268 JEvolution and Social Reform,: 



in Western Europe. It was Jewish wealth that broke the 

 arm of Christian persecution. Not till the Jew's money 

 was absolutely indispensable to Kings and popes, for the 

 prosecution of their crusades and wars, did the stress of 

 persecution cease. 



The system of credit and exchange which is inseparable 

 from the industrialism of the modern world was developed 

 by the Jews, if the letter of exchange was not of their 

 device. They were the first to make a liberal use of this 

 device. We are tluis brought face to face Avith tlie matters 

 of interest and usury. The social reformer whose panacea 

 for all the ills which modern industrialism is heir to or has 

 originally developed is the prohibition of interest, has the 

 Bible, Old and New Testament, at his back, and equally the 

 unanimous authority of the Christian church for seventeen 

 centuries. The last authoritative utterance of the church 

 was in the eleventh century, and it was as hostile to usury 

 or interest as any previous utterance. I say "to usxiry or 

 interest," for it is only the finesse of modern Christianity 

 that has made out any difference between the two. Usury 

 in the Bible means just interest, no more, or less ; and usury 

 meant interest all down the Christian centuries till some 

 three centuries since. Three per cent, was as much usury 

 as ten, and equally disallowed. But in spite of papal in- 

 terdicts the giving and receiving of interest, called usury, 

 went on, and at length all cliurchly opposition ceased. The 

 church hardly attained unto tlie wisdom of the school- 

 mistress, who said to the refractory boy, wlio would not 

 budge, "Then stay Avhere you are, for I will be minded." 

 But it concluded to let the refractory usurers stay Avhere 

 they were, and say no more. Protestantism was much 

 ahead of Eomanism in its abandonment of the futile oi)po- 

 sition. Jolui Calvin had some good horse sense with all 

 his theological barbarities. He was a paternalist in Geneva, 

 if there ever was one, but he refused to prohibit interest 

 by law. lie was mucli less slavisli in his bibliolatry than 

 many who succeeded him. Moreover, he was one of tlie 

 very first to expose the absurdity of Aristotle that "money 

 is sterile." Tlie attitude of the church in this regard will 

 be differently api)reciated according as one believes all in- 

 terest-taking to be wrong, or believes its giving and taking 

 to be the ha])i)iest device of industry and commerce in the 

 modern world. I am myself decidedly of the last opinion. 



