My ideal was not the crucified
Nazarene, but some Hairoun Alraschid, in luxurious splendour, pampering
his pride by bestowing as a favour those mercies which God commands as
the right of all. I thought to serve God, forsooth, by serving Mammon and
myself. Fool that I was! I could not see God's handwriting on the wall
against me. 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom
of heaven!'...
"You gave me, unintentionally, a warning hint. The capabilities which I
saw in you made me suspect that those below might be more nearly my equals
than I had yet fancied. Your vivid descriptions of the misery among whole
classes of workmen--misery caused and ever increased by the very system of
society itself--gave a momentary shock to my fairy palace. They drove me
back upon the simple old question, which has been asked by every honest
heart, age after age, 'What right have I to revel in luxury while thousands
are starving? Why do I pride myself on doling out to them small fractions
of that wealth, which, if sacrificed utterly and at once, might help
to raise hundreds to a civilization as high as my own?' I could not
face the thought; and angry with you for having awakened it, however
unintentionally, I shrank back behind the pitiable, worn-out fallacy, that
luxury was necessary to give employment.
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