, dealers in
patriotism, and the title of merchant, so honorable when it represents a
man selling that which is in truth a commodity of trade, becomes the
worst of stigmas when there is question of the heart, of religion, of
country.

Almost all men are agreed that to barter with one's sentiments, his
honor, his cloth, his pen, or his note, is infamous. Unfortunately this
idea, which suffers no contradiction as a theory, and which thus stated
seems rather a commonplace than a high moral truth, has infinite trouble
to make its way in practice. Traffic has invaded the world. The
money-changers are established even in the sanctuary, and by sanctuary I
do not mean religious things alone, but whatever mankind holds sacred
and inviolable. It is not gold that complicates, corrupts, and debases
life; it is our mercenary spirit.

The mercenary spirit resolves everything into a single question: _How
much is that going to bring me?_ and sums up everything in a single
axiom: _With money you can procure anything._ Following these two
principles of conduct, a society may descend to a degree of infamy
impossible to describe or to imagine.

_How much is it going to bring me?_ This question, so legitimate while
it concerns those precautions which each ought to take to assure his
subsistence by his labor, becomes pernicious as soon as it passes its
limits and dominates the whole life. This is so true that it vitiates
even the toil which gains our daily bread. I furnish paid labor; nothing
could be better: but if to inspire me in this labor I have only the
desire to get the pay, nothing could be worse. A man whose only motive
for action is his wages, does a bad piece of work: what interests him is
not the doing, it's the gold. If he can retrench in pains without
lessening his gains, be assured that he will do it. Plowman, mason,
factory laborer, he who loves not his work puts into it neither interest
nor dignity--is, in short, a bad workman. It is not well to confide
one's life to a doctor who is wholly engrossed in his fees, for the
spring of his action is the desire to garnish his purse with the
contents of yours. If it is for his interest that you should suffer
longer, he is capable of fostering your malady instead of fortifying
your strength. The instructor of children who cares for his work only so
far as it brings him profit, is a sad teacher; for his pay is
indifferent, and his teaching more indifferent still. Of what value is