hristianized and enlightened of the earth. The
nations will be directed in peace or put in motion in war to make
wealth increase.

Give wealth its true place as a perishable thing, instead of a
productive life, and wars will cease in all the earth. The holders of
the wealth of the world will never urge nor encourage war, when the
property destroyed is their own and not to be replaced. When wars are
no longer the usurer's opportunity, but the consumption of his wealth,
Mammon himself will beg that swords may be beaten into plow-shares and
spears into pruning-hooks.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

PER CONTRA; CHRISTIAN APOLOGISTS.

Every argument favoring the continuance of the practice of usury can
be met from the propositions established in the preceding chapters.
Indeed, there are no true arguments to be presented in its favor.
Truth is consistent with truth. We are not placed in a dilemma and
compelled to decide which are the strongest of the arguments arrayed
against each other. We are not deciding which is the greater of two
blessings nor which the less of two evils, but this is a question of
evil or good, of sin or righteousness. If usury is wrong then every
argument brought forward to support it is a falsehood, though it may
be covered with a very beautiful and attractive and plausible form in
its presentation.

1. The old Wilson Catechism published in Dundee in 1737 is perhaps the
most familiar defense.

"Q. Is the gaining of money by usury unlawful?

"A. Yes, Prov. 28:8. Psalm 15:5.

"Q. What is usury?

"A. The taking unlawful profit for money that is lent out.

"Q. Is it lawful to take any interest or gain for money lent?

"A. Yes, when it is taken according to the laws of the land, and
from these who make gain by it, by trading or purchasing of
lands; seeing it is equally just for the owner of money to ask a
share of the profit which others make by it, as for the owner
of the land to demand farm from the tenant of it, money being
improvable by art and labor as well as land.

"Q. What is the unlawful profit for money, which may be called
usury?

"A. The taking profit for money from the poor who borrow for
mere necessity, or taking needful things from them in pawn for
it; or the taking more profit for any than law allows, as these
who take ten, fifteen, or twenty in the hundred. Exod. 22:25,
26. Deut. 24:12, 17. Ezek. 18:7, 8.