this light, so long as that polity retained its force, would it, as a matter of course, be regarded by the o^vners of property. Thus the execution of this particular law was secured by the entire force with which the consti- tution itself was recommended and sustained. But as human seltishness might in time endanger this particu- lar set of laws, so INIoses applied special support to the possibly weak part. Hence the emphasis Avith which he enjoins the duty of lending to the needy. Of this emphasis the real essence is the sanction supplied by that special providence which lay at the very basis of the Mosaic commonwealth, so that lending to the des- titute came to be enforced with all the power derivable from the express will of God. Nor are there wanting arguments sufficient to vindicate these enactments in the light of sound political economy, at least in the case of the Jewish people. Had the Hebrews enjoyed a free intercourse with other nations, the permission to take usury of foreigners might have had the effect of im- poverishing Palestine by affording a strong inducement for employing capital abroad ; but, under the actual re- strictions of the Mosaic law, this evil was impossible. Some not inconsiderable advantages must have ensued from the observance of these laws. The entire aliena- tion and loss of the lent property were prevented by that pecidiar institution which restored to every man his property at the great year of release. In the in- terval between the jubilees the system under considera- tion would tend to prevent those inequalities of social condition which alwa3's arise rapitUy, and which have not seldom brought disaster and ruin on states. The affluent were required to part with a portion of their affluence to supply the wants of the needy, without ex- acting that recompense which would only make the rich more wealthy and the poor more needy, thus superin- ducing a state of things scarcely more injurious to the one than to the other of these two parties. There was also in this S3-stem a strongly conservative influence. Agiiculture was the foundation of the constitution. Had money-lending been a trade, money-making would also have been eagerly pursued. Capital would be with- drawn from the land; the agriculturist would pass into the usurer; huge inequalities would arise; commerce would assume predominance, and the entire common- wealth be overturned^ — changes and evils which were prevented, or, if not so, certainly retarded and abated by the code of laws regarding loans. As it was, the gradually increasing wealth of the country was in the main laid out on the soil, so as to augment its produc- tiveness and distribute its bounties. The same regida- tions, moreover, prevented those undue expansions of credit and those sudden fluctuations in the relative value of money and staple commodities which have so often brought on financial collapses and prostration in mod- ern communities. AVliile, however, the benign tend- ency of the laws in question is admitted, and special ob- jects may be adduced as attainable by them, may it not be questioned whether they were strictly just V Such a doubt could arise only in a mind which viewed the subject from the position of our actual society. A mod- ern might plead that he had a right to do what he pleased with his own ; that his property of every kind — land, food, money — was his own; and that he was justified to turn all and each part to account for his own benefit. Apart frotn religious considerations, this position is impregnable. But such a view of property finds no support in the Mosaic institutions. In them property has a divine origin, and its use is intrusted to man on certain conditions, which conditions arc as valid as is the tenure of property itself. In one sense, in- deed, the entire land— all property — was a great loan, a loan lent of God to the people of Israel, who might well, therefore, acquiesce in any arrangement which rccpiircd a portion — a small portion — of this loan to be under cer- tain circumstances accessible to the destitute. 'Ihis view receives confirmation from the fact that interest might be taken of persons wlio were not Hebrews, and
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therefore lay beyond the sphere embraced by this spe- cial arraiit(ement. It would open too wide a field did we proceed to consider liow far the Mosaic system might be applicable in the world at large ; but this is very clear to our mind, that the theory of property on which it rests— that is, making property to be divine in its or- igin, and therefore tenable only on the fidlilmcnt of such conditions as the great laws of religion and morality enforce — is more true and more philosophical (except in a college of atheists) than the narrow and baneful ideas which ordinarily prevail.
These vie^vs may prepare the reader for considermg the tloctrine of " the Great Teacher" on the subject of loans. It is found forcibly expressed in Luke's Gospel (vi, 34, 35) : " If ye lend to them of whom ye hope to re- ceive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sin- ners, to receive as much again; but love ye your ene- mies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again ; and wiir reward shall be great, and ye shall be the chU- dron of the Highest; for he is khid unto the unthank- fid and to the evil." The meaning of the passage is distinct and full, unmistakable, and not to be evaded. He commands men to lend, not as Jews to Jews, but even to enemies, without asking or receiving any re- turn, after the manner of the Great Benefactor of the universe, who sends down his rains and bids his sun to shine on the fields of the unjust as well as of the just. To attempt to view this command in the light of reason and experience would require space which cannot here be given ; but we must add, that any attempt to ex- plain the injunction away is most unworthy on the part of professed disciples of Christ ; and that, not impossi- bly at least, fidelity to the behests of him whom we call Lord and Master would of itself answer all doubts and remove aU misgivings by practically showing that this, as every other doctrine that fell from his lips, is indeed of God (Jolin vii, 17). — Kitto; Smith. Yet, while we must maintain the paramount obligation of our Sav- iour's precept, corroborative — and, indeed, expansive — as it is, of the essential principle of the Mosaic economy, namely, the inculcation of universal brotherly love, nev- ertheless common sense, no less than sound morality, dictates at least the following co-ordinate considera- tions, which should likewise be taken into the account in the exercise of Christian liberality, in loans as well as in gifts : 1. Due inquiry should be instituted, so as to satisfy the lender of the moral worthiness of the cred- itor, lest the loan, instead of being a benefaction, should really be but a stimulus to vice, or, at least, an encour- agement to idleness. 2. The wants of one's own family and nearer dependents must not be sacrificed by ill- judged and untimely generosity. 3. Funds held in trust should be carefully discriminated from one's own personal property, and a greater degree of caution exer- cised in their administration. 4. We have no right to loan what is already due for our own debts — "We must be just before we are generous." 5. In tine, the great fact that Ave arc but stewards of God's bounty should be the ruling thought in all oiur benefactions, whether in the form of loans or gifts, and we should therefore dis- pense funds so as to contribute most to the divine glory and the highest good of the recipients. This principle alone is the true corrective of all selfishness, whether parsimony on the one hand, or prodigaUty on the other. See Ijonuow; LiiND, etc.