate wealth of the community.
With dealers of all kinds there are intervals,
sometimes considerable, between  their purchases.  If, during these periods, their money
were locked up in a coffer, it would be of no
service either to themselves or others. But if,
instead of remaining thus inactive, it could be
deposited with some person who would give
security to pay it again on demand, it might be
made, by profitable employment, to bear a high
interest, which would go to enrich in certain
proportions the owner of the money and the
person to whom it was lent.  Moreover, if this
person was generally known to be a man of
integrity and wealth, one, to use a familiar but
expressive saying, whose " word is as good as
his bond," the money might be left in his
hand, and a written promise to pay it on
demand might enable the dealer to effect his
purchase just as well.  This supposed case
illustrates the theory of banking.  By means
of promissory notes, issued in the name of
competent individuals, a quantity of gold and




MONEY CURRENT.            113
silver, equal to their aggregate amount, may be
drawn from  circulation, and applied to the
productive interests of the country.  Thus, not
only the money which would be dead stock in
the hands of the merchant during the intervals
of his purchase, but'a large portion of that
which is required to carry on the business of
the nation, may be virtually added to its fixed
capital.  "The gold and silver money," says
Adam Smith, " which circulates in any country,
may be compared to a highway, which, while it
circulates and carries to market all the grass
and corn of the country, itself produces not a
single pile of either. The judicious operation
of banking, by providing, it I may use so violent a metaphor, a sort of wagon road through
the air, enables the country, as it were, to convert a great part of its highways into pastures
and corn-fields, and thereby to increase very
considerably the produce of its land and labour."
Banks appear to be institutions of great
antiquity. Our Lord's allusion, in his parable
of the talents, to the neglect of the slothful
servant, who did not put his money into the
bank, from which it might have been received
with usury, would seem to favour the supposition, if the words be correctly  translated,
that in Judaea banks of some kind existed.
The exchangers of money, also, who were
driven from the temple, seem to have been a
class of individuals who performed some of
those functions which bankers now exercise.
In Greece, the public were in the habit of
10*




114                MONEY.
committing their treasures to the custody of one
of their principal temples, which, in times of
peril and commotion, was respected from its
supposed sacred character.   The temple of
Delphi was in this manner the great bank of
Greece before the time of Homer, and seems
to have been proverbial for its riches.  At
Athens, also, a flourishing trade in banking
appears to have been carried on; and a passage
occurs in the writings of Xenophon which
would seem  to imply that the principles on
which joint-stock banking in modern times is
conducted were not entirely unknown. At Rome
bankers existed under the terms argentarii and
nulularii.  Some of these were appointed by
the government to receive the taxes; others
carried on business on their own account; and
men of wealth paid, as in the present day, their
revenues into  these  establishments, settling
their accounts with their creditors by giving a
draft or check on the bank.  During the
middle ages, banking was conducted not unskilfully by the Venetians and the Florentines.
The bank of Venice in particular had for many
centuries a European celebrity, and was imitated in the year 1609 by the bank of Amsterdam, which, for two centuries, fostered the
extensive commerce of Holland.
The business of banking, in the modern
acceptation of the term, did not begin in England till the middle of the seventeenth century.
It originated with the goldsmiths of London, who,
in addition to their trade in bullion, began then




MONEY CURRENT.            115
both to borrow and lend money. In the former
case they gave receipts for the money entrusted
to their care, which circulated at their specified
value, and thus laid the foundation for the introduction of bank notes.  As lenders, they
negotiated chiefly with the king, to whom they
often advanced the amount of his taxes before
they could be collected, thus originating a precedent which was afterwards followed by the
Bank of England.
T'he Bank of England is the largest monetary
establishment in the world. It was founded in
1694.  Though really a joint-stock company,
it has been from its commencement a national
rather than a private institution. Its origin
may be called political, and marks a most
important crisis in  the modern  history of
England.  The government which had been
established at the Revolution was in want of
money.  Its circumstances were critical, and
therefore its credit poor. The idea of a large
banking concern, under state patronage, when
suggested by Mr. William Patterson, a Scotch
gentleman, was favourably received. A charter
was readily granted, and the first subscribed
capital, amounting to ~1,200,000, was lent to
government at the high interest of eight per
cent.  In three years after, another loan of
more than a million was made to government,
but this was repaid in 1807. Successive loans,
however, have raised the'debt on the part of
government to the bank to more than eleven
millions-a monetary proof that its stability is




116                MONEY.
immeasurably stronger than that of its poorer
predecessor a century and a half ago.
By an act of parliament passed in the year
1708, no firm  consisting of more than six
partners had been allowed to carry on the
business of banking in England.  No public
institution arose in consequence to compete
with the Bank of England; and for a century
and a quarter, the monetary business of the
country was conducted by that establishment, in
conjunction with a number of private bankers.
The large and extensive failures, however, which
had taken place among the latter, led, in the
year 1826, to the repeal of the law of 1708,
and banks with an unlimited number of partners, commonly called joint-stock banks, were
allowed to be established, subject only to the
proviso that none established within sixty-five
miles of London should be allowed to issue
their own notes. Banks of this description had
been opened in Scotland cotemporaneously with
the foundation of the Bank of England, and by
the prudence of their management had obtained
the confidence of the country.  The circumstances which gave many of them special security
was the fact that the property of all the shareholders was liable for all the engagements of
the company.
Early in the present century, savings' banks,
intended more especially for the benefit of the
humbler classes of society, were introduced,
receiving deposits of sums which were too
small to be lodged in other establishments, and




MONEY CURRENT.           117
encouraged the depositors by giving a rate of
interest somewhat higher than could be obtained elsewhere.  They have proved of great
advantage to the community, having been the
means of introducing economy and providence
into the habits of the people, improving their
morals, increasing their means, and engaging
their interest in the support of public order.
It is interesting to remark, that of the private
banks which are established throughout the
country, the three London firms of Child's,
Hoare's, and Snow's, are even older than the
Bank of England.  The number of private
banks in London in 1848 were seventy-four;
and the amount of money transactions carried
on chiefly through them is estimated at nearly
five millions daily.  " In 1840, according to a
pamphlet on the subject by the  late  Mr.
Leatham, of Wakefield, the returns of the
clearing-house, an establishment in which the
accounts of twenty-seven London bankers are
daily balanced, amounted to the enormous sum
of ~975,000,000."
The establishment just mentioned is one of
the most remarkable exemplifications of the
system of modern banking.  It was set on foot
in 1770 by the private bankers, and is intended
to economize both money and labour in the
settlement of their mutual accounts.  "The
cheques and bills of exchange on the authority
of which a great part of the money paid and received by bankers is exchanged, are taken from
each of the clearing bankers to the clearing



118                MONEY.
house several times in the day, and the cheques
and bills drawn on one banker are cancelled
by those he holds on others." Mr. Tate, in his
"System  of the London Bankers' Clearances
Explained and Exemplified," tells us that " the
rapidity with which the last charges require to
be entered, and the bustle created by their
swift distribution through the room are difficult
to be conceived.  It is when on the point of
striking four, and on days of heavy business,
that the beauty of the alphabetical arrangement
o' the clearer's desk is to be seen.  All the distributors are moving in the same direction
round the room, with no further interference
than may arise from  the more active pressing
upon or outstripping the slower of their fellowassistants. With equal celerity are their last
credits entered by the clearers. A minute or
two having passed, all the noise has ceased.
The deputy-clearers have left with the last
charges on their houses; the  clearers are
silently occupied in casting up the amounts of
the accounts in their books, balancing them,
and entering the differences in their balancesheets, until at length announcements begin to
be  heard  of the  probable amounts to be
received or paid as a preparation for the final
settlement.  The four o'clock balances having
been entered in the balance sheet, each clearer
goes round to check and mark off his accounts
with the rest, with' I charge you,' or' I credit
you,' according as each balance is in his favour
or against him."




MONEY CURRENT.           119
In the banking system of a mercantile community, we reach the highest possible point of
refinement in the medium of exchange. What
a contrast is presented, for example, between
those bars of gold which were weighed to the
merchant in ancient times, and the modern
bank note!  How clumsy the one! what a
triumph of ingenuity and skill the other! They
may be taken, not inappropriately, as the
respective symbols of barbarism  and civilization. Let the reader take a five-pound Bank
of England note from  his pocket-book, and
attentively examine it. Mark its thinness; the
finest writing-paper is clumsy when compared
with it.  Hold it up to the light, and it is
almost transparent. But though so thin, it is
nevertheless characterized by a roughness of
texture which alone would enable an experienced clerk to test the genuineness of notes
passing through his hand as rapidly as another
could count them. Next we have the watermark.  This is incorporated in the very texture of the paper, and is effected by a certain
arrangement of wires in the mould in which the
pulp is taken up.  No art has ever yet been
able to counterfeit the bevelled edges which
distinguish three sides of every Bank of England
note. Here, if nowhere else, the plans of the
forger are sure to suffer shipwreck. " No one
can  have failed  to  remark  the exceeding
strength of the notes of the Bank of England.
The wear they are capable of enduring is
astonishing. For the purpose of accumulating




120                MONEY.
the strain to which a note in circulation is
liable, so as to represent in one quality its
power of resisting tension, we may secure the
edges of a piece of banking paper of the size
and figure of a note, and then load its surface.
Such a piece of paper weighs, before sizing,
seventeen and a half grains, and in this state it
will support without tearing a weight of thirtysix  pounds.   The size subsequently  added
weighs one grain, and its addition enables the
note to sustain a strain of twenty pounds more,
or, in all fifty-six pounds,-half a hundredweight." *
But great as is the difference between the
rude ingots whici formerly constituted  the
only medium of traffic, and the modern bank
note, the moral sentiments they seem respectively to  embody, present us with  a  still
wider contrast. In this light, bullion is the
emblem of barbarism, and paper of civilization.
The one reminds us of suspicion and distrust;
we see the merchant carefully guarding his
goods till he has secured the golden equivalent,
refusing to part with a single article till he has
deposited in his coffers a tangible quid pro quo.
Imagine the Israelites who carried spices into
Egypt offering the sons of Jacob a promissory
note! How punctually would such a bond
have been honoured by the lawless coursers
of the desert! It is civilization alone, as exhibited in the ascendency of law and honour,
* Lectures on "The Manufacture of Bank of England
Notes," by Rev. J. Barlow, M.A,




MONEY CURRENT.            121
which gives to written engagements a current
value; and when we find a merchant willing
to empty his warehouse in return for a scrap
of paper, we feel that the world must have
advanced immensely in the practice of political
and social virtues.
The whole history of bank notes is indeed an
exceedingly curious one. In all probability the
bill of exchange was their predecessor, and
suggested their use. By the former document,
a person who wished to transmit money to a
distance was enabled to do so, on procuring an
order from a merchant, drawn upon another
merchant residing at or near the place where
the money was to be paid.  When it was found
however, that an easy and portable order of
this kind could be obtained, the man possessing it, if he was satisfied of the responsibility of
the individuals by whom the bill was signed,
would prefer retaining it rather than encumber
himself with specie, of which lie might be
plundered.  He would in time, perhaps, pay
away the document to others, and they too, if
they were satisfied with the names upon it,
might prefer holding it instead of specie, until
it suited their convenience to demand payment
of it. That this was the precursor of our bank
note system is proved indeed by inspecting some
of the. first bills of exchange issued by the Bank
of England, which appear to have passed from
hand to hand in the manner above described,
and to have supplied the place of the regular
bank note.  In some of the manufacturing
11




122                 MONEY.
districts of England, indeed, at the present
day, bills of exchange, instead of being kept
till due, still perform the part of a circulating
medium, and supply to a considerable extent
the office of bank notes.
Bank notes appear to have been known in
China long before they were introduced into
Europe.*  It appears that, B.c. 119, to meet
the increased revenues of the state, skin notes
were introduced by a skilful Chinese minister
of finance, being pieces of leather made from
the skins of white deer bred in a park round
the royal palace. At a later period, notes made
from the bark of the paper mulberry were also
in extensive circulation in China. In England,
those issued by  the Bank of England seem
to have been the first bank  notes, properly
so called, of which we have any trace.  No
fixed amount appears to have been  determined on, as the minimum  or maximum  of
each  note.   Some  years  ago, indeed, the
newspapers of the day stated that a note for
sixpence, issued more than a hundred years ago
at a time when there was a great scarcity of
copper coinage, was discovered and presented
at the bank.  For a long period, however, a
pound was the lowest sum  for which  notes
were issued; but at present, except in Scotland
* In a number of the "Chinese Repository" for June,
1851, an interesting description of a modern Chinese note is
given. It is stated to be rather larger than a Bank of Ergland
note-is printed on stout paper made from the bamboo-and
is covered with various stamps, seals, and written characters,
to prevent forgery.




MONEY CURRENT.             123
and Ireland, no note of a less amount than five
pounds can be put forth.*
Great as are the advantages of a paper
currency, yet it is not without some serious
drawbacs, for at various periods individuals
and establishments issuing bank notes have
done so to a greater extent than they had the
means of easily paying in gold.  In  1792,
1814, 1815, 1816, 1825, and 1826, England
sustained, from the failures of private banking
establishments, an amount of bankruptcy and
misery that has never perhaps been equalled,
except by the breaking up of the Mississippi
scheme in France.t  In  the year 1797, the
Bank of England itself was placed by government in circumstances which led to one of the
most remarkable passages in the monetary
history of this country.  The war with France
had produced a great scarcity of money, and
distrust having extensively prevailed, apprehensions were entertained that the Bank, if
hard pressed, might itself be unable to meet its
engagements.  Parliament, however, having
investigated its affairs, and found that it possessed property to the extent of nearly sixteen
millions, the Bank Restriction Act was passed,
the effect of which was that the public had not
the power if they wished of demanding gold in
exchange for Bank of England notes.  For the
* Visitors are shown in the Bank of England a cancelled
note for one million of pounds sterling. It appears to have
been used in the transactions between the Bank and the
government.
t McCulloch's "Commercial Dictionary "-Article, Bankrl




1 24               MONEY.
first three years after the passing of this Act,
the issues of the Bank were so moderate that
the notes not only kept on a par with gold, but
actually bore a small premium.  In 1810,
however, they had been issued to such an
extent that they were discounted at thirteen
per cent., that is, if a party required a hundred
sovereigns to send out of England, he would
have been obliged to have paid for them  one
hundred and thirteen Bank of England onepound notes.  Many attempts were made to
prevent this depreciation, but they proved
ineffectual.  In 1819, accordingly, sir Robert,
then Mr. Peel, brought into parliament a bill,
repealing the Bank Restriction Act, and rendering it compulsory on the Bank of England to
pay its notes in gold upon demand.  This Act
did not, however, take effect till 1821.
Great distress certainly followed the readjustment of the currency, and extensive failures
also took place.  The whole question as to the
propriety or otherwise of the measure has been
much argued, and the result is thus summed
up by Mr. McCulloch:-" One party contends
that Mr. Peel's Act not only put an end to
those fluctuations in the value of money which
had previously been productive of great mischief, and gave effect to the solemn engagements
into which the public had entered with the
national creditor, but that it did this without
adding materially to the nation's burdens. But
another, and perhaps a more numerous party,
tke a totally different view of this measure.




MONEY CURRENT.            125
They contend that the public was not bound to
return to cash payments at the old standard at
the termination of the war; that the return has
very greatly enhanced the value of the currency;
and that this enhancement, by adding proportional-ly to the fixed burdens laid  on  the
industrious classes, has been most injurious to
their interests.  It will be found, however,"
adds Mr. McCulloch, in conclusion, "that in
this, as in most other cases of the sort, the
statements of both parties have been exaggerated, and that if, on the one hand, the measure
has not been so advantageous as its apologists
represent, neither, on the other, has it been
nearly so injurious as its enemies would have
us believe."
Iin consequence of the disasters more or less
attributable to a paper currency, various remedies have been proposed by financial writers to
obviate them.  By some, the power to issue
notes has been proposed to be limited to one
bank established by government, whcse responsibility would be undoubted; but to this it has
been replied, that such an establishment would
speedily become an instrument of political
oppression, and in times of panic and public
calamity would cause, in the event of public
credit being assailed, universal disaster, a
result which would be avoided were the power
of issuing notes left, as at present, to several
establishments, all of whom would be unlikely
to suspend payment at one time.  By other
economists it has been proposed that banks
11*




]26                  MONEY.
should be made to  lodge  with  government
security for their notes issued, so that the
public might be thus protected.  Sir Robert
Peel, however, by his celebrated Bill of 1844,
took the most important step which had perhaps
ever been adopted in reference to the currency
question  in  this  country.  With  a view  to
prevent the excessive over-issue of notes, it was
enacted that the existing banks should not in
future issue notes beyond the amount which
they had, on an average, in circulation at the
time  of the passing of the Act.  The  total
amount of notes which could be issued by all
the establishments in the country was eventually limited as follows:Bank of England... ~14,000,000*
Joint Stock Banks...    5,009,020
Private Banks in England.    3,469,872
Banks in Scotland..    3,087,209
Banks in Ireland....    6,354,494
The policy of this celebrated measure of sir
R. Peel has been disputed by many. Its inconvenience was certainly evinced during the year
1847, when  the  Bank  of England  having
reached its full power of issue, a panic ensued,
* These amounts are extracted from the " Bankers' Magazine " for 1,46. The amount of the Private Banks and Joint
Stock Banks' issue is now perhaps somewhat less, as some
banks have since the date of the return withdrawn from
business.
The Bank of England, in addition to its ~14,000,000 of
circulation, can also issue when necessary to an unlimited
extent, provided, to meet such additional issue, it has in its
coffers four-fifths of gold and one-fifth of silver,




MONEY CURRENT.            127
which was only relieved upon the government
permitting the Bank to issue notes, if needful,
beyond the amount fixed by law. Desirable as
it is to avoid all injurious excesses of paper
currency, it is held by the opponents of sir
Robert's measure that it is neither desirable nor
safe to restrict the credit operations of a large
commercial country like  this within  fixed
limits; and that by thus contracting within
certain artificial bounds the power of banks to
assist their customers, an injury is done to the
progress of the community.   These writers
also contend that the tendency of banks to issue
an undue quantity of notes is sufficiently counteracted by the certainty with which notes so
issued fall into the hands of other banks, by
whom  payment of them is demanded in gold.
Communities, like individuals, it is likewise
alleged, must be taught in the selection of banks
or bank notes to exercise that care and vigilance which protects them in ordinary matters;
for governments, as it has been well observed,
may nurse, by undue legislation, nations into a
state of weakness. There is, perhaps, a peculiar
danger of this in a matter like the currency,
which is of a nature so intricate as to be
understood  by only comparatively  a  small
number of those most interested in its due
regulation.  Whatever be the truth of these
views, it must be admitted that when the magnitude of interests involved is considered, too
much care cannot be taken to place upon a
solid foundation the banking institutions of a




128                MONEY.
country.  The legislature has made a wise
movement for this  purpose  lately.  It has
ordered the names of all the members of the
firm composing a private bank, and those of all
the shareholders in joint-stock banks, to be
published in the newspapers of districts where
business is carried on by them.  The public
can thus at any time satisfy themselves, if they
exercise only proper caution, as to the responsibility of the parties to whom their money is
committed.




THE MORALS OF MONET.          129
CHAPTER V.
THE MORALS OF MONEY: THE FALLACIES AND
FAILINGS OF MONIED MEN.
HITHERTO we have contemplated money from
an exclusively secular point of view-we now
proceed to view it under the higher aspect of
its moral and spiritual relations.  This is no
arbitrary change of topic-no piece of finesse,
adopted in order to surprise the reader into a
sermon, buit the ascent of a natural climax.
Everything on earth points to eternity; every
object, every pursuit, has its spiritual sidethat on which it adjoins the soul, and silently
works itself into its immortal texture. God has
attached to every condition in life its own set of
influences.  Everything we see or do, or think
or say, has a moral power attached to it: our
talents, opportunities, privileges, joys; our daily
tasks, duties, trials; the hopes, anxieties, disappointments, and successes of business; the
annoyances and irritations of the world, the
temptations to sin and the incentives to holiness
which surround our path; the advantages and
disadvantages of our social position; our soberest




130                MONEY.
reflections, our most mirthful sallies, our very
fancies and day-dreams;-all are laden with
lasting results, all are silently exerting soma
influence on our everlasting state. Yes, ETERNITY
is seen as a Divine handwriting on everything
that meets the eye-on the exchange, the factory,
and the warehouse, as well as the temple and
the tomb.
Here is an article of faith of which most men
need to be more heartily convinced. It is the
chief point in the practical creed of life. The
worldly principle in human nature loves to
separate time from eternity-loves to view this
world and the next as two entirely separate
spheres, having no vital connexion with each
other.  We speak with horror, and justly so,
of infidelity —that which denies the Bible, looks
upon the soul as mortal, or merely as a part of
the Infinite, and questions the evidence of a
personal Deity. Such sentiments are dark and
sinful beyond measure, but it may be doubted
whether they are more mischievous to the
interest of Christianity than that poisonous
scepticism which so many cherish without misgiving;  that which  practically  denies the
presence and claims of God in the business of
daily life; which views wealth as exclusively of
the individual's own getting, to be placed at the
beck of selfishness or caprice, without a single
remonstrance of conscience for the neglect of
any obligation, whether to God or man.  Such
infidelity is truly a bane to the soul, a canker
to the church, and a curse to the world.




THE MORALS OF MONEY          131
If, as we have shown in previous pages,
there is a very powerful tendency in society,
according to its natural constitution as founded
by the Creator, to become richer, we cannot
imagine that riches are unavoidably and necessarily hostile to virtue.  This would be to
impeach the moral character of the Divine
government. The evils of riches must therefore
lie in the mode in which they are gained or used.
Every tendency which is necessarily developed
in social progress must be favourable to the
spiritual interests of mankind.. Poverty has
often been lauded as the state which is most
propitious to the moral excellence of individuals
and communities; yet everybody sAhs  poverty,
everybody is so constituted that he naturally
Wvishes to escape it, and the direct effect of
prudence, industry, and their kindred virtues,
is to accumulate wealth.  On this ground
alone we might pronounce beforehand with the
most absolute certainty, that poverty has no
peculiar patent for goodness, and that growth
in wealth does not necessarily involve a deterioration of the moral character. The great
empires of antiquity are often adduced in supposed confirmation of an opposite view. vWe
are told of the virtues which marked the infancy,
as contrasted with the universal degeneracy of
manners that characterized the meridian of the
Roman empire.  But. the reference is useless.
In the first place, it is questionable whether
the Rome of Romulus could be taken as a
higher exemplar of public virtue than the Rome




132              MONEY.
of Caesar. Its vices were of a different kind,
but they were vices still. If it is lawful to
discern anything substantial among the shadows
of Livy, we may find in the very earliest period
of the Roman state innumerable traces of injustice, violence, and sensuality, which have no
point of contrast, save that of coarseness, with
those moral enormities which afterwards distinguished the capital of the world.  But the
vices of imperial Rome must not be ascribed to
its wealth; they are due rather to the mode in
which its wealth was acquired, and the depraved
habits which were connected with it. Its wealth
was the fruit of conquest; it was the spoiling of
the nations, not the self-elaborated product of
capital and industry. It was acquired in a way
which developed the sensual and destructive
passions, and thus excavated a mine beneath,
which at length blew the empire into atoms.
Wealth, when acquired by manufactures and
commerce, always presupposes the actual exercise of a large amount of useful qualities;
and the discipline which must be submitted
to in its acquisition, especially when seconded
by the influence of religion, affords, within
certain limits, a guarantee for continued moral
improvement.  It may be almost affirmed that
commercial affluence can neither be gained
nor kept by a people socially corrupt. Empires
which owed their greatness to conquest, often
sank beneath their own weight; but there is,
probably, no instance in which a great commercial state has fallen through the enervating




THE MORALS OF MONEY.         133
influence of pomp and luxury.  Nineveh and
Babylon, like Rome in after times, were the
product of successful war, and fell with the
empires whose  greatness  they  represented;
Tyre, the mercantile metropolis of the ancient
world, was twice permitted by Providence, as a
punishment for its pride, to be subdued by
powerful invaders; but so far was it from falling
to pieces in consequence of internal decay, that
after its overthrow  by Nebuchadnezzar the
energy of its inhabitants soon restored it to its
former grandeur, and enabled it to hold out for
seven months against the conquering arms of
Alexander the Great. Its sins were selfishness
and pride, the besetting sins of the strong; the
besetting sins, may we not fear, of iritiain in
this the era of its greatest power, and which,
unless our wealth and greatness are sanctified
to objects of benevolence and piety, will draw
upon us a chastisement no less signal than that
of Tyre of old.
Not only is wealth not necessarily hostile to
piety, but it is in some respects decidedly
propitious to its growth. It affords room for
gratitude, furnishes themes for thankful praise,
enables the mind to acquiesce in the Divine
goodness, without those gigantic efforts of faith
which are necessary to recognise his blessings
when sent to us in the guise of adversity, and
thus makes it an easier task to wave the censer
of thankfulness before the seat of mercy. It
places us in a position more favourable for the
formation of impartial views respecting the
12




1 34               MONEY.
character of God's providential economy, inasmuch as it tends to drive from  the horizon of
our experience those dark clouds through which
we are in danger of viewing every portion of
the universe.  By rendering the heart more
joyous, it gives roomrfo, the growth of qualitis
which are often crushed by ipo-vy; kindliness,
confidence, general sympathy, faith  in  the
beneficent tendency of the Divine arrangements.
Besides, money will 4l.c;basbooks, scientific
instruments, and professional aid, thus promoting the work of self-improvement; while the
freedom  it brings from those solicitudes which
relate to the first necessities of life, afford more
leisure for the cultivation of pursuits which are
not earthly. It will not be disputed that these
are points in which the wealthy man has a
decided advantage over his poorer neighbour,
and this is sufficient to show that the social
condition to which mankind are being wafted
by the gales of industry, is as friendly to moral
excellence as it is undoubtedly to physical
enjoyment.
The moral evils of wealth are, we may
further observe, greater in a poor than a rich
country, and will continually diminish as wealth
itself becomes more diffused.  Diminish the
distance between  the  various members of
society; render refinement, elegance, and plenty
common things; make " gold," to give a figurative sense to the literal description which the
historian gives us of the greatness of Solomon,
" as plenteous as stones, and cedar trees as the




THE MORALS OF MONEY.         135
sycamore trees for abundance," and you diminish their corrupting  power.  There  is no
necessary connexion between wealth and sensual indulgence.  Among our most affluent
merchants we might find the hardest workers,
the clearest, firmest, manliest minds in the
whole community; and though the person who
merely enjoys. the wealth which  has been
handed down to him from his ancestors, without knowing anything of the wholesome discipline of acquisition, is more exposed to the
enervating  influence of luxury, how  many
could be pointed out among the noblest and
richest members of our aristocracy, who use
their property with a master's hand, remaining
themselves vigorous and incorrupt, presenting
such a blending of elegance and severity as nc
age or country has produced in greater perfection than our own.
It is also worthy of remark, that the two
wealthiest nations of the world are those in
which religion is most powerful as an element
of social life. England and the United States
are the two most Protestant countries on the
globe; in then the Bible is free, the preacher
of the gospel moves unfettered, piety is welcomed to the domestic hearth, and joins with
learning and science in shedding there her
benignant lustre;  philanthropic  institutions
rear their heads, and like the tree of life extend
their healing shadow  over the human race:
yet these countries stand highest in point ot
wealth, and their wealthiest citizens furnish




136               MONEY.
the Christian church with some of its most
enlightened and devoted members.  In both
countries, moreover, the growth of wealth has
been unprecedently rapid. Never before in the
history of the world was so vast an accumulation gathered in so short a time. If wealth is
necessarily unfriendly to religion, we might
have expected that the latter would have been
overwhelmed ere this by a flood of worldliness,
that every trace of spiritual verdure would
have become extinct. Instead of this we have
beheld during the same period a revival of vital
godliness which has kept pace with our social
improvement.  Our missionary  institutions,
Bible and Tract Societies, have all commenced
since we began our money-making career.
Buildings devoted to the worship of God and
the instruction of the rising race have sprung
up by thousands if our manufacturing districts,
and the town whose name is most prominently
associated with an order of things which has
been  ignorantly reviled as an economy of
selfishness and irreligion, recently gave a manifestation of specifically Christian benevolence
which the world could not rival.  Yes, the
historian of the nineteenth century will not forget
to relate that when queen Victoria visited that
part of her dominions, Manchester assembled
from beneath the shadow of its factories seventy
thousand  Sunday School children, and ten
thousand teachers, all bound together by a
simply religious tie, and presenting an unanswerable proof that the acquisition of wealth




TIHE MORALS OF MONEY.       137
may be associated with an enlightened and
practical piety.
But wealth, tholgh not necessarily hostile to
piety, has nevertheless its special dangers; its
besetting fallacies and besetting sins, justifying
those solemn warnings to its possessors which
are scattered through the word of God.  With
a friendly hand we will endeavour to lay open
a few of both classes to the notice of the reader.
One of the fallacies of wealth consists in giving
too uniformly a moral character to the successes and reverses of life-in tacitly regarding
riches as a virtue and poverty as a crime. Now
we admit that the hand of the diligent maketh
rich, and that the drunkard and the glutton
shall come to poverty; but riches may sometimes proceed from other causes than diligence,
and poverty may not always have had the
antecedents of drunkenness and gluttony. Poverty, it is also true, may often be traced up to
moral causes which throw the entire responsibility upon the individual who is the subject of
it.  How many persons who are now in utter
destitution might have lived in competence, if
they had only been prudent and industrious at
the outset of their career!  They look with
envy upon successful men, and talk as though
some malignant destiny kept them  down, forgetting that their own.failure may be justly
attributed to themselves.  Neglecting to " stir
up" their peculiar talents, to develop their
mental powers, to seize every opportunity of
advancement, and  to make those  sacrifices
12*




138                MONEY.
which were demanded by a regard to their permanent welfare, some individuals revolve perpetually round the starting-post of life, instead
of making a vigorous and determined effort to
reach the goal. In such cases poverty is a
fault, and the inconveniences it brings mlay
justly be regarded in the light of a retribution.
But how many exceptions do we find to this
rule! The race is not always to the swift, nor
the battle to the strong; the lot is cast into the
lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the
Lord.  We perform  but a humble part in the
economy of life. It is ours to seize the opportunity, but who gives it? We must recognise
here a mightier Hand.  Every person who has
attained success is able to recall many circumstances which favoured his rise, without which,
for anything he can see, the strength of a Hercules would have been in vain. At best he has
been only a co-worker. If he has contributed
one element, God has contributed far more.
But he is less even than this, since those very
talents which enabled him to lay open his-sails
so as to catch the propitious influences of wind
and weather came down from  the Father of
lights, whose goodness to him is but ill repaid
by indulging in judicial severity towards those
to whom those talents have been denied.
Another fallacy into which wealth is apt to
betray us, is that of making it a virtual synonym
of respectability. " A respectable man," in
ordinary parlance is apt to mean one who
commands so much money.  A reference to




THE MORALS OF MONEY.        139
character is included in the definition, but only
to a trivial extent. In forming our estimate, the
first idea which presents itself is that of his
being " well to do;" the second, that of his
possessing a certain measure of excellence. It
is to be feared that thousands give this second
idea a very feeble recognition. Their ordinary
conception of respectability rises no higher
than an elegant mansion, and goes no deeper
than a suit of rich clothing. Perhaps no association which links two thoughts together is
absolutely unreasonable, and in the instance
before us it is easy to trace the process of silent
argumentation by which we apply the epithet
"respectable" to the monied man. Generally
speaking, qualities which are truly respectable
produce money. We have seen how directly
intelligence, sobriety, and the cycle of kindred
virtues tend to affluence.  This has been
observed through many ages, and mankind,
transferring to the effect that which properly
bklongs to the cause, constitute affluence itself
an object of respect.  Another consideration
must enter into an impartial solution. Mankind worship power.  To this, under whatever
form embodied, all bend the knee. But.mney
is power; there is nothing which money will
not purchase, ard he who can command an
unlirrited supply, is clothed with a kind of
social omnipotence. These grounds of respect
should be duly recognised, but there is one far
brighter, one which is independent of outward
condition, and may be found within a mud




140               MONEY.
cottage as well as in a royal palace. Goodness
alone has a sovereign title to respect. In God
this attribute becomes sublime, the very radiance of his ineffable splendour; to Him
accordingly we owe absolute homage, and
wherever we behold the faintest reflection of it
in human character our hearts should meet it
with love and reverence. I The highest esteem
should be grounded entirely on moral and
spiritual worth, and of this money is no test
whatever.  A person may be hypocritical, selfish, profligate, and yet rich; and another sincere,
disinterested, godly, and yet poor. All those
qualities which entitle to respect may be found
without money; and all those which deserve to
be branded with execration may be found with
it. If we are about to enter upon some great
commercial enterprise, a person who can place
a large sum  of money at our disposal is of
course entitled to more consideration than one
who is not possessed of a shilling; but when
the  question is, whom  shall we pronounje
" respectable," whom shall we inwardly honour,
we must add no other principles, we must look
at the man himself.  If the excellent of the
earth were to be gathered together and ranged
promiscuously before our eyes, we should probably see represented to us in garb and manners every social and professional variety of the
human race; but to the eye of God, who seeth
not as man seeth, all would be alike beautiful;
-rich and poor, learned and illiterate, would
lose their mutual differences in  the grand




THE MORALS OF MONEY.        141
distinction  of being  the  "children of the
Highest."
We may mention as another illustration ol
the class of fallacies to which we allude, an
exaggerated conception of the reconciling powei
of habit.  How commonly do we hear it observed, in reference to any exhibition of physical
wretchedness, " Ah, poor creatures! but they
are used to it;" and how often has such a
sentiment proved a bar both to assistance and
sympathy!  There is as usual some truth in
this remark.  Such observations are not raised
to the rank of maxims without some reason.
Providence kindly ordains that we become less
susceptible to any inconvenience the longer we
bear it; habit is a mitigator of human woe;
the burden fits itself to the shoulder, and at
length is borne easily. But there are limits to
the power of habit.  It cannot destroy the
strongest susceptibilities of human nature; it
cannot reverse instinct, or make misery an
element of happiness. An exotic plant may be
acclimated, but there is constant war between
its own tendencies and its new position, and a
degree of inclemency which will kill it. How
many human exotics have perished in the process of acclimation! How many who survive
drag out a life of suffering! It is not true that
man is " a bundle of habits." He has a native
force, certain definite appliances within himself,
with which outward circumstances are incongruous or otherwise. By being always situated
in the same condition he may be ignorant of




142                MONEY.
the pains or pleasures which spring from contrast, but surely it is not necessary to have
tasted a higher degree of happiness in order to
feel that wretchedness is wretched.  Man is
not such a thing of experience. Whether conscious of it or not, whoever exists in a state of
physical destitution must possess far less than
the average of human enjoyment.
Besides those dangers which beset wealth on
the side of the intellect, there are others which
belong more to the province of the heart. One
of these arises from the tendency there is in
those pursuits which accumulate wealth  to
produce an engrossing spirit of worldliness;
such an ardent attachment to the things of this
life, and such a determination to possess them,
as leaves no room for the love of nobler objects.
In this respect, the man who is rapidly rising
intemporal circumstances is exposed to much
greater peril than those who are already wealthy.
It is air in motion which constitutes the hurricane; when at rest, whatever within ordinary
limits its density may be, we move in it
without inconvenience. The passion for wealth
may be compared to that of the gamester.  At
first comparatively feeble, it increases in intensity, till at length the soul is carried away
with the fury of a whirlwind.  How many
a person in the early years of his mercantile
career manifested decided indications of a religious spirit; feeling, fresh and vernal, expanded
itself in blossoms of spiritual promise. To such
a one the Saviour might have uttered those




THE MORALS OF MONEY.        143
words, so full of hope and fear, " Thou art not
far from  the kingdom  of heaven."  But his
enterprises began to be unusually successful,
and his anxieties were turned  into a new
channel.  Tried on a wider scale, his plans
proved in a corresponding degree more lucrative, and proportionably greater force was infused into the worldly tendencies of his heart.
At length he had left his former sphere; he
had unconsciously wandered into a. new orbit.
Outwardly his position might be where it formerly was.  The same pew in the sanctuary
witnessed, at least once on the Lord's day, the
same decorous recognition of Christian ordinances, the same liberality was exhibited in
contributing to the sustenance of evangelical
efforts, all the conventional marks by which a
Christian man is distinguished from others were
duly found among the externals of his life; yet
he was essentially another man. The springs
of religious sensibility were quite dried up;
his very conscience was secularized. " Of the
earth, earthy," might be seen written on the
rubbish-pyramid of his ambition, and the final
issue,'kept from its complete fulfilment by a few
remaining years, might be expressed in one
word,-LosT, to God and to himself.
Nothing can equal in subtlety the first encroachments of a worldly spirit. It assumes
the most attractive disguise.  Is not diligence
in business enforced upon us by a Divine command?  Is not negligence in providing for the
temporal welfare of our families placed among




144                MONEY.
the practical denials of the Christian faith?
Are not the institutions of trade and commerce
of Divine appointment?  Is not the successful
manufacturer or merchant a  benefactor to
mankind?  Such are the specious arguments
by which the first overtures of the world are
sustained, but they are soon laid aside. Sin,
when in comparative abeyance, will consent to
knock at the door of the heart; to play the
Jesuit and the cringer by turns, in order to get
admittance; but, once inside, it will not consent
to remain there a moment except on the footing
of its own sovereignty. Any course deliberately
entered upon and persevered in for a lengthened period, though at first it was at variance
with our convictions, and forced us to battle
with one-half our moral nature, will at lungth
conciliate the affections, master the will, and
enthrone itself in the midst of its conquests,
like the strong man armed " keeping his goods
in peace." No evil spirit is more bland in its
professions, more promising in its appearance,
or more imperious in its rule, than that of
worldliness; nor is there a more impregnable
position within the temporal precincts of the
abyss of ruin than that which is occupied by
the worldly man.  The persecutor, the debauchee, the idolater, may be made a disciple
of Christ more easily than he. " It is easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man (one who loves riches
supremely) to enter into the kingdom of God."
Since wealth is prone to foster misconception




THE MORALS OF MONEY.          145
respecting the character and deserts of others,
it has also a tendency to affect injuriously our
conduct towards them.   This tendency, we
need not repeat, is far from being necessary;
it is not inseparable from wealth; the richest
man may be the brightest exemplar of social
virtue; but it is at least a tendency which is
as incident to  an  inferior position in life.
Amongst the most conspicuous manifestations
of this tendency are pride and arrogance; the
inward sentiment of superiority, nursed into
insolent rigour, dwelt in, gloated on by selfesteem; and the outward expression of that
sentiment through the medium  of our words
and actions.  The proud man loves to isolate
himself from others, as though he were cast in
a more exquisite fashion, or made of more
costly materials.  He never looks at his fellowcreatures except through a set of lenses, the
sole product of his own misled imagination,
which diminishes them to the size of pigmies,
and turns himself into a sort of Jupiter amongst
mortals. Every word and gesture is expressive
of contempt, or of a condescension which is
still more repulsive.  Pride is often  found
mixed up with feelings of a meaner kind; a
subservient ambition, which sedulously courts
notice of all who occupy a higher station, and
makes every advance the occasion of disowning
every species of intercourse with those beneath.
How melancholy and ignoble does such a spirit
render life! All the  honest and  generous
friendships which bloom  to-day, withered to13




146                MONEY.
morrow  by the  merciless wand  of wealth.
Those whose countenance was once coveted as
an honour, severed at once from  our very
memories because we grasp a few more lumps
of gold, or the smiles of human favour beam
upon us with softer benignancy.  Ah! wealth
is a curse indeed if it make the heart thus unfaithful and dishonest!-if it subordinate our
attachment to the wise and excellent to worldly
-consequence and fame!-if it tempt us to sacrifice upon a heap of gold dust such imperishable
jewels as love, honour, constancy, and gratitude!
It is difficult to say whether, in describing
the characteristic qualities of pride and arrogance, we should brand them as foolish or pernicious. In a very high degree they are both.
That must be pernicious which separates man
from  man, steels the heart against all sympathy, and makes an immortal being the victim
of the most puerile hopes and fears.  That
must be foolish which provokes ridicule, is its
own tormentor, and justifies itself by the very
arguments which pronounce its censure. Pride
is a blind passion-the precursor of destruction
to individuals and states; it is the soul of
faction and the spring of discontent; it inflicts
incalculable evils on all who fall beneath its
-power, and, by silently relaxing the social ties,
tends to precipitate society into ruin.  As
cherished by one man towards another it is
absurd.  Since every good gift comes from
God, they who have the costliest gifts are the
greatest debtors, and ought to discharge their




THE MORALS OF MONEY.          147
obligations to the common Parent by treating
more kindly those of his offspring whom he has
favoured in a less eminent degree. Besides, all
men possess in germ the same illustrious faculties.  Over all the Eternal bends in infinite
pity; for all the Saviour died; all are invited
to the honour of being kings and priests unto
God, and reigning with him for ever.
There is another sin which is scarcely less
despicable and pernicious than pride; we refer
to one which is by no means confined to circles
of wealth, though it is there most mischievous
in its results. The vanity of display is not
monopolized, alas! by any section of the community.  How many sacrifice their health and
run into debt to "keep up an appearance!"
How many among the poorer classes neglect
real wants to supply fancied ones! But when
the same weakness rules a person of extensive
resources, a severe blow is inflicted upon the
community.  His wealth is part of the national
stock; he is morally one of a body of trustees,
comprising a few thousands, upon whom  the
employment and well-being of the entire population depend. On public grounds he ought to
devote the smallest possible  portion of his
income to mere luxury, that he may have the
more to invest in remunerative enterprise, and
the more to give in works of charity and mercy.
Economy need not be parsimonious, nor prudence beggarly.  The fine  arts  and  costly
species  of  manufacture  depend  upon  the
patronage of men of wealth, and patronage




148                MONET.
exerted  in  this direction is not without a
powerful moral influence upon society.  But
even the artistic passion must be kept within
reasonable limits, and he is no right steward of
his wealth who lavishes a hundred thousand
pounds in the formation of a picture gallery,
when the neighbouring population are starving
for want of the capital necessary to make their
labour productive, or Christian  enterprises
languish for support.
Besides these evils which, originate in the
moral tendency of wealth, there are some which
lie more immediately in its use. One of these,
lying within the sphere of business, we must be
permitted to single out from among the rest for
special notice,-we refer to undue SPECULATION.
This is entitled to a bad pre-eminence among
other sins of business on account of the too
favourable light in which it is often regarded,
and the appalling consequences which sometimes flow from it. Speculation, when pursued
to an extent beyond a person's means, is as
foreign to the sober habits of business as the
pursuits of the gambler. It stakes success, not
on prudence and industry, but in probabilities
only a step above chance. It turns trade into
a game of hazard, and spreads a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity far and  wide.  Its
moral influence is excessively injurious.  The
spirit it fosters is as different from that honest
emulation which springs from a laudable desire
tc succeed in life, as the delirium of a fever
from  the elastic energy of a healthy man.  It




THE MORALS OF MONEY.         14i
is essentially plotting, greedy, secret, overreaching, and easily slides into recklessness regarding the interests of others.  Its effects, in an
economical point of view, have often been most
fatal.  How many thousands have been ruined
by it!  How many volumes might be filled
with melancholy narratives of individuals who
were hurled in a moment from  affluence to
poverty, but who might have continued wealthy
had they only been contented with the results
of honourable exertion! It is too little to say
that a person is imprudent who thus risks his
all; he has no right to do it; he has no right
to expose himself and family to the loss which
may ensue, nor yet to expose others to the
fluctuation and peril which must in any case
be the result.  One great lesson on the evils of
undue speculation has been taught the present
generation which will not be speedily forgotten.
The public and private disasters  of 1847,
consequent in a great measure on the railway mania, are still fresh in the recollection
of all.  The prospect of immediate wealth
without the trouble of working for it, led
multitudes to change their property for railway
shares, thus creating an unnatural demand,
and consequent high prices, which soon fell,
and involved  hundreds in ruin.  What an
impressive comment do such consequences read
upon  the declaration  of holy writ-" They
that will be rich fall into temptation and a
snare!"  1 Tim. vi. 9.  Might not prudence
itself inscribe over our marts of business, and
13*




150               MONEY.
at the head of our ledgers, the sentiment of
the wise man, " He that hasteth to be rich
bath an evil eye, and considereth not that
poverty shall come upon him?" Prov. xxviii
22.
There are methods of employing wealth even
more sinful and pernicious than speculation,
and among these we cannot hesitate to class
every attempt to turn it into an engine of corruptionz and oppression.  Unhappily, in the fallen
condition of human nature, morality is often
held too cheap in the presence of mammon.
How many are there who would not hesitate
to  sacrifice  purity, integrity, honour, the
highest dictates of duty, for gold I They who.
would do so are guilty of a crime, b.j.
they also who would tempt them to do it. They
who suffer themselves'By —t-ils means to be
drawn into sin are without excuse, but how
much  more  those  "by whom  the  offence
cometh!"   What an  immense  amount of
iniquity would cease if the stimulus of wealth
were withheld; and what an array of moral
excellence might we not hope, with the Divine
blessing, to see produced, if all the wealth thus
rescued from  vicious pursuits were devoted
conscientiously to the interests of religionl
How many a wanderer from  the  paths of
virtue might be reclaimed-how many who are
now living abandoned by all sense of shame,
victims of a misery all the more  dreadful
because it is bedizened in present gaiety, waifs
on life's highway, soon to be trodden under




THE MORALS OF MONEY.         151
foot for ever!  How  many such might be
raised to the enjoyments of religion and the
blessings of social life! There is a kindred
crime which can be perpetrated by wealth
alone to which we must refer.  It is notorious
chiefly in connexion with the exercise of the
political franchise, but it is wholly within the
province of morals, and has nothing to do with
particular principles or parties.  We refer to
the practice of bribery.  Hardly any practice
can be more pernicious in a public point of
view, and none, perhaps, on the character of
the individual.  It is the  besetting sin  of
wealthy  communities, and  its unrestrained
indulgence is the sure precursor of national
ruin.  The patriot should denounce it as the
most fatal foe to the interests of his country;
while the moralist, and, far above all, the
Christian  should  hate it as an  egregious
violation of the Divine law. God's will should
be obeyed in reference to all our duties, public
as well as private. A people exalted in righteousness will shake their hand from holding of
bribes; and of them  we may say, "Their
place of defence shall be the munitions of
rocks," Isa. xxxiii. 16.
The vices to which we have just alluded are
confessedly disreputable; a person cannot stoop
to them without forfeiting in a certain sense
his position with all those whose good opinion
is worth possessing; but how many things
which the world does not reckon vicious are
an abomination in the sight of God  I How




152                MONEY.
many methods are there of using wealth which
Christ regards with disapproval, which are,
nevertheless, adopted without self-rebuke by
thousands who bear his name! The Christian
church  has given  munificently perhaps to
various evangelical enterprises, but its gifts
have been small compared with its possessions.
The offerings have been made by the few; they
do not represent the concentrated faith and
devotedness of the many.  Its gifts have been
made from  its abundance.  Alas! how  few
superfluities have been cut off, how little of privation has been borne, in order to send the
blessings of religion and civilization to distant
lands! How  few economize to give! With
what sad unanimity do Christian professors
follow worldly men into the paths of extravagant expenditure! The Christian church has
yet to learn the scriptural ethics of money.
The reader will permit us here to use the
words of a " master in Israel."  " Let not any
man," says John Wesley, " imagine that he has
done anything by merely gaining and saving
all he can, if he were to stop here. All this
is nothing if a man go not forward, if he does
not point all this to  a further end.  Nor,
indeed, can a man be said to save anything ii
he only lays it up.  You may as well throw
your money in the sea as bury it in the earth,
and you may as well bury it in the earth as in
your chest or the  bank.  Not to  use is
effectually to throw it away. If, therefore,
you would indeed make to yourselves friends




THE MORALS OF MONEY.         153
of the mammon of unrighteousness, having
gained all you can, and saved all you can, then
give all you can.  Gain all you can without
hurting either yourself or neighbour in soul or
body, by applying hereto with  unremitting
diligence, and  with  all the understanding
which God has given you.  Save all you can
by cutting off every expense which merely
serves to indulge foolish desire, to gratify
either the desire of the flesh, the desire of the
eye, or the pride of life; waste nothing living
or dying in sin and folly, whether for yourself
or your children; and then give all you can, or
rather give all you have, to God. Do not
stint yourself, like a Jew rather than a Christian, to this or that proportion.  Render unto
God not a tenth, not a third, not half, but all
that is God's, be it more or less, by employing
all on yourself, your household, the household
of faith, and all mankind, in such a manner
that you may give a good account of your
stewardship when ye can be no longer stewards;
in such a manner as the oracles of God direct,
both by general and particular precepts; in
such a manner that whatever you do may be'a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour' unto
God, and that every act may be rewarded in
that day when' the Lord cometh with all his
saints.' At this hour and from this hour do
the will of Christ; fulfil his word in this and
in all things.  I entreat you in the name of the
Lord Jesus, act up to the dignity of your calling. No more sloth! Whatsoever your hand




154                MONEY.
findeth to do, do it with your might. No more
waste! Cut off every expense which fashion
and caprice demand.  Employ what God has
given you in doing good, all possible good, in
every possible way, in every possible degree, to
the household of faith and to all men." *
We have said that probation is indissolubly
connected with every condition in life. Spiritual
dangers beset us on every side, and if more
numerous in a situation of affluence, they are
by no means peculiar to it. The poor man is
exposed to perils of his own-perils introduced
into his sphere that he may have sonething
with which to wrestle; something to render
watchfulness and  virtue necessary, and the
overcoming of which will confer upon him a
degree of blessedness sufficient to compensate
for all the toil expended in its acquisition.
The poor man is apt to exaggerate the possession of wealth as a means of happiness.
Sensible of many privations which  money
would remove, his wishes bounded on all sides
by the impotence of. poverty, he is easily led to
imagine that wealth would give him all that
heart can wish. Hence he cannot see a wealthy
man without instituting a comparison all to his
own disadvantage.  That individual is in a
state all but paradisaical. He need not labour
with his hands; no master's eye or factory bell
measures to him more accurately than a hourglass the intervals of relaxation; day after day
he may go whither his inclination leads him;
* Wesley's Sermon " On the Use of Money."




THE MORALS OF MONEY.         155
his name is a symbol of respect with all classes;
he owns a spacious mansion; his eye continually falls on agreeable garden and pleasure
grounds-all his own-the  very picture  of
beauty and repose.  His rooms are hung with
costly paintings; his library is stored with the
choicest books; the latest inventions of science
stand at his side, as if to tempt the exercise of
thought and render him an epicure in knowledge.  Such a man must be happy.  Ah!
perhaps no other person would be more ready
to give the sentiment a flat denial. Perhaps
he has often glanced through a rustic lattice,
and as he saw his labourer's children gathered
round the evening fire, wondered whether the
happiness he could not find under his palatial
roof had taken refuge there. It is an utter
delusion to suppose that happiness is connected
with any measure of worldly good.  Man's
heart is larger than the largest stores of affluence; his wishes never fail to expand in a
greater ratio than his possessions, ever increasing the absolute void.  His wealth itself is a
collection of cares.  True happiness lies in
doing the will of God; in acquiescing in the
Divine arrangements; in cultivating the excellences and  discharging the duties of piety.
Elsewhere none can be happy, but all may be
happy here.
In his demeanour towards those who occupy
a higher station, the poor man is prone to errors
which reflect dishonour upon himself.  Those
to which we allude are of two opposite kinds,




156                MONEY.
and candour requires that both should be stigmatized as improper.  On the one hand, he
may indulge in a mean, slavish, cringing spirit,
always speak in a tone more in keeping with
the position of a Russian serf than that of a
free-born Englishman, and watch every occasion
of showing that principle, honour, religion, the
most sacred obligations, are secondary in his
view  to the desire to gratify a rich man's
wishes.  We know how unpopular such men
are with the bulk of their own class; we need
not mention here the inglorious epithets which
have been coined in order to bring out their
conduct in opprobrious relief; sufficient to say
that such a spirit is the bane of any population,
inimical to morality, perilous to the interests
of wealth, the source of pauperism, bribery,
and even crime.  On the other hand, many of
the poorer classes carry their independence to a
more rugged and repulsive extreme.  They
appear to seize every opportunity of saying by
their actions to the wealthier employers, " I do
not care for you." What a needless, what a dishonourable manifesto!  What an exuberance
of vulgarity! How rude and low it stamps the
character to be of the men who make it! Courtesy
and politeness are due from one individual to
another.  The operative owes respect to all,
and therefore, on this general ground, without
estimating  the obligation which  may  arise
from special relations to his employer, it is a
duty he owes himself to be uniformly fiank,
manly, and respectful;-more, others have no




THE MORALS OF MONEY.         157
right to ask; less, he ought to be ashamed to
give.
The surest safeguard against the moral dangers of every position in life is to be found in
the reception of those scriptural truths, which
teach us our true relations to God as creatures
who, inheriting a depraved nature, have by
their transgressions forfeited all claim  to the
Divine favour, and who, devoid of all merit,
can rest their claims for acceptance solely on the
atoning sacrifice and righteousness of Christ.
This is a view which is calculated to humble
pride, and to make the various inequalities of
the social condition assume their true level.
Scarcely less important also is the duty, when
these views have been received into the soul, of
maintaining their power by habitually cherishing a prayerful spirit.  A  prayerful spirit
checks the growth of worldliness, allays the
turbulence of vanity, and makes a person, even
when surrounded with earthly pomp and splendour, walk humbly with God. By maintaining
prayer, Daniel was enabled to remain incorrupted at the court of Babylon.  Looking at
the world in this medium, he beheld its unreality, its evanescence, and discerned the folly
of sacrificing piety at the shrine of temporal
advancement. In him God gave an illustration
of the truth, that they who honour him he will
honour. His spirituality was the source of that
wisdom which raised him above his rivals, and
saved him  from the dangers which beset the
summit of greatness.  Daily humbled and ele14




158               MONEY.
vated by communion with the King of kings,
he could tread the courts of royalty without
servility or ambition. If we examine the lives
of those individuals who have been equally
great and excellent, we shall find that communion with God was the secret of their excellence.  They knew the attractiveness of the
closet. Business, however pressing, did not
engross the whole of their time; they were
"fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." Their
minds were strengthened by devotion; their
judgments acquired greater clearness by being
accustomed to contemplate spiritual objects;
while, by the same process, they were saved
from that absorbing passion for worldly things
which often blinds the mind to danger, and conducts it into ruinous errors.
The common excuse for the neglect of prayer
is the want of time; but this excuse cannot pass
muster with those who find time enough for
everything else. In the day most crowded
with engagements, what merchant would not
find time to. confer with a person likely to
become a large purchaser?  How few would
allow a first-rate bargain to slip away on the
plea that they had no time to attend to it! It
is too evident that such an excuse borrows all
its validity from the nature of the duty it is
contrived to shun.  It would be regarded as
insufficient in any case in which our interest or
inclination stood concerned: the person has
no tiire for religion, no time for the soul, no
time for eternity, though quite enough for every



THE MORALS OF MONEY.          159
thing he truly cares about! But if business is
really so extensive as to leave no time for de
votion, then business must be curtailed. To a
wise and prudent person no other choice would
seem to be left. Some time must be saved from
secular cares to be devoted to our everlasting
interests;  to the cultivation of spirituality,
piety, godliness; to replenish the soul with water
from the springs of life. Time thus expended
would be time gained.  Yes, in sober truth,
the separation of a portion of the day for purposes of devotion would be found in the highest
degree conducive to the physical, mental, and
pecuniary welfare of the man of business. The
more pressing his occupations, the more extensive and important his transactions, the more
benefit would he draw from  seasons of retirement.  The closet has no antipathy to  the
counting-house; the two should go together,
just as religion should be allowed to blend with
and hallow all the pursuits of life. A clear
head is needful in business.  A man who will
succeed must not allow his brain to be dizzied
by a score of plans, all jumbled together in
pell-mell confusion.  He should see them all
in clear outline, as we see a town traced on a
sheet of paper, or as a general surveys the field
of battle.  Some very cool intellects may do
this without any moral aid, but devotional
habits supply to all the best means of doing it.
Few persons comprehend all the bearings of a
bargain so well as a disinterested spectator,
and he approaches the  nearest to  such a




160                MONEY.
character who uses the world without being
enslaved by it, and in whose mind the interest
of present things is properly balanced by the
interests of futurity.
One reason why private prayer is so little
resorted to by men of business is, that its
observance is seldom made a matter of arrangement.  It is left to chance, and is generally
deferred to the end of the day, when both mind
and body are ordinarily so enfeebled as to
render it of little use. But this should not be.
Independently of evening devotion and that
ejaculatory prayer which ought to be interwoven through the whole business of life, a
part of the day, in which the mind and body
are freshest, should be set apart for communion
with God.  What season could be more appropriate for this than early morn?  What more
beautiful than, before the intrusion of worldly
cares and temptations, to fortify the mind by
the perusal of the Divine word, and supplication
for grace to help us in the hour of need?
Business is irritating; mistakes, disappointments, losses, are daily occurring to task the
temper; how wise, then, before entering upon
it, to ascend the mount of celestial fellowship,
and seek strength from  Christ to honour him
through the day! Such a course would make
our piety  burn  brighter, and  Christians,
through the medium of business, would be the
means of recommending religion most powerfully to the common sense and common sympathies of mankind.




MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.        161
CHAPTER VI.
MODELS FOR MONIED MEN: BENEVOLENCE SPEAKING
BY EXAMPLE.
WE have spoken of the fallacies and failings of
monied men; but a more pleasing duty remains
now for us, namely, the contemplation of money
as a talent laid out upon right principles for
the service of the Great Creator.  The possession of money has been often coveted even by
men destitute of religious principles, who recognised it as a powerful instrument for the
amelioration of society. How much more, then,
must this great talent commend itself to the
Christian, as the agency by which his Master's
cause may be  largely advanced! Let the
worldling long for affluence, that he may gratify avarice, sensuality, luxury, political ambition, or a fastidious taste-the Christian blessed
with wealth can show him  a more excellent
way.  By the aid of this talent, he knows that
he may make war against ignorance, intemperance, ungodliness, and the monster evils that
infest society.  At home there is disease to
heal, modest merit to reward, struggling industry to foster, and above all, the glorious gospel
14*




162                MONEY.
to diffuse.  "By money," to use the language
(slightly modified) of a vigorous American
writer,'he may open a set of books with
heaven, becoming the Lord's steward for man's
redemption from suffering and crime, laying up
his treasures where neither moth, nor rust, nor
thieves can approach them.  Not a cultured
imagination alone, but reason, conscience, religion-all have taught him  that the finest and
most elegant of all the arts is to paint smiles
upon the wan cheeks of suffering infancy; to
quench the demon fire of passion that blazes
from  the eye of precocious wantonness, and
kindle in its stead the serene light that radiates
from a fount of inward purity; to hang round
and pre-occupy the chambers of the juvenile
mind with all types and images of loveliness
and excellence; and to build up all the glorious
faculties, as in colossal architecture, to some
nearer resemblance to the  Divine  original.
Reason, conscience, religion-all have taught
him that when starving babes shall no longer
wail for sustenance upon the starving mother's
breast; when blasphemy and obscenity shall
no longer be the lullaby with which the intemperate father or mother lulls infancy to sleep;
when parental wickedness shall no longer teach
falsehood to the youthful tongue, and theft and
violence to the youthful hand; when the ininite woes and agonies of earth, which its superfluous wealth and its wasted time might largely
prevent, shall cease to be-then may opulence
seek its gratification in festivity, or in capricious




MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.          163
self-indulgence, without incurring enormous
guilt."
Example, however, is by far the best teacher
of admitted, but unpractised truths. Lucid statements and powerful arguments may be useful in
extending the bounds of conviction, but if the conscience already admits the validity of any precept,
then the miost effectual method of extending its
practical influence is to present it enshrined in
some living form. Such a mode of winning attention has many advantages. It is unobtrusive; it
does no violence to prejudice; instead of taking
the garrison by storm, it invites an honourable
capitulation. Sometimes a person will be withheld by a feeling of pride from acknowledging
himself beaten in controversy, but even pride
is disarmed by the voiceless force of example.
Some persons are so constituted, that when
others point out to them  any error, they begin
at once to disprove the charge, and will rather
continue wrong than consent that another shall
set them  right.  Such conduct is censurable.
Surely he who faithfully points out our faults,
and helps us to amend them, is our best friend.
Even if our bitterest enemy choose to favour us
with criticisms on our conduct, provided only
he speak the truth, we shall have to thank himn
for his pains.  But example effects its object
by avoiding these dangers.  Its rebukes are
silent; it fights with Socratic weapons, and
makes its antagonists their own conquerors.
Happily for the world, it is not yet devoid
of great examples.  Flattery is hateful, but it is




164                 MONEY.
possible to be extravagant in deprecation as
well as in praise.  Our impression of human
imperfection leads us sometimes to speak as if
there were no Christian excellence left amongst
us; as if the triumphs which Divine grace can
win over the selfishness of man's heart were
the exclusive trophy of apostolic times; and
those  heaven-born  principles  were  extinct,
which induced the fishermen and publicans of
Galilee to " leave all" at the invitation of the
Great Teacher, and induced the early converts
to sell " their possessions,"  and count their
temporal happiness and wealth but " loss for
Christ."  But such is not the case.  Carping
sceptics, who wish to reconcile their real hatred
of Christianity with some measure of respect
for its Founder, may denounce the religion of
the  present day as  so  much  ill-disguised
hypocrisy; but nevertheless it is impossible to
deny the existence amongst us of characters
which, though, like everything human, far from
being perfect, exhibit a measure of excellence
which nothing but religion received into the
heart as a vital reality will satisfactorily explain.  It is not a boast-of such things God
forbid that we should glory!-it is an averment made in sheer self-defence, that Christian
men, while falling, and in the estimation of no
one  more  than  themselves, far below  the
standard  of holiness revealed in Christ, frequently  make  sacrifices  for the welfare  of
mankind such as infidelity could never prompt.
These sacrifices too are made, not under the




MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.         165
influence of any sentiment which  could be
branded as fanaticism, but by men whom  the
sceptic is bound to respect; who exhibit in
their common life intelligence as extensive, a
logic as severe, a shrewdness as all-observant,
and a temperament as sober as his own.
Our object, however, is not to obviate the
cavils of the sceptic, but to stimulate the Christian to greater excellence, and this we propose
to do by bringing to his notice two or three
instances of departed worth, which may be the
means, perhaps, of keeping before his eye, and
thus rendering familiar to him, a standard to
which he has not yet attained. It is a salutary
employment to muse upon the excellences of
those now gone to their reward, till they expand
before us into life-like reality. Such visions
become our best companions; they accompany
us into the crowded city, stand by us in the
press of business, speak to us words of counsel
audible to none besides, and continually admonish us to follow them  even as they followed
Christ.
One of the most decisive tests of a person's
Christian liberality is afforded by the question
-How much (not in absolute amount, but as
compared with what remains) does he give to
God?  To apply this test, however, it is necessary to recognise clearly the characteristics of
Christian benevolence.  It is easy to give away
a great deal, and give it also to excellent
objects, and yet to give nothing to God.  Here
the motive decides all. Christian benevolence




166               MONEY.
springs from a sense of God's ownership in
ourselves and in everything we possess.  It
recognises this fact-God is the sovereign
Master of all things; man is but the recipient
and steward of his bounty.  He whose hand
joined cause and effect, endowed us with those
faculties which enable us to amass wealth, and
constituted that agreement between our organization and external objects which is the source
of so much pleasure, can never relinquish his
right to the proprietorship of the world. He
lays his hand at once on every atom; his
omnipotence ever rests in immediate contact
with unsentient beings, and secures abstract
admiration and entire subservience to his will.
Man was intended to be no less under this control, but his subjection must be voluntary.
What God enforces from material nature man
must give. Bowing with all his possessions at
the footstool of Infinite mercy, it is incumbent
on him to say-" Lord, I am thine; these also
are thine; I can call nothing my own; teach
me the duties of my stewardship; let me know
what thou wouldest have me do."
The chief motive, however, which induces
the Christian to give his property to God is
expressed by the apostle in one  sentence" The love of Christ constraineth us."  The
life of Christ was one sweet, overpowering
manifestation of Divine love. His sympathies
extended themselves to every form of wretchedness; the poor, the hungry, the diseased, the
disconsolate, were the objects on whom  he




MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.        167
poured the treasures of his compassion; while
in the last act of his self-sacrificing career he
gave the noblest instance of disinterestedness
which the world ever saw.  Love to Christ
makes us like Christ.  There is a transmuting
power in love; it is the soul's alchymy; it
melts and fuses us into its own pure forms.
Christ loved man; this is the chief element of
his surpassing beauty; we cannot, therefore,
love him without loving man too.  Hence love
is the soul of Christianity, without which,
however vast our knowledge or great our
powers, we are but " as sounding brass or a
tinkling cymbal."  Springing from  such motives, Christian benevolence is necessarily distinguished by the manner in which it is exercised.  Christ prescribed this in one simple
rule:-" When thou doest thine alms, let not
thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:"
giving for the sake of giving, not for the sake
of being seen to give; giving from duty, not
expediency: a benevolence which would be
satisfied if all its gifts were received in the
dark, and no subscription list chronicled the
name of the giver. But it is by the spirit, not
the letter, of this precept that we are bound.
True, there is a peculiar charm in the private
exercise of charity. How rich a treasure, shut
up in the silence of our bosom, is a benevolent
action, which has caused, perhaps, the widow's
heart to leap for joy, or assisted some one to
grapple  successfully  with  difficulties  which
would else have crushed him! But in many




168                MONEY.
cases such a method of giving is not desirable.
Secrecy is not required in order to present a
munificent donation on Christian principles,
on the contrary, it may be often necessary, foi
the sake of example, that a gift should be publicly bestowed.  In such a case it is a spiritual
triumph to give it publicly, and yet feel that
no part of the motives flowed from  the anticipated publicity. If a person has any apprehension that his heart will be vain of his
munificence, it is doubtless advisable in such
circumstances to expend it privately; but it
would be far better if his  principles were
strong enough to give publicly, and yet permit
him to feel no self-complacency in the act.
It is difficult to prescribe minute rules for
giving; we are by no means presumptuous
enough to attempt the task.  Indeed, is not an
OMNISCIENT EYE requisite to fix for each individual
how much and in what way he ought to give?
Still, there are certain principles of giving which
are obviously wrong, and there are certain
modes of giving which clearly prove that the
principles acted on are those very wrong ones.
Who, for example, has not been struck with the
uniformity of accounts which characterizes the
subscription lists of our religious institutions?
Those guineas in " single file," which would lead
us to suppose that the donors had been laid on
a Procrustes' bed, and their affluence clipped
down or extended to the same bulk.  But
is it so?  Should we not often find that one of
those guineas proceeded from  a purse which




MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.        169
could easily have spared a dozen more, while
the other perhaps was the offering of a piety so
believing and earnest that it set aside the considerations which might possibly have been a
justification for giving less? If benevolence
always proceeded from true love to Christ, our
subscription lists would soon wear a different
aspect. There would be less of the contagion
of giving, proceeding from without; less desire
manifested to "do the same as others," and
more of that self-reckoning, conscientious spirit
which asks, " How much owest thou unto my
Lord?"  Giving would insensibly become a
holier act, fraught with the richest blessings to
the giver.  An entire change might then take
place in the mechanism  of Christian effort.
Special appeals-appeals so forcible that they
leave scarcely anything to the force of inward
principle, might then be laid aside. Ease and
freedom  would be infused into  the onward
movements of the church of Christ.  Instead of
impressment, philanthropy would fall back on
its army of volunteers. Again, how often do
we see uniformity under another aspect-an
individual giving precisely the same sum at
periods of his life when his circumstances were
very different l At the commencement of his
career, when yet struggling with slender capital,
and the uncertainties of a business not yet
established, he gave as much as he gives now
fter his exertions have long been crowned with
affluence.  Since that former period how many
mercies has he received from the Divine hand!
15




170                MONEY.
How  many who began the race when he did
soon failed, and were snatched away by death
from their opening prospects of success, but he
has been spared to reap the fruit of his industry! Day after day for thirty years or more
he has been kept from fatal accidents, endowed
with all but uninterrupted health, crowned
with every domestic felicity; his table has
been spread with  luxuries, his ships have
crossed the ocean in safety, his warehouses and
factories have  been  spared  the  devouring
flames; and yet, with such an accumulated
debt to the Father of mercies, he gives no more
to aid in the diffusion of truth and happiness
through the world, than he did when he had
not contracted a thousandth part of those obligations.  God has placed in the hand of his
servant a thousand-fold more wealth than he
formerly entrusted to him, but he has spent the
increase upon himself, and thus embezzled his
Master's money. Who can estimate the sinfulness of such a course? It is equally pernicious
in its influence on himself and others. It is
unjust to his fellow-men whose debtor he is;
but it is more than this-it is infidelity to God,
who will not fail to institute a scrutiny into the
way we have expended the talents entrusted to
our care. To be wealthy is to be made God's
steward, and' for every shilling we are responsible to him.
THOMAS WILSON, of Highbury, has left a
name which will long be remembered among
those who have felt and discharged the respon



MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.        171
sibilities of wealth. "It was his distinction,"
says one who knew  him  well, "to occupy
singly, and alone, without all doubt or competition, the first place for usefulness in the denomination to which he belonged.  He not only
stood alone, but far above others, in that active,
liberal, and well-directed zeal on which the
prosperity of any cause so much depends. At
the age of thirty-four he retired from business.
His fortune at that time was not what the
world would call large, considering his previous position in life, and he appears to have
been induced to take that step by a strong
desire to devote himself to the cause of Christ.
Perhaps'business,' as secular avocations are
termed in common parlance, had never been
quite congenial to his taste, but this itself was
probably owing to the strong bias of his mind
towards direct spiritual effort. Such an abandonment of worldly occupations may not be
proper in every case; some have felt it a duty
to continue in them  in order that they might
have more to consecrate to schemes of usefulness.  We cannot but admire the man who,
after having acquired an ample fortune, resolves,
instead of retiring into ease and seclusion, to
undergo the fatigues of business that he may
have more property to consecrate to the welfare
of his fellow-men; but it is still more admirable
to see a man, like Mr. Wilson, give up business
that he may hereafter work exclusively for the
spread of religion.  Here we see the ardour of
his piety-the depth and sincerity of his Chris



172                MONEY.
tian principles. From  the very first it was
evident that Mr. Wilson had not abandoned
his former pursuits for the sake of ease; he
brought into his new avocations all the method,
earnestness, and regularity which characterized
him  in the old.  The house he occupied in
Artillery-place had only one front room on the
ground-floor.' This,' says his son,' was used by
my father as a place for carrying on his private
and public concerns, and was generally called
the counting-house, where he sat a great part
of the day, devoting many hours to transact
what he had determined henceforth to make his
business-the happy, joyful business of doing
good, and to which he attended with all the
energy and vigour which he had learned and
practised in his secular calling.'"
It is difficult to estimate the amount of
business in connexion with the cause of Christ
which Mr. Wilson took into his hands.  A
mere list of the places of worship which he
originated, and the cost of which he in a
great part defrayed, would give a surprising
view of the extent of his exertions; yet those
which he devoted to this branch of labour
were but a part of his never-ceasing activity.
He was always accessible; always ready to aid
by his friendly counsel. He took  a lively
interest in most of the movements of the day.
He was one of the originators of the Bible
Society, the Tract Society, and the London
Missionary Society. In his post as treasurer
of Hoxton Academy, he was indefatigable in




MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.       178
promoting the preaching of the gospel.  The
very year after he undertook the office, two
hundred fresh names were added, through his
exertion, to the subscription-roll of the institution, and in a few  years the number of
students augmented six-fold.  The objects to
which he chiefly devoted himself were those
which promised to be most fruitful in spiritual
results. Firmly believing in the sufficiency of
the gospel, when applied by the Holy Spirit, to
regenerate the world, he supported in preference to others those schemes which were
most adapted to spread its influence. The good
he accomplished in this way is beyond the
power of calculation. If his personal exertions
are the most valuable and suggestive part of the
offering he consecrated to the service of his
Master, his benefactions in money were considerable: three enterprises of usefulness in the
metropolis alone, undertaken and completed in
the course of ten years, cost him ~25,000.
This munificence is the more striking inasmuch
as it was given out of fixed income, and was the
fruit of resolute economy. In this point ot
view his conduct speaks powerfully to others.
" To see a man economizing the resources of a
handsome, though at the commencement of his
useful career by no means an  exuberant
income, relinquishing the equipage and other
appendages of wealth, and contenting himself
with the simple habits of men possessed of not
half his means, in order that he might have the
more to dispense; to see this same man having
15*




174                MONEY.
an office, employing a clerk, and going to the
scene of his benevolent occupation, there to be
accessible to all who wanted his money or his
counsel; and all this with the same constancy,
punctuality, and untiring perseverance as any
merchant in the metropolis goes to his counting-house, was a scene which perhaps had no
parallel, and it still has none!"
THOIaNTON  is an  illustrious name in the
annals of Christian benevolence. John Thornton
was a distinguished  merchant, whose chief
desire in business, as Mr. Wilson's was in leaving it, seems to have been to lay a richer offering on the altar of his Divine Master.  He was
a member of the established church, but his
love to Christ and his cause was far greater
than his attachment to any particular community. Like Mr. Wilson, he devoted a considerable portion of his wealth to the training of
young men for the Christian ministry. Among
those who were the recipients of his bounty in
this form was the rev. John Newton, so well
known as the friend of Cowper, and author of
the Olney Hymns. A close friendship sprang
up between these two  excellent men.  Mr.
Newton became one of his almoners. IHe
regularly received the annual sum of ~200 to
dispense in works of mercy, and during his
entire residence at Olney drew  more than
~3,000 from the funds of his generous benefactor. His conscientious fidelity in regarding
his property as a stewardship is finely illustrated in the following incident:-A  clergy



MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.       175
man called upon him one morning to receive
a promised contribution to some good cause.
While waiting  in an  outer room, he was
informed that Mr. Thornton had just received
information of a serious failure, involving the
loss of no less a sum  than ~20,000.  The
applicant could not help regretting his ill-timed
visit, and on being introduced to Mr. Thornton,
apologized for calling at such a moment. " My
dear sir," the latter exclaimed, "the wealth I
have is not mine, it is the Lord's, and if He is
going to take it out of my hands, it is a reason
why I should make good use of what is left."
With this remark he doubled his promised
subscription. The virtues which distinguished
in so eminent a manner John Thornton, descended to HENRY, his third son. The effect of
the training he had received under his parental
roof were visible in him from his earliest years.
At the commencement of his business career,
the responsibility connected with the possession
of wealth occasioned him much serious thought.
He then solemnly vowed that a certain proportion of his entire income should ever after be
devoted to the cause of Christ. Throughout
his whole life he rigidly adhered to this resolution. While he remained unmarried he gave
away six-sevenths of his income, amounting to
not less than ~9,000 a year, and when he afterwards became the head of a numerous family,
his annual benevolence never amounted to less
than ~2,000.  A  private account was kept
of his various disbursements for charitable




176                MONEY.
objects, proving that he gave on system, and
was discriminating as well as liberal. " The
poor and needy were not the sole sharers of his
income.  The fair and reasonable exigencies of
those in less humble situation were always met
by him with equal generosity and delicacy." The
philanthropy he practised was not more striking
than the philanthropy which he taught. His
house was the resort of men whose names have
become eminent in the religious and political
world. Wilberforce, Macaulay, Grant, Venn,
Gisborne, Simeon, and Henry Martyn, were
among his frequent guests, and were accustomed to look up to him with affection and
respect. Gifted with a sound and discerning
judgment, " he sent his hearers to their homes
instructed in a doctrine cheerful, genial, and
active-a doctrine which taught them  to be
sociable and busy, to augment to the utmost of
their power the joint-stock of human happiness,
and freely to take and freely to enjby the share
assigned to each by the conditions of that
universal partnership. And well did the teacher
illustrate his own maxims. The law of social
duty, as explained in his domestic academy,
was never expounded more clearly or more
impressively than by his habitual example."
But his high and stainless integrity was one of
the most striking features of his character.
Purer hands, perhaps, were never engaged in
the transaction of commercial affairs. He was
not only free from many obliquities of conduct
which are observed in persons who yet main



MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.       177
tain a fair reputation in the Christian world,
but he was scrupulous almost to a fault. Information having reached him of the failure of
a near kinsman, he was led to inquire how far
credit might have been given to his relative,
however unauthorized by him, in reliance upon
his reputation and resources, and judged it
right to cover the liabilities of the defaulter out
of his own coffers.  A short time before his
death, a mercantile house having obtained from
his firm  without his knowledge large and
improvident advances, became so seriously
emb)arrassed that their bankruptcy was urged
upon him as the only hope of averting from his
own house the most serious losses. He resisted
the proposal on the ground that those who
had given undue credit had no right to call
upon others to divide the loss.  To the last
farthing he discharged the liabilities of the
insolvents, at a cost of more than ~20,000.
He died in the bosom of a home, says his
biographer, which was happy in his presence,
from whose lips no angry, morose, or impatient
words ever fell-on whose brow no cloud of
anxiety or discontent was ever seen to rest.
NORMAND SMITH, an American tradesman,
furnished an interesting example of conscientious
giving, and in the memorial of his life by
Dr. Hawes, his actions yet " speak" to stimulate
and encourage others.  He was the elder son
of a numerous and pious family, thus teaching
us the lesson already presented in the case of
Thomas Wilson and the Thorntons, that domestic




178                 MONEY.
piety  is the school of the Christian graces.
His business waf that of a saddler.  His father
assisted him with capital at the commencement,
but his industry and perseverance soon enabled
him  to repay the loan.  At first his expectations of success were very moderate. To support
his family in comfort was the utmost limit of
his hopes.  Still, while his business was in its
infancy and his income small, he set apart a
portion for the service of Christ.  In doing
this he experienced the reward which God has
promised to him  that soweth plentifully.  His
business succeeded; at the end of the first year
its profits were much larger than he had expected; at the end of the second year they were
still greater; the third and fourth year closed
with  a similar result.  Such  success would
have been eminently dangerous to many men;
they  would have regarded it simply as an
inducement to launch out further into trade,
and aim  at still greater accumulations.  Are
there not many who might, with too much
reason, date a long career of religious declension
from their first prosperous year in business?
Not thus was it with Normand Smith.  The
Christian tradesman may see in him how wealth
may be sanctified and made the means of pronloting his piety. Finding hiniself getting rich,
he instantly put the question to his heart, What
does God intend nme to do with my money?
The reflections to which  he was thus  led,
resutlted in a revival of religious principles and
motives within him. He resolved, after making




MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.       179
proper provision for the wants of himself and
family, to give the rest to the cause of Christ.
Like Mr. Wilson, he questioned whether he
ought not to leave his business, in order to
devote himself more entirely to the service of
religion, but the decision to which he ultimately
came was adverse to such a step.  The spirit
which dictated this decision may be inferred
from a passage from his journal in reference to
it: " The Lord has made the path of duty plain
to me. For a year I have been much in doubt
as to the duty of continuing my present business.
My mind has become settled; I have determined
to continue in it, and I trust, not in order to
grow rich. I dare not be rich; I would not be
rich; they that will be rich fall into temptation
and a snare.  It is my intention to continue in
business that I may serve God, and with the
expectation of getting to give."  This intention
he conscientiously carried into effect.  Henceforth he was not only "diligent in business,"
but studiously economical in his expenses-to
save money for the cause of Christ.
John Wesley's maxim in reference to wealth
was, " Get all you can, save all you can, give
all you can." Perhaps the best exemplification
of this maxim is to be found in the life of the
late Mr. SAMUEL BUDGETT, of Bristol, a member
of the denomination which bears the name of
that eminent man. The memoir of Mr. Budgett,
from  the pen of the rev. W. Arthur, is an
armoury of counsels and cautions to the man of
business.  Two lessons in particular may be




180                 MONEY.
drawn from  it, namely, that rigid justice in
getting may be combined with bounteous liberality in giving, and that the severest application
to worldly pursuits may be combined with the
most fervent anxiety  for the attainment of
spiritual blessings.  The latter of these is very
important.  How many believe it impossible to
be at once a thorough man of business and a
thorough Christian, and that one or the other
must be abandoned! This dangerous scepticism
is rebutted by a single glance at the life of a
man like Mr. Budgett.  In the first place, none
can deny that he was eminently successful in
business. He began his career in the capacity
of shopman to his brother, with forty pounds
salary-this was lis commencement.  At the
end of three years he was made a partnerjunior partner of a small retail shop.  In thirty
years after we see him at the head of one of
the largest mercantile houses in the west of
England, turning over nearly three-quarters of
a million annually in ready cash. Nor is this
result surprising when we consider the man.
Enterprise, caution, method, accuracy, punctuality, perseverance, shrewdness; all these elements of the thorough man of business were
found in him, so that his success seemed to flow
naturally from the exertions he put forth.  If
any man had " no time for religion," surely it
was he.  And yet religion was his life; here he
found motives to industry, precepts for his
guidance, a refreshing stream  of comfort and
hope, a sphere in which his moral energies




MODELS FOR MONIED IEN.       181
might find employment.  Religion in him was
not a separate faculty; it leavened all his actions
and pervaded his whole nature. Business and
religion were to him perfectly compatible with
each other.  His warehouse was a place of
prayer; there a spot was consecrated to devotion, and there the master gathered his men
around him, and led them  in prayer to the
Giver of everything good and perfect.  How
many Christians abandon the prayer-meeting
when business grows upon them! Mr. Budgett
did not; he rwas foremost in the means of grace
as in the means of wealth, and thus spiritual
riches kept pace with his temporal gains. But
in the use he made of his wealth we see the
most conspicuous illustration of his piety. His
liberality in giving surpassed perhaps his diligence in getting.  His charity was overflowing.
He distributed with discrimination and liberality, and without ostentation, in the estimation
of those who were near spectators of his liberality, fully ~2,000 a-year. His biographer
thinks this too high as an average, but if it
was anything approaching that sum, what an
example of giving does it place before us!
His benevolence had few crotchets.  It was the
offspring of genuine principles. He loved to
do good, and in whatever direction it was
possible to do this, there he might be found.
His generosity was not confined to specially
religious objects. To these, it is true, he gave
largely. The gospel appeared to him, as it must
to all who truly understand it, the one great
16




182                MONEY.
lever by which mankind are to be raised from
sin and its attendant misery, and every organization which was adapted to extend its influence
found in him  a ready friend. But he appre-.ciated the temporal necessities of those around
him, and delighted to alleviate them. During
the distress of 1847, he paid large sums in
wages to extra hands in order to provide them
with food. Many a poor person has he helped
by a timely present to surmount the little
disasters of humble life, and many more have
been indebted to him  at the outset of their'career for friendly counsel and pecuniary aid.
" The successful merchant," the type of a class
not unusually the object of envy in the neighbourhood where they reside, was greatly beloved.
The interest he took in the welfare of the
lowest and roughest of the population led them
to regard him with respect. Their demeanour
in his presence proclaimed their conviction that
he was, in the language of Scripture, " a good
man."' Mr. Budgett was a neighbour to the
inhabitants of Ringwood; thousands of his gold,
and thousands of his hours were given for their
weal, and to the last his care was for the maintenance of those means of grace which had
been so much blessed."  He did not pass with
unconcern through  the  uncivilized  districts
"which surrounded the scene of his moneymaking enterprises.  He felt, and justly too,
that there lay a missionary sphere for him;
those men were to be won by kindness and
candour to the side of religion; those boys




MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.        183
were to be instructed and traine  so as to
become a blessing rather than a curse to society;
those squalid dwellings were to be changed into
cleanly abodes by the refining power of example,
counsel, and Christian piety.  To grow rich in
such a neighbourhood, to build up a glittering
pile of wealth in the midst of so much ignorance
and vice, without laying himself out for usefulness proportioned to his increasing means, appeared to him  unworthy of a religious man.
He could not do it; at least he did not do it.
The indefatigable man of business was found
working within the shadow of his own residence
as the earnest philanthropist, the steady friend of
the poor, the originator of every movement by
which the temporal and spiritual welfare of
his neighbours might be advanced.  Oh that
such an example were universally followed by
our men of wealth I How speedily would many
social evils vanish! " The wilderness and the
solitary place" indeed would soon " be glad!"
But it is not the wealthy alone upon whom
the obligation of Christian benevolence descends;
this is the common inheritance of the followers
of Christ. Perhaps nowhere are the obligations
of giving better illustrated than among those
less affluent members of the Christian church
with whom an act of generosity is also perforce
one of self-denial, who have to economize in
order to give.  A  pleasing instance of this
kind may be mentioned as of recent occurrence.  Last year, a lady, a member of a
church in the metropolis, died, bequeathing




184                MONET.
~600 to one of the principal Missionary Societies. The missionary cause had been dear
to her. During her life the secretaries of the
Society referred to were in the habit of seeing
her at the Mission House every six weeks or
two months.  On these occasions she always
had some suggestion to make by which the
funds might be increased, and several times in
the course of the year brought a sum-never
less  than  ~10-as her  own  contribution.
This, the reader will say, was munificent. How
many thousands who profess the same attachment to the schemes of Christian piety, and
enjoy extensive means, are content to do much
less! yet that lady never at any one period of
her life possessed more than ~60 per annum.
"She gave as in the sight of God; she abstained from personal enjoyment to forward his
cause; and now, having passed to that heavenly
state where all is joy and perfection, one cannot
but believe that there must be some stars in
her crown reflected from the sanctity of her
mode of giving."  This is an illustration of
what all, to a greater or less extent, may do.
Some part of every income, however small,
should be set aside for doing good. This should
be placed among the common ends of life, to
be promoted not by what may be casually left
when every other call has been supplied, by
the crumbs which fall from the table, but by
the first-fruits of our industry.
An instance of exalted Christian philanthropy,
more remarkable in some respect than those




MODELS FOE MONIED MEN.        185
we have already referred to, is found in the
early history of ROBERT and JAMES ALEXANDER
HALDANE.  These  were  extraordinary  men,
endowed with strong mental capacities, and
above all, a large-heartedness which led them
to  devote  themselves with burning and inextinguishable zeal to the service of Christ.
Their joint lives will be regarded hereafter as
marking an important era in the spiritual condition of their native land, and were not without
an important bearing on the general progress
of the cause  of Christ.  Robert HIaldane
inherited the estate of Aithrie, near Stirling, a
place of such beauty that a Scotch nobleman
rather extravagantly remarked of it, that it
was " a perfect heaven upon earth."  With an
ample fortune and the advantage of a distinguished descent, the world opened to him a
career of great promise; but God opened his
eyes to behold a better inheritance, and made
him willing to count all earthly gain as dross
that he might obtain it. Immediately after his
conversion he began to feel a deep interest in
the spiritual welfare of others.  Circumstances
directed his sympathies in the first instance to
the heathen world.  It was the time when
Andrew Fuller, on behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society, then  recently formed, was
delivering his strong and stirring discourses
in the churches of Scotland.  It is a striking
illustration of the usefulness of that eminent
man, that his pulpit addresses were the means
of determining to such distinguished liberality
16*




186               MONEY.
two such men as Thomas Wilson of Highbury,
and Robert Haldane of Aithrie.  The subject
of missions sank deep into the heart of the
latter.  He began to think it his duty to go
himself to Bengal to labour for the conversion
of the Hindoos, and to consecrate his property
to the work.  He ruminated over the project
for six months, mentioned it to his wife, who
cordially approved it, and then went to London
to confer on the subject with several eminent
men whom he was anxious to obtain as colleagues in the work.  His plan was to sell his
estate, and defray the entire outfit of the mission;
then ~3,500 was to be given to each minister
who should accompany him, as a temporal provision for their families, while ~25,000 was
to be invested for the future sustenance of the
mission.  Circumstances finally prevented the
carrying out of this design, but the zeal in
which it originated proved its genuineness by
the works it straightway induced him to undertake at home. In conjunction with his brother,
he made Scotland the scene of his missionary
labours, and in 1798 sold the estate at Aithrie,
that he might have more money to devote to
the purposes of evangelization. What a spectacle of primitive simplicity was thus given by
these two distinguished men! How  full of
earnestness and  faith  was  their  conduct I
" Christianity," exclaimed Robert Haldane, "is
either everything or it is nothing;" and in
the spirit of' this sentiment he spent his life.
He  expended  thousands  in  spreading  the




MODELS FOR MONIED MEN.        187
gospel among the population of Scotland, and
roused professing Christians everywhere to a
truer sense of their duties by the zeal with
which he discharged his own.  It must be
noticed in connexion with these self-denying
exertions at home, that he carried the heart and
the aim of an apostle into everything he did.  It
was in consequence of a visit he paid to Geneva
that the remarkable revival of evangelical sentiments took place among the students at the
university of that city, which led to the conversion of several men of distinguished eminence
in after years in the church of Christ, among
whom may be mentioned Drs. Gaussen, Malan,
and Merle d'Aubigne, the celebrated historian
of the Reformation.  Thus extensive are the
means of usefulness which lie il the hands of a
single individual, who anxiously expends the
talent intrusted to him in the fear and to the
glory of God. What would be the result if
similar devotedness were manifested by all the
followers of Christ?
We add nothing to these examples.  What
could  increase their power, or augment the
eloquence with which they speak to the heart?
They bring before us men, not perfect, but
men who realized their stewardship, felt they
were not their own, grasped the truths of the
gospel as everlasting realities, and under the
influence of exalted faith brought all they had
to the footstool of the Redeemer. They sought
not by their liberality or self-denial to establish
any claim  to the Divine favour.  No-the




188                MONEY.
principles from which their generosity sprang
were utterly opposed to such pretensions. They
had been taught by the Holy Spirit that they
were lost and ruined sinners; quickened by his
regenerating influences, they had fled in faith
to the Saviour, and rested all their hopes for
acceptance on his precious atonement and allsufficient righteousness.  Yielding themselves
up unreservedly to the service of Christ, a
sense of his love shed abroad in their hearts
had constrained them  to consecrate all their
time, their talents, and their substance, to his
glory.  May it be the reader's happy privilege
to tread in their steps, and to experience the
sweetness of an entire surrender of the soul to
Him, " who, though he was rich, yet for our
sakes became po.t, that we through his poverty
might be rich I"




APPENDIX               189
APPENDIX.
ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF SAVINGS' BANKS.
IN the main body of our work we have noticed
the institution of savings' banks. The merit
of inventing these useful depositories for the
savings of the poor has been frequently claimed
for our own country.  The subjoined notice
from  volume Iv. of the Bankers' Magazine,
shows however that they were known in other
countries before the time of their establishment
in Great Britain:"It is probable that during the last and present centuries, there have been more public
writers whose works have directly tended to
attract general attention to the means of ameliorating the condition of the poor than during
any previous centuries. No arrangement, however, next to providing employment for the
poorer classes, and by it the means of present
subsistence, was so important as that affording
them  the opportunity of husbanding their resources to form a provision against declining
age and future necessities. Such an arrange



190               APPENDIX.
ment, at first only partially effected by the
institution of the Friendly Societies, would, it
was expected by the founders of deposit banks
for the safe custody and increase of small
savings belonging to the industrious classes,
have been completed through the medium  of
these institutions; but although large sums
have been from  time to time accumulated in
them, the proportion belonging to the poorer
classes has, it is feared, been a very small item
Among the principal advocates for the foundation and extension of savings' banks, as displayed in their various works on the subject,
may be named, Rose and Colquhoun in England; Bernoulli and De Candolle in Switzerland; Krause and Malchus in Germany; and
Delessert and Prevost in France.
" It has been stated by a German writer, that
the first savings' bank in Europe of which there
is now any public record, was established at
Berne in Switzerland, in 1787; that about the
same time another was established in Geneva;
and that in the year 1792, a third was established at Basle. From that period the savings'
banks in Switzerland have gone on gradually
increasing. As regards England, it appears certain, although there has been some controversy
on the subject, that the first institution here,
approximating in its character to the existing
savings' banks —though on private not national
security-was established in the year 1798, at
Tottenham, in the neighbourhood of London.




APPENDIX.              191
Subsequently similar institutions were founded,
namely, at Wendover, in  1799; at West
Calder and at Ruthwell in Scotland, in 1807
and 1810; at Bath, in 1808; at Edinburgh,
in 1813; and at London and other places in
1816.  The dates of the first acts of parliament
by which the government undertook at the
public expense and on national security the
support of savings' banks are the 11th and 12th
of July, 1817, and within a few months of that
period there were about one hundred savings'
banks in England.  This number has gone on
gradually increasing; and on the 20th of November, 1842-the  date up to which the
printed parliamentary return on the subject
was made up-it amounted  to 562 in the
United Kingdom.
" It was not until the year 1818 that France
imitated the example of Switzerland and England, in the establishment of savings' banks, the
first institution of the sort in that country
being opened in Paris on the 15th of November
in that year.
" Others were very soon afterwards established
in the different provinces; and the total number of them on the 31st of December, 1844,
was 332, exclusive of the Paris savings' bank
and its branches. In addition to Switzerland,
England, and France, savings' banks for the
poorer classes have been established within the
last few years in almost all the other countries
)f Europe."




192             APPENDIX.
That these institutions have exerted a most
favourable effect on the temporal welfare of
the communities into which they have been
introduced, cannot be doubted by any who
have attentively considered their effects upon
the humbler classes of scoiety.