only the principal and no increase.

The usurer says, Care for my property and pay me for the opportunity.
Keep it intact. Make good every loss and return to me an increase
which you by your energy and effort may produce.

The rates of interest greatly vary. The average in the United States
is about seven per cent., by statistics of the government only
recently issued. At seven per cent., interest paid annually or added
to debt for ten years, the debt is doubled.

The usurer or interest taker says, You take this hundred dollars and
care for it for me for ten years and then bring me two hundred
dollars. Take this wheat and this corn and in ten years bring me back
just twice the amount. Take these horses and these sheep and cattle
and care for them for ten years and return them just as good as they
are now, and other horses, cattle and sheep in equal number, which you
have produced in these ten years.

Take this shop with all its tools and implements and care for it so
that in ten years you can return it to me in as perfect order as now,
and also build me with your labor and energy another shop, just like
it, and equip it in every way just as complete as this, and on my
return give both to me. Take this farm, fertile as it is, with its
buildings and animals and implements, and preserve them perfectly, not
a thing shall decay or decline in value; make good every loss, and at
the end of ten years return it to me and also another farm which you
have earned during these ten years, of equal acreage and fertility,
equally improved with live stock and implements.

The usurer gains the preservation of his own perishable property, and
he gains also the product of the vital force of his victim.

This law of decay is a natural limitation to the accumulation of any
producer. As decay begins at once, a part of the vital energy must be
expended in the preservation of that already produced. As the
accumulations increase, more energy is required for its preservation,
and less remains for active production. Time does not relax his work
of ruin, and the resisting energy must be constant. The tendency to
decay is such that soon the energy required to preserve that already
gained leaves none to produce, and the accumulations must cease.

To this point the rich fool in the parable had come. He had abundance
accumulated and the problem was to preserve it, until he could consume
it. "This will I do, I will pull down my barns, and build g