Page:The Moral and Religious Bearings of the Corn Law.djvu/14

14 their wages by making them pay more than they ought for bread, and to a great extent it hinders their earning of wages at all. Can God regard it with approval? "Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that ye bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?" Thus did the prophet rebuke the hypocrisy of the people in his day who sought vainly to substitute the symbols of grief for the principles of morality, and confession of sin for departure from it. Do not his words apply to us, and suggest, and enforce our duty? Are we bound to relieve the poor and not bound to seek the abolition of laws which engender poverty? Is it an imperative obligation to lessen suffering, and not one to prevent it? Is it a duty to support the needy, and not a duty to enable them to support themselves? It is, to say the least, a very mistaken charity which exerts itself to remove a portion of the effect, and that for a time, and does not try to destroy the main cause, and that for ever.

III. The Corn Law is a violation of the obvious intention of the God of heaven and earth.

God's will is to be found in nature as well as in the Bible. We may, from the constitution of the human mind and body, from the state and condition of society, from the character and resources of the various countries of the earth, conclude as safely and easily respecting his designs on many subjects, as from the Bible. Now, one fact which nature and providence clearly teach us is this—the