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ready revolver, with the result of the householder, or the policeman shot dead!
But enough of these mournful considerations, which after all, apply only, to but a small percentage of the population. Let us for a minute or two consider the advantages in matters of every-day life which would be attendant on the cessation of coveting. How improved, would this every-day life be if individuals would not covet!
Think of the blessing of being sure, that the purchase you had made, was really the purchase you had intended to make; that the cotton fabric did not owe its seeming goodness to flour; that the "all new wool" was not merely shoddy or mungo; and that the silk was unmixed with cotton; and so on, and so on.
Frauds such as these are an outcome of covetousness, and they affect us most nearly, not when practised in connection with articles such as I have just mentioned, but when they are practised in the instance of articles of food, which should sustain our lives, or still worse in the article of medicine, to be administered to us, as the means of cure, in sickness. To so great an extent did such frauds prevail, that there was needed the Adulteration of Food and Drugs Act in 1875, and the creation of the Public Analyst. Horrible suggestion—our bread, our milk, our butter, coffee, tea, and wine, our medicine, may none of them be that which they purport to be, but may be found by the analyst to be the products of "covetousness," aided by "applied science."
Imagine the benefit of being able to dispense with locks, bolts, and bars, and with the nightly round of visits, to window-fastenings and to door-locks!
Again, if men ceased to covet, we should get rid of much sham philanthropy, philanthropy of the Judas character: "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" We are told he said this, "not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein."
