“And this man”—­I quote from “The Jungle” again—­“they have made into the high-priest of property and smug respectability, a divine sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern commercial civilization!  Jewelled images are made of him, sensual priests burn insense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring their dollars, wrung from the toil of helpless women and children, and build temples to him, and sit in cushioned seats and listen to his teachings expounded by doctors of dusty divinity!”

* * * * *

#Book five#

#The Church of the Merchants#

       Mammon led them on—­
  Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
  From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts
  Were always downward bent, admiring more
  The riches of Heaven’s pavement, trodden gold,
  Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed
  In vision beatific....  Let none admire
  That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best
  Deserve the precious bane.

  Milton.

* * * * *

#The Head Merchant#

Ours is the era of commerce, as its propagandists never weary of telling us.  Business is the basis of our material lives, and consequently of our culture.  Business men control our politics and dictate our laws; business men own our newspapers and direct their policy; business men sit on our school boards, and endow and manage our universities.  The Reformation was a revolt of the newly-developing merchant classes against the tyrannies and abuses of feudal clericalism:  so in all Protestant Christianity one finds the spirit, ideals, and language of Trade.  We have shown how the symbolism of the Anglican Church is of the palace and the throne; in the same way that of the non-conformist sects may be shown to be of the counting-house.  In the view of the middle-class Britisher, the nexus between man and man is cent per cent; and so in their Sunday services the worshippers sing such hymns as this: 

  Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee,
  Repaid a thousand fold shall be;
  Then gladly will we give to Thee,
  Who givest all.

The first duty of every man under the competitive system is to secure the survival of his own business; So on the Sabbath, when he comes to deal with eternity, he is practical and explicit: 

  Nothing is worth a thought beneath
  But how I may escape the death
     That never, never dies;
  How make mine own election sure,
  And when I fail on earth secure
     A mansion in the skies.

Just as the priest of the aristocratic caste figures God as a mighty Conqueror—­

     Marching as to war
  With the cross of Jesus
     Going on before—­