SECTION IV.

THE PRESENT PREDOMINANCE OF COVETOUSNESS

IN BRITAIN.

THIS is a subject in which the Christians of Britain have more than an ordinary interest. For, though no part of the world is exempt from the influence of covetousness, a commercial nation, like Britain, is more liable to its debasement than any other. Were it not indigenous to the human heart, here it would surely have been born; for here are assembled all the fermenting elements, favourable to its spontaneous generation: or, were it to be driven from every other land, here it would find sanctuary in a thousand places open to receive it. Not only does it exist among us, it is honoured, worshipped, deified. Alas! it has-without a figure-its priests; its appropriate

temples-earthly "hells;" its ceremonial; its everburning fires, fed with precious things which ought to be offered as incense to God; and, for its sacrifices, immortal souls.

Every nation has its idol: in some countries that idol is pleasure; in others, glory; in others, liberty; but the name of our idol is mammon. The shrines of the others, indeed, are not neglected, but it must be conceded that money is the mightiest of all our idol-gods.

And not only does this fact distinguish us from most other nations, it distinguishes our present, from our former, selves-it is the brand-mark of the present age. For, if it be true, that each successive age has its representative; that it beholds itself reflected in some leading school, and impresses its image on the philosophy of the day, where shall we look for the image of the existing age but in our systems of political economy? "Men who would formerly have devoted their lives to metaphysical and moral research, are now given up to a more material study"-to the theory of rents, and the philosophy of the mart. Morality itself is allowed to employ no standard but that of utility; to enforce her requirements by no plea

but expediency, a consideration of profit and loss. And even the science of metaphysics is wavering, if it has not actually pronounced, in favour of a materialism which would subject the great mysteries of humanity to mathematical admeasurement, and chemical analysis. Mammon is marching through the land in triumph; and, it is to be feared, that a large majority of all classes have devoted and degraded themselves to the office of his train-bearers.

Statements like these may startle the reader who now reflects on the subject for the first time. But let him be assured that, "as the first impression which the foreigner receives on entering England is that of the evidence of wealth, so the first thing which strikes an inquirer into our social system is the absorbing respect in which wealth is held. The root of all our laws is to be found in the sentiment of property;" and this sentiment, right in itself, has, by excess, infected with an allpervading taint, our politics, our systems of education, the distribution of honours, the popular notions—nay, it has penetrated our language, and even intruded into the sacred enclosures of religion. This is a truth obvious, not merely to the

foreigner to whom it is a comparative novelty, the taint is acknowledged and deplored even by those who have become acclimated and inured to it. Not merely does the divine protest against it;* the man of the world joins him; for it is felt to be a common cause. The legislator complains that governments are getting to be little better than political establishments to furnish facilities for the accumulation of wealth. The philanthropist complains that generous motives are lost sight of in the prevailing desire of gain; so that he who evinces a disposition to disinterested benevolence is either distrusted as a hypocrite, or derided as a fool. The moralist complains that "commerce has kindled in the nation a universal emulation for wealth, and that money receives all the honours which are the proper right of knowledge and virtue." The candidate for worldly advancement and honour protests against the arrangement which makes promotion a matter of purchase, thus dis

* His complaint might be thought professional. In this section, therefore, the writer has had recourse to authorities which some may consider of greater weight. His quotations are derived principally from Coleridge's Lay Sermons, Bulwer's England and the English, and from the two leading Reviews.

paraging and discouraging all worth save that of wealth. The poet laments that "the world is too much with us;" that "all things are sold;" that every thing is made a marketable commodity, and "labelled with its price." The student of mental and moral philosophy laments that his favourite "sciences are falling into decay, while the physical are engrossing, every day, more respect and attention;" that the "worship of the beautiful and good has given place to a calculation of the profitable ;' that " every work which can be made use of to immediate profit, every work which falls in with the desire of acquiring wealth suddenly, is sure of an appropriate circulation;" that we have been led to "estimate the worth of all pursuits and attainments by their marketable value."

To the same unhallowed spirit of gain, is to be traced that fierce "competition," of which the labourer, the artisan, the dealer, the manufacturer, and even the members of all the liberal professions, alike complain. That competition, under certain limits, is necessary to the activity and healthy condition of the social economy, is not to be denied. But when it rises to a struggle in which neither time nor strength is left for