these walls
and give him an opportunity to secure greater results and achieve
success. But the delight is transient and the sense of greater liberty
is brief. The prison walls are down, but the debt holds him like a
ball and chain. He has only exchanged one restraint for another worse;
he has leaped from the pan into the fire. The spirit loses its
hopefulness and independence and becomes servile and cringing.

Milton represents our first parents, after their first sin, as
intoxicated in delight, but the consciousness of their degradation and
shame soon followed. So the first sensation from a loan is of relief
and hope; the future looks bright, but the sense of subjection to the
lender is sure to follow.

He forfeits the free, independent, self-reliant spirit that scorns
dependence upon any man. He only looks the whole world in the face,
who owes no man a cent.

CHAPTER XXIV.

USURY ENSLAVES THE BORROWER.

Timon of Athens said, "No usurer, but has a fool for a slave."

The borrower without usury loses his free and independent spirit and
becomes cringing and servile, but when interest is paid it increases
the severity of the servile service.

The lackey must not only care for the game taken, but he must add to
the bag from his own hunting. He not only cares for the fish his
master caught but must add to the basket from his own catching. The
valet must not only perfectly preserve the clothes of his master, but
must add to his wardrobe.

The borrower of the usurer must protect and preserve every farthing in
value of the property or goods, and must also increase the amount.

The estimate put upon the mental condition of the person who will
submit to such an imposition, by "Timon of Athens," must be admitted
as fairly just, for a heathen. From the almost universal practice of
usury, and the vast numbers enslaved, we must also admit that Solomon,
the wisest man that ever lived, knew what he was saying, when he slyly
called us all fools in his proverb, "A wise man's heart is at his
right hand but a fool's heart is at his left."

The object of the usurer in making a loan is to secure the service of
the borrower; it may be called a favor, an opportunity, an
accommodation, but that is its purpose and its effect. It may be
called capital or a tool for production, but the appropriation of the
service of the borrower is the result sought and secured.

To secure the service of a horse, there must be an outgo of w