Page:History of the Anti corn law league.pdf/213

Rh I thought that the Bible might as well be quoted as the "Wealth of Nations," and wrote the following, which, as one of the short tracts of the League, was widely circulated:

"We read in the earliest authentic record that has come down to modern times, that about nineteen hundred years before the Christian era, a Chaldean, having taken up his residence in Canaan, was exposed, along with all the people by whom he was surrounded, to a grievous famine. Being in possession of wealth he was not compelled to remain and starve, but enabled to remove into Egypt, which was not suffering under the same infliction; and we are told that Abram, for that was the name of the chief, 'went down to sojourn there,' there being abundance of corn in the annually irrigated valleys of the Nile. The Rev. Mathew Henry, of Chester, writing, about a hundred and forty years ago, a commentary upon the ancient record of these facts, says of this temporary migration of Abram: 'See how wisely God provides that there should be plenty in one place, when there was scarcity in another, that, as members of the great body' (the great family of mankind) 'we may not say to one another, 'I have no need of you.'

"How well the old Chester divine anticipated the most enlightened of political economists! It needed no elaborate process of reasoning to convince him that the abundance or super abundance in one quarter of the earth should go to mitigate the wants which were suffered in another, for he knew, that, in the general providence of God, there never was, and never would be, an insufficient supply of food for mankind. He knew that there never was a famine over all the earth at one time—that there never was a famine in one country without a corresponding increase of production in another; and, regarding all men as alike the objects of the Creator's care, he saw that the balance was easily and simply to be had by exchange. His religion told him that men ought thus to depend upon each other, and he regarded the mutual dependence as a proof of the wisdom of God, lest man, in his pride, should say to his brother, 'I have no need of thee.' Had Mathew Henry lived till now, how would he have been astonished at the doctrine that a whole community had better be reduced to starvation, than that, at any time, they should depend on their neighbours for a supply of food!

"The religious political economist—for religion teaches true wisdom by the shortest possible process—goes on to say: 'God's providence took care that there should be a supply in Egypt, and Abram's prudence made use of the opportunity; for we tempt God, and do not trust him, if,