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Show GLORIES IN HIS SHAME. Recently James M. Beck, at one time assistant attorney general of the United States, gave public utterance to the following sentiment: "To me the most impressive place in the world is Wall street. The man who excoriates Wall street is as rational as the man who has no use for his pulse. Talk about the Grand Canyon of the Colorado! Colo-rado! For my part, I feel a greater sense of respect re-spect and reverence for that great storage battery of human energy than for the great wonders of j nature. "Call it avarice, if you will, but I say to you, the one joy of man in this day and age is to toil for money. Let them sneer at accumulated wealth; but I say the only evil mdllion is the idle million. So far as Mr. Lawson is concerned, I ,ean say nothing but. that never will I be so complimented as when he is abusing me." It is difficult to conceive of a more debasing doctrine. doc-trine. Money is, undeniably, the idol of many in this age of soul-blighting commercialism. , It is rare, however and most fortunately so that a man who makes any claims upon the respect of his fellows fel-lows will make a public avowal of his acquieseense in this degrading idolatry. To "'toil for money" is a necessity of-mir civilization. civili-zation. To designate this necessary pursuit as ''the one joy of man" is just about as rational and elevating ele-vating as it would be to proclaim that. man's one comprehensible ideal is to spend his days in gorging gorg-ing his stomach with the food that is necessary to sustain life. ' The pagans of Rome, in the days of Nero, did. indeed, write odes and sing peans in praise of their baser passions and abominable indulgences. in-dulgences. But, having sunk thus low in the scale of humanity, their utter undoing and degradation must, and did, soon f ollo. t And such must, inevitably, be the consequences. : of the heart and mind devastating ct.tnm-n-i.nli,, of. our age unless a speedy .check . is put uv,,n j. logical, tendencies. The gross and w.i-.j. diligence of the Roman pagans wa- n..t mn- v.j,;5 more subversive of all spiritual uh-v.U th;ni i, ,,u, ' present day money-worship. Men of P.rck"- ;rc maintain that the pursuit of money U t 1 1 . - i.,,r ,,f progress. They would brand .as retmgiv ,,u - n; those who dare deprecate the love of -a;,, ;,.,, j., inordinate pursuit as an evil and a in. n;uv r , ,. ciety. It is thus they vauntingly pui-li.-h !j.:r fatuous blindness their egregiou folly v ' ; ;, N the distinguishing characteristic of a!l v' -. hopelessly sunk in the reeking miiv of -.i.-,, materialism and gross sensuality. f J Did not the Romans, who rcrnznw.- N. r. . :-. tyrant, and debauchee, as their nia-ter mi.j " , exemplar, denounce, persecute and put to ,;. . as enemies of the state and the foe of p ;-,,v., . the Christians who presumed to point oir .. t , their follies and iniquities, and tauirht an! i;r ; , ,i higher ideals spiritual doctrines ? It is, of a verity, hard to combat the i, )',, nn iniquities which receive the sanction jmd j,,,, of the dominant classes in society. Bur. u:,,. m,,. benign influence of Christianity prove it-. !'' caciously potent in checking the disgust ii-riy terialistic tendencies of the day. as nianife-'.-.i ;.v the above quoted most reprehensible -em ime:r . society is inevitably doomed to a degradation than even that in which pagan I. !!' plunged. Xor will the course pursued differ -a ;,, from that so heedlessly and fatuously trav. latitat, la-titat, once the greatest and proudest nstriou earth. The "flesh-pots" are ever irrcsist.-i.ly .lT. ing to the .-ieccessful worshippers of tl.e c-.l.i. calf, and that the plutocrats of our d;.y arc n,. -v. ceptiou to the rule is aboundanfly . vi.i. n.-i .1 1-. their abominable and disgusting excesses whicii .,,. occasionally exposed t the light of day. Could the baneful consequences of .!. ,,,,;-able ,,,,;-able folly of such money-worshippers s .hi, Beck.be confined to their own devoted head-might head-might tranquilly permit events to take "hoir c.ur-. and sing a glad requiem when the harvest ,ia 1 i , i reaped. But as there is manifest daug'-r . lu; ' ;r 1 abominably low ideals may disastrously in feet -i. ciety in the aggregate, it might be well to nnr'.!r. or to confine the noisome brood in the moral pest-house, pest-house, so that they could neither contaminate it -harrass an over-indulgent public. |