'Woe to him who increaseth that which is not his, and ladeth himself
with thick clay! Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to
his house, that he may set his nest on high, and be delivered from
the power of evil! Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and
stablisheth a city with iniquity! Behold, is it not of the Lord of
hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people
shall weary themselves for very vanity?' There is a true
civilization for man; but not according to the unjust and cruel
method of those Chaldeans. The Law of the true Civilization, the
prophet says, is this: 'The earth shall be full of the knowledge of
the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.'
But what is this to us? Are we like the Chaldeans? God forbid. But
are we not tried by the same temptations to which they blindly
yielded? A nation, strong, rich, luxurious, prosperous in industry
at home, and aggressive (if not in theory, certainly in practice) to
less civilized races abroad--are we not tempted daily to that habit
of mind which the prophet calls--with that tremendous irony in which
the Hebrew prophets surpass all writers--looking on men as the fishes
of the sea, as the creeping things which have no ruler over them,
born to devour each other, and be caught and devoured in their turn,
by a race more cunning than themselves? There are those among us in
thousands, thank God, who nobly resist that temptation; and they are
the very salt of the land, who keep it from decay.
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