NOV 2 1900 MR. SAVAGE'S BOOKS. SERMONS AND ESSAYS. Christianity the Science of Manhood. 187 pages. 1873 $1.00 The Religion of Evolution. 253 pages. 1876 1879 191 pages. Life Questions. 159 pages. efs about Man. 1881 130 pages. 1882 1880 efs about the Bible. 206 pages. 1883 e Modern Sphinx. 160 pages. 1883 1.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 Man, Woman and Child. 200 pages. 1884 1.00 The Religious Life. 2 (2 pages. 1885. Social Problems. 189 pages. 1886. Av Creed. 204 pages. 1887 ligious Reconstruction. 246 pages. gns of the Times. 187 ages. 1889 Helps for Daily Living. 150 pages. 1889 Life. 237 pages. 1890 Four Great Questions Concerning God. 86 pages. 1891. Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pam plet form in "Messiah Pulpit." season, $1.50; single copy, 5 cents. Subscription price, for the GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher, 272 Congress St.. Boston, Mass. 104 East 20th St., New York. OBLIGATION. "Owe no man anything, save to love one another."-Roм. xiii. 8. WHEN Paul writes to the church at Rome, "Owe no man anything," he speaks, no doubt, first of owing money or money's worth, and would have his words take the form. of a caution against running into debt or a command to get out of it with all speed, as the terse, strong sentence might strike this man or that, and compel him to see how he stood, free from the danger or was already in its toils. And it is not hard to see how needful such a word would be to those who would read his letter, when we remember how this faith of ours flamed out, at the first, into a sort of communism we read of in the Acts of the Apostles, in which those who had possessions sold them, and shared them as every man had need. So the honest old custom of earning what you have came near being lost in the swamp, which always begins to gather where that is done. for us we ought to do for ourselves, and so work out with the hammer or the spade, if we must, our own salvation. How long this lasted, we do not learn; but, from what we know of mankind, we may fairly infer that it had a good deal to do with the revivals we read of then, as we may also infer that the percentage of backsliders would be a sight to see when the price of the fields was all eaten up and work began to stare some of the new converts in the face. And those who had good heads on their shoulders, as well as good hearts below them, saw they had made a mistake. They had loaf-giving Christians and loafing Christians: those who gave everything, and those who would take every thing they could get. And so the order was passed by men like Paul that every man should take care of himself and his family to the best of his ability; but, where he came short, when he had done his best, the rest would be ready to turn in and help him for Christ's sake. Yet there was still a heart of loving-kindness in the very grain of this new gospel which might well blind both the weaker and the stronger brethren to the need there is for each man to give value received for what he gets, and to hold his own in a sturdy independence. For Jesus had spoken to them in parables about debtors and creditors, and had said how wrong it was in one who had been greatly forgiven not to forgive. So both debtor and creditor would be in danger of falling into the snare of feeling that the religious obligation ought always to override the personal when the man who was in debt was able to make up what we call a poor face and to tell a plausible story. So it would come to pass that the weaker sort would be in danger of losing what selfrespect and real manhood there was in them. They would not feel the keen edge of a manful pride spurring them on to keep faith with those who had trusted them; and then, in the end, both sides would be the losers, first of faith the one in the other, and of faith in a religion which could soar into the infinite, as the saying goes, and dive into the unfathomable, but could not or would not pay a hundred cents on the dollar. Now Paul sees this danger, also, and speaks about it more than once with a square and manful common sense. He will have no slush of religious sentiment sap the foundations of a strong and honest manhood, no good talk in the meeting take the place of your promise to pay in the market, no dream of heaven undermine or supersede the plain duties of earth, and no trust in a providence which will stand for a moment in the way of a man's own prudence, foresight, and best endeavor. There never was a man more true than he was to the hapless or the helpless. He would work for them, beg for them, look after them, and help them with a generosity which knew no bounds: but, where help stood in the way of self-help, then Paul struck work, and said: Not a shekel to you, my man, or a loaf, until you give proof of deserving. The loaf is not for the loafer. The mark and prize of your high calling is not to be less manful as a Christian than you were as a heathen, but more. This is the first step we must all take toward heaven, to "walk honestly." Justification, sanctification, and adoption lie right on the line of earning your day's wages and making the best of them you can. Fail here, through the wish to have an easy and pleasant time, and then I do not care what you say about your religious experience. There is not a heathen man in Rome or Corinth, doing what you fail to do, who, if he lives a clean life, does not stand a better chance than you do of finding his way to the "well done." You have denied the faith, you are worse than an infidel, you do not provide for your own household. Such, I think, is the meaning of the caution as it touches those first to whom it was sent. Paul says a man shall not live on others who can take care of himself, simply because there is a good generous Christian heart in the world which cannot bear to see him want; nor shall he run into debt, and then take refuge behind the parable of the debtor and creditor in the holy Gospels. And, when we leave this primal meaning of the words to ask what they may mean now, I think it is not hard to see how this noble caution has nothing at all to do with hiring money to use, if I must, on such interest as I know I can pay and should pay, not only because, if lending and borrowing is in itself a sin, New York would be a very sinful place indeed, but for this better reason: that the custom of borrowing money on proper security, and for a fair and true interest, has come to be one of the great elements in the growth and development of the country, and is no more to be spoken of for condemnation when it is fairly and honestly done than selling grain or dry goods, when a man has them to sell, at such a price as they will fetch in a fair and open market; while, of all places in the world, a church is about the last place where anything should be said on this question that is not fair and true, because so many now are built, in the main, on borrowed money. So a man or a body of men, in this true sense, may borrow or lend, and still be just as good as their neighbors who pay as they go and do not owe a dollar. Nor has it anything to do with the truth which lies at the heart of the parable, those delicate and true transactions in which we try to help each other, and in which the heart plays a greater part than the head, it may be, when just for loving-kindness we lend, looking for nothing again. The books for accounts like these are kept in heaven; and God alone knows how to strike the balance, while we know that but for such lending or giving, as it is, indeed, so very often - we cannot imagine what some men and women would do when the worst comes to the worst. So, when this is done as it should be done, it is what the angels in heaven may look on with a sinless envy; for it is as when the good Samaritan came with the oil and wine, the time, trouble, and the money to lift the poor fellow-man out of his misery and set him on his feet, to be once more a whole man. About this most sacred borrowing and lending, then, I have nothing to say that is not tender and grateful, because I have been such a borrower and lender, too, and know what it means. But outside these fair lines of borrowing money, as you buy wheat or dry goods or shares, and these, again, when for the sweetest and holiest reasons lending is often a thin disguise for giving, adopted on both sides to save the honorable pride of the poor man or woman who comes in our way, and to leave them a loophole of hope |