them. Whatever they shall say to you, observe, and do, but according to their works do you not: MATT. xxiii. 3. You have no excuse when the Scriptures speak to you; you cannot set aside the word of God, though you may criminate those through whom it comes to you.

'Still the usurers have the impudence to say, We have no other way of gaining livelihood.' Why, the robber breaking the house, the highwayman infesting the road, the prostitute haunting the streets, the pimp seducing the wretch, the witch dispersing the spells, will say, every one of them, why should I be prevented my practice, as it goes to procure the necessaries of life? As if the procurement of livelihood could justify any practice, ever so offensive to Him who feeds the universe!' In his Epistle 153, to Macedonius, he says, 'What shall I say of usury recovered by the judges in the courts of Justice? Is rapine committed on the rich less cruel than the usury that is squeezed from the bowels of the poor? It is desirable that these, and all such ill-begotten goods, be restored to the owners.'

According to St. Augustine, therefore, it is usury not only to accept, but even to expect, any more, either in kind or in specie, than the sum that was lent. This definition is certainly founded on the saying of Christ, LUKE vi. 35, Lend, hoping for nothing thereby. In calling this increase rapine, the Saint agrees with Aristotle, see page 71, and with the Catechism of the Council of Trent. The man who accepts or expects this unchristian gain, though with the consent of his director, acts on a sandy foundation; the director and his follower descend together to the flames; the blind leading the blind, will they not both fall into the pit?

ST. LEO says, "Whosoever desires to make a rapid fortune, let the holy usury of alms keep equally progressive: by this mode of usury he will gain riches without fishing through the misery of the poor, and without apprehension for the debtors, for he becomes a creditor of Him who said, Give, and you shall receive; for with the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured unto you again: LUKE vi. 38. But unjust avarice, lending under the pretence of charity, often meets the punishment of her insatiable love of gain. Usury, under every view, is bad: the usurer is mis

erable, if by any reverses he lose the principal, and miserable if he get what he never gave; his iniquity is to be avoided, and his gain divested, as it is, of the very semblance of charity, to be abhorred; whilst the substance swells with these fraudulent means, the soul pines with its own famine; usury on money brings death on the soul. The unjust gainer by loans is an exile from the sacred mountain, and from the heavenly tabernacle-by seeking gain through others' poverty, he incurs the guilt of eternal flames.

6

We thought it right to caution every priest against receiving usury on his own, or on the account of others. We ought not to overlook how some, being captivated by the love of sorded gain, practise usury and pursue riches by means of loans, and yet calling themselves Christians; a crime most deplorable, when seen not only amongst the clergy, but even amongst the laity. Our usury should be works of mercy, here, with the view of receiving the eternal interest hereafter.'

The Holy Ghost, for the removal usual love of riches, saying, He, What could be more cruel, than

HILARY, on PSALM Xiv., says, of every sin, weans man from his who lent not his money at usury. under the pretence of affording relief, to increase the borrower's distress instead of aiding him, to accumulate his wretchedness? If you be a Christian, what do you hope from God? If you be a Christian, why do you set your barren money to fructify? or calculate on riches through the distress of your brother, for whom Christ hath suffered? If you be a Christian, I do not ask you to forgive; at least, demand the debt in a manner that will not beggar him. Remember that the man from whom you exact usury is poor and needy, for whom Christ became poor and needy. Know, therefore, that by hurting or serving him, you offend or oblige, in his person, your God, who is his God too, and delights in his name and adversity.' GREGORY of NYSSA, re-edited at Paris, in the year 1616, says, The prophet explodes and eradicates from society the poisonous branch of usury. Whoever you be, hold in detestation usurious dealings; love your neighbor; but not your money; resist those that are bent upon committing sin; bid farewell to redundant riches and to usury; excite the love of the poor in your soul. Turn not your face from him, who comes to borrow: Matt.

v. 42.-Want throws him a beggar to your door; in his need he flies to your riches for relief; but you disappoint his expectation; you, though naturally his friend, become his bitterest enemy; you assist him not out of his difficulties, nor enable him to surmount his usury contracts: you engraft evils upon evils for the afflicted ; anxiety upon grief; stripping him naked, opening his wounds afresh. Whosoever borrows at usury, certainly receives the pledge and earnest of his own poverty, and, in the place of assistance, carries home destruction. The usurer relieves not, but embarrasses the needy. Spin not, therefore, a barbarous life under the mask of humanity; be not the killing doctor; in your face the philanthropist, but, in fact and in soul, the misanthropist. The usurer's life is both indolent and insatiable: the pen is his plough; the paper his field; the ink, his seed, his rain, and season, for to luxuriate his money crops; he has barns and granaries to hoard up, and thrash the substance of the wretched; looks upon all men's property as his own; prays adversity to his neighbors, that they may have recourse to his refuge; he hates the affluent, and considers those his enemies that will not enter his books. He is for ever in quest of gain, yet always insatiable; he accommodates all borrowers, not through motives of charity, but excessive avarice. Give to the immortal spouse; let not gain be the main-spring of your good works, and God will repay you with interest.'

Desist, O man, from your dangerous cares, and your precarious calculations, for fear, whilst you pursue profit, you may lose also the principal; you require from the poor an annuity and an increase to your riches, that is, expecting abundant crop from the droughty tillage, abundance of grapes from the hail-battered vineyard, or nutritive suck from the unwedded female. Seek no offspring from gold and silver, articles that are naturally barren; nor compel unfeelingly the poor to pay interest. The Scripture, that is instructive in every virtue, denounces consequently, usury, almost in every page. If you lend your money to your brother, urge him not: Exod. xxii. 25. If you lend to those from whom you expect to borrow, what merit can you have: Luke vi. 34.

'In the parable, the hard-hearted servant is severely punished who did not, in compassion to his fellow servant, remit the small

debt, after he had himself obtained the full remission of the large debt: MATT. xviii. 33. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us: MATT. vi. 12. Usurer, do you even send up this petition to God? With what confidence can you expect that God will hear you; you who receive the world and give nothing? Are not you aware that your prayer tends to draw down upon your head a retaliation for your cruelty. What did you forgive, that you may expect forgiveness? Restore to your brother what you have extorted. If usurers were not so numerous, paupers would not be so general, Are not riches annihilated, families ruined, and nobles sunk into a state inferior to slavery by usury exactions? The borrowers at usury prosper for a while, but they are soon ejected from their hereditary possessions. What mode of defence will you set up when arrainged before the incorruptible judge? Then untimely and fruitless repentance will seize you; then wretched compunction will teaze you; then inevitable punishment will await you; nor gold nor silver will then avail you. Usury will be to you then more bitter than gall. I preach and recommend to give, bestow, and lend; lending is another species of bestowing; but I add, that you must lend without usury and conformably to the Divine Oracle. He who refuses to lend, and he that lends at usury, are equally to be punished.

Hom. v. on Eccle. Paris Ed. An. 1638. Not far from the mark is he who styles usury felony and parricide. What is the difference between your taking away the neighbor's property clandestinely by the midnight robbery, or openly by murdering his person? Does usury create a title to his property? O cursed word! Let usury and robbery be for the future synonymous terms. O wretched union, unnatural connexion, that has produced the miserable birth, usury! It has conceived iniquity, begot sorrow, and fostered injustice. This is the birth that is engendered by avarice, suckled by fraud, and matured by cruelty: PSALM vii. 15. The covetous usurer does not remedy, but magnify the disease.'

The Holy Father is truly an accurate painter: the picture is to life; though drawn in the primitive ages, it exactly squares with the modern practice. If usurers were not so numerous, paupers would not be so general; he that borrows at interest, carries home the

earnest of his own poverty, he prospers for a while, but is soon ejected his paternal possessions; usury ruins families, consumes property, and sinks noblemen into slavery.

In Ireland is that picture exactly exemplified. The farmers collected, during the paper-bauble that began about the year 1790, and that again vanished into air with the bank-ruptures in the year 1822, thousands, and blessed their stars for being born, as they thought, in the golden age. As cupidity always swells with the swelling of riches, nothing was wanting to crown their happiness, but some field to cultivate riches, to make their money grow. And unfortunately that field, rich and spacious, soon presented itself: for usury, that was never since the days of St. Patrick tolerated in Erin, now, from the growth of infidelity in the flocks or of indifference in the shepherds, creeps into practice. The farmers therefore shaking off the heavenly restraint; taking unto themselves Gospel liberty, as the Protestants call it, threw their notes at interest into the hands of the gentlemen.' But it was soon found that the genteel folks carried home not relief, but the earnest of their own slavery.

The facility of obtaining loans, or, as it is styled, the accommodations, fed the pride and prodigality of the spendthrifts: servants, hounds, horses, dresses, banquets, interest, swell the expenditure on the one hand, whilst the peace of 1815 nearly annihilates the income on the other. Tormented by two opposite enemies; their hungry passions within, and craving debtors without, the genteel folks are in jeopardy, not knowing what to do, or where to look for relief. When, lo, the failure of the provincial banks in the south of Ireland, in the year 1820, swept away the currency and blasted the chimerical projects of the spendthrifts and speculators. The commercial machine stood still; nothing could be bought or sold; the working classes here runing in mass to the Mayor for relief, and there to the cursed banks to tear them from the very foundations. The dragoons with naked, glitering swords at full gallop in every street dispersing the rioters.' During this anarchy and confusion the few wealthy merchants of the City of Cork represented to the Government the precarious state of the community; soliciting a loan of £75000 to set the machinery agoing once