RELIGION IN THE MARKET-PLACE CONTINUED.

Enough has been said to show that there is no incongruity between the religion of Jesus and the most comprehensive enterprise, if that enterprise be characterised by wisdom, as well as extent. The Bible may reign in the counting-house, as well as in the church; nay, where its power is felt at all, its most signal triumphs are not found amid the scenes where only the Omniscient is our witness, but amid those public proceedings where dangler is rife, because the current of the world sets in against the soul at once with the greatest rapidity and the greatest volume. By example after example, it is proved, both in the Word and the providence of God, that His truth embodies the religion of activity. One man, for example, is raised up to take possession of the promised land. He has seven nations to conquer, as well as a numerous people to guide, and amid the manifold engrossments of that position, how is Joshua employed? Had he adopted the maxims merely of the world, he would have drawn the sword, he would have thrown away the scabbard, and in the common language of mortal boasting, he would have determined to conquer or die. But the first sword which Joshua drew was the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The verse which directed his steps was this, “Thou shalt meditate on this book day and night ... for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” That was the secret of Joshua’s victories—amid the cares of a camp, he had his God to guide him.

JOSHUA—DAVID.

JOSHUA—DAVID. And the man after God’s own heart acted in the same spirit. Monarch as he was, and compassed about with all the cares of a kingdom, David made the Word of God a lamp to his path. He could picture no greater self-deception than to suppose that man can find a better guide in difficulty than God—a better Counsellor in doubt—a better Defence in danger. He could not even invent a more flagrant kind of folly than to set aside the wisdom of God, and prefer the wisdom of man; to adopt some human device for remedying man’s ills, for soothing man’s sorrows or lifting him from his degradation, while we despise the sovereign specific of the eternal God. The climax of all that is irrational is found in superseding God’s revealed will, and substituting for it the opinions, the speculations, the dreams of mortal man. David, therefore, placed the Word of God upon his throne beside him. Guided by it, the king was steadfast and unmoveable: Forsaking it, he became one of the chief of sinners; he sullied one of the fairest names.

LUTHER.

LUTHER. Or turning from inspired men, to those who had to spread the sacred page before them, and pray to God to shed light upon it, we may glance at the man whom God raised up, about three hundred years ago, to emancipate a large portion of Europe from Popery, that dark superstition which ever crushes man to the dust. Luther stands alone before the crowned, the mitred, and the lordly. A bigoted emperor holds that solitary man’s life in his hand; and had he doomed him to die upon the spot, millions would have rushed to applaud him for the deed. “Recant,” that is, deny the Word of God, was in substance the demand made from Luther; and was the demand conceded? Nay; the Bible was to him something better than a collection of syllables and words. The Spirit had made it a power, a life, a soul to that man’s soul; and, “I cannot recant, so help me God,” was in substance his reply to the crowned, and the lordly before him.

But there is a glare and a grandeur about cases such as these, which may dazzle yet more than instruct. Let us pass then to a different scene, and seek some abode of poverty. We are, perhaps, afraid to enter, so repulsive, or unpleasing is all that meets the eye. In that rude home, which every wind of heaven can penetrate, we find a dying one. Perhaps for a quarter of a century, she has been the inmate of that abode; for all that time, she may have had no hand but the hand of God, and of charity, to feed her. What, then, is it that has sustained her spirit, amid trials which we almost shudder to see? She has lived, and is now preparing to die, upon the Word of her God. She is strong in the strength which it supplies, and the home which looks so cheerless to others, has been to her a home of hymns and of rejoicing. The God of the Bible has made her glad in the house of her pilgrimage by means of his Word. She has learned to regard it as God himself does; and it is visibly magnified in the effects which it thus produces in souls by nature weak, wavering, and ungodly.

But we have not nearly exhausted the illustrations of the power of truth in the Market-place. We have looked at some proofs of its power where it is honoured and obeyed: let us now glance at some of the results of neglecting it. If some men are of opinion that their main business upon earth is to “buy and sell, and get gain;” the Holy One has, on the other hand, made it plain that there is another God besides “the Mammon of unrighteousness.”

MERCANTILE MANIA.

We have referred to the crashes, and the failures, the gluts and stagnations which occur in trade, with a periodicity which can almost be calculated—they can at least be easily foreseen as they approach. MERCANTILE
MANIA. The adventurous “traffickers,” are sometimes seized with a mania which turns the counting-house into a gambler’s den, involving results and disasters from which the most judicious can with difficulty escape; so powerful is the current, so ingulfing the suction. Let us glance at some of these seasons.

THE TULIP MARTS OF HOLLAND.

THE TULIP
MARTS OF
HOLLAND. And the first which we mention is, the mania for dealing in Tulips, which engrossed even so calm and sedate a people as the Dutch, about two centuries ago. It began about the year 1634, and, like a violent epidemic, it seized upon all classes of the community, leading to disasters and misery such as the records of commerce, or of bankruptcies, can scarcely parallel. In their “haste to be rich,” one of the most temperate and self-possessed of all the nations of Europe rushed upon a ruin which affected thousands, and plunged multitudes into penury for life. In the year 1636, Tulip Marts had been established at Amsterdam, at Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leyden, and other towns in Holland.21 As happens in all gambling transactions many were speedily enriched. Their fortunes, it has been said, rose like exhalations from the earth, but in many cases they vanished as speedily. Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maid-servants, even chimney sweeps—all caught the fever for tulips and gold. Houses and lands were either sold for what they would bring in the market, or pledged, and bartered, that men might get possession of the coveted bulb or blossom. Amid these things, the prices of food, and other necessaries of life, rose to an unprecedented extent; and so complex, so ramified and pervasive did the tulip trade become, that special laws were passed to regulate it; special functionaries were appointed to direct it; in a word, amid the activities of Holland, then perhaps the foremost nation in the commercial world, a frail, ephemeral flower became literally the representative of man’s wealth, or the object on which the hearts of thousands doated.

THE SHADOW GRASPED.

Nor were these negotiations confined to the great central emporiums. Every village had its market-place for tulips; festive meetings were held when sales were effected; and the universal favourite—a tulip, was the constant decorator of such festivities. THE
SHADOW
GRASPED. The learned and the ignorant, the cautious and the eager, men of all classes and all temperaments, were infected; it seemed as if the commerce of the world were henceforth to run in one exclusive channel—the sale and the purchase of tulips. The eagerness with which men embarked in these wild speculations may be best explained by a statement of simple facts.22 Property to the value of 100,000 florins23 was invested in the purchase of a few roots. One kind of tulip, the Admiral Leifken, was reckoned worth 4,400 florins. A Semper Augustus was deemed cheap, if purchased for 5,500 florins. At one period there were only two roots of that rare species in Holland; and so intense was the passion to possess them, that a merchant offered twelve acres of building lots for one of them, which was at Haarlem, while its neighbour of Amsterdam was purchased for 4,600 florins, a carriage, a span of grey horses,24 and a complete suit of harness. A Viceroy was worth 3000 florins. An Admiral Vonder Eyk was rated at 1,260 florins; and the whole were sold by weight as carefully as jewel merchants weigh the diamond. But to name no more, there was a single root which cost two lastsT-10 of wheat, and four of rye; four fat oxen, eight fat swine, and twelve fat sheep; two hogsheads of wine, and four tuns of beer; two tons of butter, one thousand pounds of cheese, a complete bed, a suit of clothes, and a silver drinking cup, valued in all at 2,560 florins.

Such is a glimpse of the tulip mania—such the effect of man’s extraordinary haste to be rich—such the condition into which men proverbial for their sobriety of judgment were precipitated, when they pushed their speculations beyond their legitimate channels.

THE SUBSTANCE THROWN AWAY.

And what was the result? How did a passion so extraordinary affect those who had been impelled by its power? THE
SUBSTANCE
THROWN
AWAY. The bubble burst at length, and though a fierce tornado had swept over Holland, the devastation could scarcely have been more complete. The hopes which had been so unnaturally inflated began to collapse. Panic seized upon the speculators, and bankruptcy followed panic, as rapidly as the house which is built of cards is demolished by a blow. It soon appeared that tulips were neither gold, nor houses, nor lands; neither bread for the hungry, nor clothing for the naked, nor a home for the friendless; and the worthlessness of the flower in itself, became the emblem of the delusions which it had fostered. Every town in Holland felt the blow. Multitudes were precipitated into poverty, at least, their only possessions consisted in a few bulbs—the representations at once of the speculator’s thoughtlessness and his woe. The result of the folly was now manifest, and the madness of what was nothing but gambling, showed its bitter fruits. Merchants and their families who had lived all their lives in independence and luxury, were reduced to beggary by this mania for gold.

THE ONLY SAFE GUIDE.

Amid these calamities, the help of man was found to be signally vain, THE ONLY
SAFE GUIDE. and those who had forgotten to take the Bible into the Counting-house, and the Market-place, were left to reap as they had sowed. Every effort was made to arrest the tide of ruin. Law was appealed to. The governing power of the nation was addressed, but all in vain. The gourd had withered, the refuge of lies had fallen, and not a few were buried in the ruins. The trade of Holland was prostrated for a time, and some of its merchant princes never recovered from the shock.

THE REAL SOURCE OF WEALTH.

It was by such a mercantile crash, then, that He who rules among the nations protested against the folly, or the sin of such gambling. It was proved, upon a national scale, that men cannot trample on the wisdom which comes from above, and prosper; and over the whole transaction, the eye of faith can read many a text inscribed in letters of light, we learn how much Commerce would be aided throughout her extensive empire, were her measures regulated by the mind, and directed to the objects of God. “He that makes haste to be rich shall not be innocent.” THE REAL
SOURCE
OF
WEALTH. “Trust not in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, and in measure.” “By humility and the fear of the Lord, are riches, and honour, and life.” “Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’”—These and many other passages of the Word, proclaim the folly of extinguishing the lamp, and yet hoping to walk in the light. He who shall really prosper in such a path, will be the first in all the world’s history; but his prosperity will rest upon the ruins of truth, and justice—of all that is pure, and lovely, and of good report.

THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME.

But this appears after all, to have been a mere hallucination. It may be reckoned the dictate of capricious fashion, rather than a manifestation of the true mercantile spirit. Let us turn, then, to another illustration, and we find it ready in the Mississippi Scheme of France, THE
MISSISSIPPI
SCHEME. which was begun in 1716, and continued till 1723. Of all the wild speculations which have first duped and then ruined men, this ranks among the foremost. It was projected by a man who spent an ample fortune by his prodigality, and then adopted a gambler’s life, the last resort of many a fallen spirit. He first ruined a young English lady and then slew her brother in a duel, for which he was obliged to flee from his native country. Amsterdam, Venice, and Genoa, became in succession his asylum. From each of these, however, he was banished as a dangerous adventurer; and after fourteen years of friendless wandering, he at last secured the patronage of the Duke of Orleans, while Regent of France, about the year 1716.

Such was the unprincipled and profligate man employed to launch the Mississippi Scheme. He began his career in Paris by establishing a bank, which aided in restoring the drooping commerce of France to some measure of activity. Success in one enterpriseT-11 prepared the way for another, and Law devised the scheme which has given such bad notoriety to his name, and was the occasion of a ruin so wide-spread that only Omniscience knows it. A French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi occupied lands which were supposed to teem with gold; and, on that supposition, men who knew of no better riches than those of earth, rushed into a wild and visionary scheme. The Regent sanctioned the undertaking, and notes were issued to the amount of one thousand millions of livres.25 One hundred and twenty per cent. of profit were promised upon all investments; and the baseless proposal so captivated men who were willingly fascinated, that at least three hundred thousand applications were made for fifty thousand shares. The titled, from the right hand of royalty downward, engaged in the scramble; and their equipages blocked up the streets from day to day, as they waited in feverish anxiety to know the result of their application for a chance of sharing in the fabulous wealth.—It is known that when one maniac has committed suicide in any particular way—for example, by precipitation from the summit of a tower—others morbidly follow his example; and one is irresistibly reminded of that development of mania while tracing the history of the Mississippi Scheme.

THE POWER OF PASSION.

But, after all, it was still only in its infancy. The Regent created three hundred thousand additional shares;26 and so grasping were even the coroneted gamblers of Paris, that three times that number would have been purchased had the scheme been extended so far. THE POWER
OF PASSION. The pressure for shares became so great, that a number of persons were crushed to death in the crowd. Property suddenly rose in value, till it was worth twelve or fifteen times as much as it had been a brief period before; and so unwearied were these devotees of Mammon, that the streets had to be cleared at night by the soldiery. For a time, even the gaieties of Paris were suspended; and all the energies, the earnestness, and ardour of its people, were turned into one absorbing channel—the passion for gold lying buried, they believed, in the lands around the mouth of the Mississippi!

CORONETED GAMBLERS.

So ceaseless was the murmur of these speculators, and so loud, that the Chancellor of Paris, whose court was in the neighbourhood of the bank, could not hear the advocates as they pled. About five hundred pavilions were in consequence erected at some distance, for conducting the business. The ingulfing tide rolled on. Peers and peeresses continued among the suitors for Mississippi stock, and sometimes stood for six hours in succession, waiting for an interview with an agent. CORONETED
GAMBLERS. In truth, all classes were seized with a mania similar to that which reigns paramount in the mind of a gambler, and which often goads him on to ruin. Amid the excitement, society became more and more distempered. The ignoble, who had become suddenly rich, purchased alliances with the titled. Robberies and murders took place, and a Count D’Horn was tried and condemned to be broken on the wheel for one of these deeds of blood. Such was the influx of strangers into Paris, that houses could not be found for their accommodation. Tents and stables were transmuted into dwelling-houses, and an artificial prosperity was produced, which quadrupled the cost of some articles. In a word, it appeared that Louis XIV. had been succeeded by Midas, a prince who turned all that he touched into gold.

THE REACTION.

But this bubble also burst. The scheme was too baseless, and the prosperity too artificial to last; and again it was seen in one of the greatest nations of the earth, that “he who makes haste to be rich shall not be innocent,” as he certainly is not safe. To all the golden visions of France there succeeded a period of confusion, of bankruptcies, of beggary and ruin, deep and piteous in proportion as the excitement had been high. THE
REACTION. Those who were trembling on the verge of ruin, or actually precipitated into it, surrounded the palace of the Regent, and holding up the worthless bills of Law, which were now all the property they possessed, exclaimed against the injustice with the vehemence of beggared men. The projector of the scheme was exiled to Pontoise. A few realized wealth by the speculation, but it is computed that millions were utterly beggared: many “laid violent hands upon themselves, and sought a doubtful refuge in the grave.”

And thus, by another providence, did the only wise God protest against the burning passion for gold which had eaten into the souls of multitudes. Men

but in spite of their attempts, he accomplishes all his purposes, and all his pleasure stands. He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with it. He who says to the fine gold, “Be thou my confidence,” sooner or later finds that he has pierced himself through with many sorrows. Wherever the will of God is violated by nations or by individuals, a day of retribution comes, as surely as rivers which have burst their banks carry devastation wherever they rush.

It is well known that the channel of the Po, as it approaches its embochure, is considerably elevated above the surrounding country. The earth which it washes down from the Alps is gradually deposited where the river runs more slowly. The banks, in consequence, require to be periodically elevated; and were that neglected, the river would soon sweep them all away, and render some of the most fertile portions of Italy a wide and noxious marsh, a focus of malaria and fever. Now, it is the same wherever man’s cupidity has thrown up artificial mounds in Commerce. They are always attended with danger, and sooner or later they are swept away. It is the sure decree of God: “He that loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loves abundance with increase.”

THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

DELUSIONS BELIEVED.

One such illustration may suffice for all: but there is another memorable Scheme to which it seems proper to refer—that which is known in this country as the South Sea Bubble. THE
SOUTH SEA
BUBBLE. About the beginning of last century, an opinion generally prevailed that the wealth of South America was exhaustless. A privileged Company to trade with it was accordingly formed, and though the genius of the French and the English are widely different, a passion for speculation and gold seized upon our countrymen, as violent and absorbing as that which appeared in connection with the Mississippi Scheme of France. By various devices, in which the principles of the Word of God were outraged, the managers of the South Sea Scheme excited expectations of the most visionary kind. The mania seized upon the nation through all its borders. The stock of the Company rose till it was eagerly bought at a premium of 1000 per cent. Catching the general spirit, joint-stock companies sprang up everywhere as rapidly as the Prophet’s gourd; DELUSIONS
BELIEVED. and so willing were men to be deceived, that schemes which should have been put down on their first appearance were eagerly embraced. One of these was denominated, “A Company for carrying on an Undertaking of Great Advantage, but nobody to know what it is;”27 and yet Englishmen, proverbially calculating and cautious in their financial affairs, actually embarked in that transparent deception, like men infatuated by their haste to be rich. The projector of the scheme asked a deposit of £2 on each share of £100, and the promised return was £100 per annum. On the first day of his scheme he received about 1000 deposits, or nearly £2000, and with that sum he immediately and for ever disappeared. In this manner, the original South Sea Scheme branched out into eighty-seven cognate speculations, each of which was eventually a fountain of misery to multitudes.

THE RULING PASSION.

THE
RULING
PASSION. The following sentences graphically tell the state of London and this kingdom at the period referred to:—“From morning till evening, ’Change Alley was filled to overflowing with one dense moving mass of living beings, composed of the most incongruous materials, and in all things, save the mad pursuit wherein they were employed, utterly opposed in their principles and feelings, and far asunder in their stations of life and the professions which they followed. Statesmen and clergymen deserted their high stations to enter upon this grand theatre of speculation and gambling; and churchmen and dissenters left their fierce disputes, and forgot their wranglings upon church government, in this deep and hazardous game they were playing for worldly treasures, and for riches which, even if won, were liable to disappear within the hour of their creation. Whigs and Tories buried their weapons of political warfare, discarded party animosities, and mingled together in kind and friendly intercourse, each exulting as their stocks advanced in price, and murmuring dissatisfaction and disappointment when fortune frowned upon their wild operations; and lawyers, physicians, merchants, and tradesmen, forsook their employments, neglected their business, and disregarded their engagements, to whirl giddily along with the swollen stream, to be at last ingulfed in the wide sea of bankruptcy. Men of the highest rank were deeply engaged in stock-jobbing transactions; and investments in the most worthless bubbles of the age were made by them in heavy sums, and without the least hesitation or previous inquiry. Females mixed with the crowd, and, forgetting the stations and employments which nature had fitted them to adorn, dealt boldly and extensively in the bubbles that rose before them, and, like those by whom they were surrounded, rose from poverty to wealth, and from that were thrust down to beggary and want, and all in one short week, and perhaps before the evening which terminated the first day of their speculations. Ladies of high rank, regardless of every appearance of dignity, and blinded by the prevailing infatuation, drove to the shops of their milliners and haberdashers, and there met stockbrokers whom they regularly employed, and through whom extensive sales were daily negotiated. In the midst of the excitement, all distinctions of party and religion, circumstances and character, were swallowed up. Bubbles were blown into existence on every hand, and stocks of every conceivable name, nature, and description, were issued to an incredible extent.”28

THE FOLLY OF MAN’S WISDOM.

THE FOLLY
OF MAN’S
WISDOM. But this also came to an end; and disasters followed which rent society like an earthquake. The leaders in the scheme were consigned to prison, or compelled to seek refuge in exile; while their deluded victims were left amid poverty, and its attendant woe, to gather the native fruit of the thorns and the thistles, from which they had expected grapes and figs. It was miserable comfort to reflect, that their own baseless expectations had abetted the delusion, and made the ruin complete.

RESULTS.

RESULTS. And such is another illustration of the effects which follow the infatuation of putting Mammon in the place of God, or delivering up the whole soul to the pursuit of what the Holy One declares to be unsatisfying as a dream. It is thus that he warns men, in his providence, against that lust of speculation, which is often as ruinous as the lust of power, or any passion which drives men headlong upon misery.

The very titles of some of the schemes which were projected at the period now referred to, stamp them with infatuation. The nation had become an aggregate of gamblers, and the following are some of the stakes:—

—But we need not enumerate more. In that scramble for riches, reason appears to have been befooled. Departing from the law of God, men were left to starvation: “They that did feed delicately, are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet, embrace dunghills.” What though one, or two, or a few realized wealth, and withdrew in time from the ingulfing vortex? The wide wail—the desolating explosions which followed, were poorly compensated for by these exceptions. What though some might be charioted to-day, who yesterday lived by the sweat of their brows? To-morrow will see them more wretched than before. What though artificial standards have elevated a nominal wealth to the value of Potosi or Golconda? Broken fortunes, broken characters, broken hearts, are the sad realities which close the vista. And thus, would men learn, they might; it is written in light above us, according to the words already quoted: “He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase.” If covetousness be idolatry, and Mammon the idol, his devotees are taught that disaster and woe are their lot.

THE IDOL AND THE WORSHIPPER.

Yet men have not been warned by all these things; nay, the same spirit has revived in very recent years; and could we unveil the misery which has been endured by thousands as the result of recent crashes, the impression might be deepened as to the madness of “making haste to be rich.” THE IDOL
AND THE
WORSHIPPER. Men have said, “To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there for a year, and buy and sell and get gain;” but ere the year was closed, their gains have taken to themselves wings. The will of God was left out of view in their plans, and they were baffled.

THE END.

We must repeat—we have no controversy with commercial enterprise, when conducted in accordance with the wisdom of the Word of God. It is one of the means of binding nation to nation, and bringing back the alienated children of men to one wide family circle, according to the purpose of our Father who is in heaven. But that is not to be accomplished by outraging his laws; and the man, the company, the nation, which extinguishes the lamp, will be left to walk in darkness.—THE
END.When the butchers of the first French revolution were leading their victims to death, some of those who were doomed to die, were conducted, by a refinement in cruelty, along an alley into a garden of flowers, where only fragrance and beauty greeted their senses; but at a certain spot, inevitable doom awaited them, at the hands of men who thirsted for their blood—and we need scarcely apply the illustration. In their haste to be rich, men seem, for a season, to walk amid fragrance. Their path is all luminous with hope—such hope as man’s devices can inspire; but sooner or later they are hurried into misery.

“When infamous venality, grown bold,

Writes on his bosom, ‘to be let, or sold,’”

men have laid a snare in which, by God’s decree, they will be entangled; they have dug a pitfall, in which, by God’s decree, they will be taken.