ing confessors to trouble lenders of money
at legal interest, see Addis and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, as above;
also Mastrofini, as above, in the appendix, where various other
recent Roman decrees are given. As to the controversy generally, see
Mastrofini; also La Replique des douze Docteurs, cited by Guillaumin and
Coquelin; also Reusch, vol. ii, p. 850. As an example of Mastrofini's
way of making black appear white, compare the Latin text of the decree
on page 97 with his statements regarding it; see also his cunning
substitution of the new significance of the word usury for the old in
various parts of his book. A good historical presentation of the general
subject will be found in Roscher, Geschichte der National-Oeconomie in
Deutschland, Munchen, 1874, under articles Wucher and Zinsnehmen. For
France, see especially Petit, Traite de l'Usure, Paris, 1840; and for
Germany, see Neumann, Geschichte des Wuchers in Deutschland, Halle,
1865. For the view of a modern leader of thought in this field, see
Jeremy Bentham, Defence of Usury, Letter X. For an admirable piece of
research into the nicer points involved in the whole subject, see H.
C. Lea, The Ecclesiatical Treatment of Usury, in the Yale Review for
February, 1894.

The dealings of theology with public economy were by no means confined
to the taking of interest for money. It would be interesting to note
the restrictions placed upon commerce by the Church prohibition of
commercial intercourse with infidels, against which the Republic of
Venice fought a good fight; to note how, by a most curious perversion
of Scripture in the Greek Church, many of the peasantry of Russia were
prevented from raising and eating potatoes; how, in Scotland, at the
beginning of this century, the use of fanning mills for winnowing grain
was widely denounced as contrary to the text, "The wind bloweth where it
listeth," etc., as leaguing with Satan, who is "Prince of the powers of
the air," and therefore as sufficient cause for excommunication from the
Scotch Church. Instructive it would be also to note how the introduction
of railways was declared by an archbishop of the French Church to be an
evidence of the divine displeasure against country innkeepers who set
meat before their guests on fast days, and who were now punished by
seeing travellers carried by their doors; how railways and telegraphs
were denounced from a few noted pulpits as heralds of Antichrist; and
how in Protestant En