ptation, yes, perhaps the greatest of our time; riches are a
force in nature, perhaps the most lawless, most untamable, and the
hardest to be governed. Riches are a brutal power, for which there is
no ruler, except the Almighty Lord; riches are below the brute, for no
brute has any more force than it embodies in itself. Man alone can be
rich, can have what he is not himself, and what his children cannot
consume. Here is the misery of it! Whoever gains so much of the world
hurts his own soul. I have tried to bring this family and this boy to
this, that they should at least make the acknowledgment, before every
meal, that what they enjoy in such luxurious abundance is only a gift.
Do you believe that this boy, conscious of his riches, and this whole
family, can receive a moral culture except through religion? A prayer
before one sits down to eat is a meditation, a recollection of the fact
that thou hast some one to thank for what thou dost enjoy. This takes
out the vainglorious pride, and gives humility instead, and makes one
give, even as he himself has been given to. Only where the fear of God
is, yes, fear, is there also the blissful feeling of His Almighty
protection. On the table of this rich man there is placed, every day, a
display of sweet-smelling, bright-colored flowers,--what does that
matter? On the poorest table of the neediest cottager is placed a
bouquet more beautiful and more fragrant, from the higher realm,
through the utterances of prayer; and the soul is filled, and this
first makes the filling of the body conduce to its health. But this is
only one thing. Above there, on the Upper Rhine, they call personal
property movables, and so it is! The riches of the present world are
nothing but movables, moving possessions, and they will move away.
Believe me," cried the ecclesiastic, laying his hand upon Eric's,
"believe me, the public funds are the misfortune of the present age."

"The public funds? I do not understand."

"Yes, it is indeed not so easy to understand. Of whom can one borrow
millions? of no one but the State. If there were no public funds, there
would be no one to lend such great sums; that's the way it is.
Formerly, a man could not acquire so many millions, because he could
not lay out so many millions; but now there are the public funds, and
everybody lives on interest-money, and interest is very properly
forbidden by the canons. See, in old times the rich man had a great
deal of real estat