f the people, have greatly augmented
them, by glutting the market with labor; the opportunities given by the
government through grants, special privileges, and protective measures
for rapid accumulation of wealth by the few; the power which this wealth
has given its possessors over the less fortunate; the spread of that
fevered mental condition which subjects all finer feelings and holier
aspirations to the acquisition of gold and the gratification of carnal
appetites, and which is manifest in such a startling degree in the
gambler's world, which to dignify we call the realm of speculation; the
desire for vulgar ostentation and luxurious indulgence, in a word the
fatal fever for gold which has infested the social atmosphere, and taken
possession of hundreds of thousands of our people, chilling their
hearts, benumbing their conscience, choking all divine impulses and
refined sensibilities; the cowardice and lethargy of the Church, which
has grown rich in gold and poor in the possession of moral energy, which
no longer dares to denounce the money changers, or alarm those who day
by day are anaesthetizing their own souls, while adding to the misery of
the world. The church has become, to a great extent, subsidized by gold,
saying in effect, "I am rich and increased in goods and have need of
nothing," apparently ignorant of the fact that she "is wretched, poor,
blind, and naked," that she has signally failed in her mission of
establishing on earth an ideal brotherhood. Instead of lifting her
children into that lofty spiritual realm where each feels the misery of
his brother, she has so far surrendered to the mammon of unrighteousness
that, without the slightest fear of having their consciences disturbed,
men find comfort in her soft-cushioned pews, who are wringing from ten
to thirty per cent. profit from their fellowmen in the wretched tenement
districts, or who refuse to pay more than twelve cents a pair for the
making of pants, forty-five cents a dozen for flannel shirts,
seventy-five cents a dozen for knee pants, and twenty-five cents a dozen
for neckties. I refer not to the many noble exceptions, but I indict the
great body of wealthy and fashionable churches, whose ministers do not
know and take no steps to find out the misery that is dependent upon the
avarice of their parishioners. Then again back of all this is the
defective education which has developed all save character in man;
education which has trained the brai