The Usurer

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• 1910
• 0 hr 17 mins
• Drama

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"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt" Matthew 6: 19. How few there are that appreciate the truth of this advice from holy writ, in our incessant struggle tor gold. Wealth is not only transitory, but it often conspires against our eternal salvation. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." True it is that the fight for fortune is ethical where the methods are legitimate, but the one despicable means is that of the usurer or money shark. This man fattens on the misfortunes of his fellow beings, gloating over the fact that his debtors are his abject slaves, and like the ancient king who called tor a reckoning from his servant, "But forasmuch as he had not to pay, he commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had." This is the procedure of the usurer. We find him about to have his office in the evening ordering his collectors to warn the delinquent debtors that if they do not pay by the morrow their effects will be sold. They start off on their rounds while he goes to spend an evening of pleasure at a banquet. What a contrast. On the one side the poor unfortunates apprised of their inevitable fate, while he and his friends quaff the blood-distilled wine, and regale themselves with viands paid for with the tears of the needy. The next day the collectors carry out the usurer's orders, and the plea, "Have patience with me and I will pay thee all," is ignored. The bed is removed from under a poor widow's sick child; the household effects of a widower with one small child, are seized and sold and other cruel, merciless deeds are perpetrated. Still, in the time of all this misery our usurer is enjoying the best the land affords. However, there comes a time of his reckoning, and "woe unto you for ye devour widow's houses, therefore shall ye receive damnation." The poor man whose goods were seized, in desperation terminates his unendurable existence and here the blood of the oppressed cries to Heaven. The widow leaves to go to the usurer to plead mercy, and when she arrives at his office he is in the safe. The poor woman faints from exhaustion and, falling against the huge safe door, which stands ajar, closes it. Here he is imprisoned in his storehouse of blood-gotten wealth at the mercy of the time lock. Struggle as he may, his condition is hopeless, and so he falls to the floor of the vault suffocated. Of what value is his gold now? Will it buy him eternal happiness? No, for "we have brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." The next morning when the time lock snaps, the usurer is found the victim of that great leveler, death.