236 MONEy AND THE KINGDOM. 



iiess fail to see that, when a thousand dollars actually 

 represents the salvation of a certain number of souls, 

 there are higher uses for the money ? 



The purchase of luxuries is often justified by the fol- 

 lowing fallacy : " I am giving work and hence bread to 

 the poor ; and it is much wiser thus to let them earn it 

 than to encourage them in idleness by bestowing the 

 price of the lace in charity." Thus many justify extrav- 

 agance and make their luxuries flatter their pride into 

 the complacent conviction that they are unselfish. An 

 economy in truth— forcing the same act to minister at 

 once to self-indulgence and self -righteousness ! Does it 

 make no difference to the world how its labor is 

 expended, whether on something useful or useless, for 

 high uses or low? Your one elegant dress has given 

 many day's work to many x3ersons. But is there no self- 

 ishness in the fact that their labor was consumed on 

 yourself alone when it might have clothed a score or 

 more who are now shivering in rags? "Do not cheat 

 yourself into thinking that all the finery you can wear 

 is so much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath 

 you : it is not so ; it is what you yourselves, whetlier 

 you will or no, must sometime instinctively feel it to 

 be— it is what those who stand shivering in the streets, 

 forming a line to watch you as you step out of your car- 

 riages, know it to be; those fine dresses do not mean 

 that so much has been put into their mouths, but that so 

 much has been taken out of their mouths. The real 

 politico-economical signification of every one of those 

 beautiful toilettes is just this : that you have had a cer- 

 tain number of people put for a certain number of days 

 wholly imder your authority by the sternest of slave- 

 masters,— hunger and cold ; and you have said to them, 

 ' I will feed you, indeed, and clothe you, and give you 

 fuel for so many days : but during those days you shall 

 work for me only ; your little brothers need clothes, but 

 you shall make none for them; your sick friend needs 

 clothes, but you shall make none for her; you yourself 

 will soon need another, and a warmer dress, but you 



