Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/132

Rh Power is never left without a possessor: when it fell from the theocratic and military classes, from the priest, the noble, and the king, it passed to the hands of the capitalists. In America, ecclesiastical office is not power; noble or royal birth is of small value. If Madison or Jefferson had left any sons but mulattoes, their distinguished birth would avail them nothing. The son of Patrick Henry lived a strolling schoolmaster, and a pauper's funeral was asked for his body. Money is power; the only permanent and transmissible power; it goes by device. Money "can ennoble sots and slaves and cowards."

It gives rank in the Church. The millionaire is always a saint. The priests of commerce wiU think twice before damning a man who enhances their salary and gives them dinners. In one thing the American Heaven resembles the New Jerusalem:—its pavement is "of fine gold." The capitalist has the chief seat in our Christian synagogue. It is a rare minister who dares assail a vice which has riches on its side. Is there a clergyman at the South who speaks against the profitable wickedness which chains three million American men P How few at the North I European gentility is ancient power; American is new money hot from the stamping.

In society, money, is genteel; it is always respectable. The high places of society do not belong to ecclesiastical men, as in Home; to military men, as in St. Petersburg; to men of famous family, as in. England and Spain; to men of science and literature, men of genius, as in Berlin; but to rich men.

Money gives distinction in literature, so far as the literary class can control the public judgment. The colleges revere a rich man's son; they name professorships after such as endow them with money, not mind. Critics respect a rich man's book; if he has not brains, he has brass, which is better. The capitalist is admitted a member of the Academies of Arts and Sciences, of collegiate societies; if he cannot write dissertations, he can give suppers, and there must be a material basis for science. At anniversaries, he receives the honorary degree. ’Tis easier to weigh purses, sure, than brains." A dull scholar is expelled from college for idleness, and twenty years later returns to New England with half a million of money, and