Page:The Battle for Bread (1875).pdf/50

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THE BATTLE FOR BREAD.

And this money-power, as 1 have before said, holds almost absolute sway over press and pulpit, over Church and State. To this insolent and supreme autocrat, do Ministers, Lawyers, Doctors, Editors, Politicians, with rare exceptions, pander and succumb, in order to secure bread, popularity, place and power.

Could the attention of these idolaters at the shrine of Mammon, be directed long enough into other channels, to sec that there is something better for them and for all—could they be induced to use their means in reorganizing society on a more rational, just and philosophic superstructure—making the temptations, as it were, to do right, to be honest, to be noble-hearted, and benevolent, instead of having the temptations, as now, all toward dishonesty, hypocrisy and selfishness—what a work would be done. Could there not be attractive honesty, as well as "attractive industry", which Fourier advocated?

There is a poverty which is more to be dreaded than a lack of money, of houses and lands. It is a poverty of soul—a poverty of moral riches—a lack of goodness of heart, of integrity of purpose, of a love of justice, a state of mind, wherein a man has no aspirations for the Ideal, for the True, the Great, or the Beautiful, either with reference to this life, or to the Infinite Hereafter! Without these, a man is poor indeed, though he may be the possessor of untold millions. With them, he is rich, though living in his cottage or cabin and dining on the simplest fare.

What would we say of a millionaire, who would build