The "I" psalms alone contain a most graphic history of the upward struggle of democracy. Thus, for example: "We sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; We are come into deep waters, where the floods overthrow us." 67 "Our feet were almost gone; Our steps had well nigh slipped." 68 "Our soul is bowed down; They have digged a pit before us; They have prepared a net for our steps." 69 "Our enemies would swallow us up all the day long; For there are many that fight proudly against us. All the day long they wrest our words: All their thoughts are against They mark our steps. Are they not in thy book? In the light of the living?" 70 "Our tears have been our food day and night. Why go we mourning because of oppression of the enemy?" 71 "By this we know that thou delightest in us, Because our enemy doth not triumph over us." 72 If we have in mind the fact that the world is inclined to scoff at the thought of a God-directed democracy, the result is equally heartening. As the movement of the Kingdom of God grows in the state in generations to come, and strong antagonisms arise in the full purpose of defeating the plan to exalt the name of God in every statute, in every judicial decree, in every act of the executive, these songs will be the Kingdom workers' stay: "We will tell of the decree: Yahweh said unto us, Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, And the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession." 73 "Yahweh, how are our oppon ents increased! Many are they that rise up against us, Many are they that say of There is no help for them in But thou, O Yahweh, art a shield about us; Our glory, and the lifter up of our head." 74 "Lead us, O Yahweh, in thy righteousness because of our foes; For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; Their inward part is very wickedness; Their throat is an open sepulchre; They flatter with their tongue. Thrust them out in the multitude of their transgressions; For they have rebelled against But let all those that take O Yahweh, thou wilt compass The fact that Psalm 2 in the foregoing citations is a Messianic psalm so-called, does not alter the applicability of God's two commandments to the psalm. No violence is done the sacred relation of Messiah to the theocracy, but rather our attention is called to the means that have been set apart in the law and the prophets for the achievement of the victory. What is achieved by this solidarity of principles, if we are thinking of the principles of the theocratic democracy; or by the solidarity of the people, if we are thinking of personal forces of the democracy, amounts to an inspiration. There is no mumbling of the songs in hypocritical semblance of obedience, when we know that what we are singing has nothing to do with institutions that have at best but a mystical meaning, but everything to do with institutions that require fullblooded men and women for their achievement. The poets who wrote these songs were thus inspired. As again, Lowell's reminding inspiration: "A poet cannot strive for despotism; His harp falls shattered; for it still must be And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism. He who has deepest searched the wide abysm * * * * * * * * * * * * No Godlike thing knows aught of less and less, CHAPTER VI Interest Statute Overruled "During the later centuries of the Middle Ages,-whatever it may conceivably have been in earlier centuries, the effort to enforce the prohibition of usury, was a hopeless attempt to struggle with growing economic forces."-Part II W. J. Ashley, English Economic History, New York, 1893, vi, The Canonist Doctrine. WE E enter upon the time when it was thought wise and well to overrule the interest-statute of ancient Israel, early Christianity and the Middle Ages. The dawn of the industrial era is at hand. The history of the change of policy is outlined first in quotations from the pen of Professor W. J. Ashley, beginning with the citation at the top of the page, and continuing. "Now speaking generally, it may be said that, during the period from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, there was but a very small field for the investment of capital. In the trading centres there was, indeed, during the later part of the period, occasional opportunities for a man to take part in a commercial venture, and no obstacle was put by the Church or public opinion to a man's investing his money in this way, when no definite interest was stipulated for, but he became a bona fide partner in the risk as well as the gain. But such opportunities were very rare. We must not forget that England was almost entirely an agricultural country, and that its agriculture was carried on under a customary system which gave little opportunity for the investment of capital." I. 155. "It is scarcely denied by competent modern critics that, at some period at any rate, during the Middle Ages there was such an absence of opportunities for productive investment as relatively to justify this strong prejudice against interest; the only difference of opinion is as to how late that period reaches." I. 157. "One writer is of opinion that even before the twelfth century the economic condition of things was such that the papal decrees could not possibly meet with obedience; he can only regard the effort of the Church as a vain struggle against irresistible tendencies." I. 157. 76 "To another the prohibition seems justifiable far into the fifteenth century." I. 157. 77 "We can scarcely suppose that the prohibition of usury would have been maintained by public opinion, enacted by statute, and enforced in the courts throughout the fourteenth century, as it certainly was, if cases had been of frequent occurrence in which it really prevented legitimate commercial enterprise, or hindered the growth of manufactures. We may perhaps conclude that on the whole it was suited to the economic condition of western Europe, though there may sometimes have been cases in the active commercial life of the towns where it was felt to be a burden." I. 157 "It is to be observed that the conception of political economy as primarily a 'science' is one that dates only from Adam Smith." II. 380 "Political economy ought to 'treat material interests as subordinate to the higher ends of human development.'" 78 "According to the doctrine of the Church, says Neumann, it was sinful to recompense the use of capital belonging to another.'" II. 428 "Or again, it is remarked that 'the European world, with settled order and increasing commerce, chafed under this enforced unselfishness.'" II. 428 Government needs opened the way to break down the intereststatute. "The great republics, Venice, Florence and Genoa, had found themselves compelled to demand forced loans from their citizens, and to prevent dissatisfaction by paying an annual interest. The practice spread to other states; and the transition was easy from compulsory loans to voluntary." I. 447 "As to the propriety of paying and receiving interest on such loans there was a warm controversy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It became a bone of contention between the different religious orders; the Dominicans and Franciscans throwing the weight of their influence on the side of the government and defending the whole system, the Augustinians attacking it." II. 448 Church charities further opened the way to take interest. "The term Mons, for a sum or heap of money, was the peculiar Florentine term, which came to be generally adopted. . It was evidently the state montes which suggested the montes pietatis or charitable loan funds. . Their purpose was ex clusively philanthropic. But even with papal patronage and the promise of spiritual and temporal advantages to those who should subscribe towards so charitable a work, the managers of the montes found it necessary to make a small charge for the loan in order to cover working expenses. At first almost entirely the work of the Franciscans, most of them retained an ecclesiastical character, and were managed by clergy." II. 449-50. "Then the attack began. It was led by the rival order, the Dominicans. Here was a payment asked for a loan (1) from the very beginning of the period, (2) from a poor man, who obtained it for the relief of his immediate wants, and was not permitted to trade with it. It was this taking of payment from the poor and needy that Thomas de Vio found so hard to reconcile with the older doctrine of usury. But the Franciscans might fairly reply that, though a loan without payment were the best of all,-if that was not to be had, a loan at a low rate from the charitable fund was better than recourse to the professional usurer. And this was the judgment of the Lateran Council of 1515, under Leo X." II. 451. 80 "The montes, it was decided, could rightly demand a moderate interest, if they could not otherwise furnish this loan, and if their object was not to make gain, but to cover working-expenses. The council added thereto a definition of usury. "This is the proper interpretation of usury, when gain is sought to be acquired from the use of a thing not in itself fruitful (such as a flock, or a field), without labour, expense, or risk, on the part of the lender.'" II. 451. "How important was the new departure in the canonist doctrine brought about by the acceptance of the principle of montes pietatis is very evident. Churchmen were more and more reconciled to the idea of payment for the use of money, even by the poor who could make no business investment of the loan. The moral distinction tended more and more to become one between excessive demand and moderate demand, rather than between gratuitous and non-gratuitous loan. The doctrine of usury, which had at first assumed a rigid form, necessary perhaps for the middle ages, 81 now began to shape itself in accordance with a broader conception of the oppressive use of moneypower; and that was all that the Church really meant by still clinging to the term 'usury.'" II. 451. "Again the counter-Reformation brought with it a return to severer views... Yet . . . . . the reaction came too late. . . . The easiest method of obtaining capital was by means of a loan on interest." II. 452-3. "It is apparent that there was no longer any practical difference between payment for the use of money (usura) and interest." II. 453. "In 1553, Albert V. of Bavaria, in the amended Bavarian code issued in that year, declared the permissibility of . . . . an |