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upon to give him so much money;’ so magnificent an or-
ganisation overawes them; they regard it as a thing dropped
from heaven.
‘Money,’ they say, ‘is the symbol of duty, it is the sacra-
ment of having done for mankind that which mankind
wanted. Mankind may not be a very good judge, but there
is no better.’ This used to shock me at first, when I remem-
bered that it had been said on high authority that they who
have riches shall enter hardly into the kingdom of heaven;
but the influence of Erewhon had made me begin to see
things in a new light, and I could not help thinking that
they who have not riches shall enter more hardly still.
People oppose money to culture, and imply that if a man
has spent his time in making money he will not be cultivat-
ed—fallacy of fallacies! As though there could be a greater
aid to culture than the having earned an honourable in-
dependence, and as though any amount of culture will do
much for the man who is penniless, except make him feel
his position more deeply. The young man who was told to
sell all his goods and give to the poor, must have been an
entirely exceptional person if the advice was given wisely,
either for him or for the poor; how much more often does
it happen that we perceive a man to have all sorts of good
qualities except money, and feel that his real duty lies in
getting every half-penny that he can persuade others to pay
him for his services, and becoming rich. It has been said
that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of
money is so quite as truly.
The above may sound irreverent, but it is conceived in a

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