ere offensive to God. Nehemiah
condemns it as destructive to personal and civic freedom.

(3) There is no hint of its discontinuance in the new dispensation.
The Master gave a spiritual completeness to this law as he did to all
enactments requiring external moral character. He classed the usurers,
in his parables, among the dishonest, who took up what they had not
laid down.

The disciples, in their poverty and persecutions, were not specially
tempted by this sin, and it is not therefore prominent in their
history. But there is nothing in their teachings or practice that is
not in entire harmony with the binding continuance of the Mosaic
prohibition, and their practice and teaching are just such as we
should expect from Christian people in their condition and
circumstances who recognized the prohibition as permanent.

(4) The apostolic fathers, as the church grew and came into contact
with the world and was beginning to share in the business of the
world, to a man, regarded the prohibition as in full force and its
observance as one of the marked characteristics of the Christian,
distinguishing him from the worldling and the Jew. Conditions in the
apostolic age did not make this prominent but when the conditions were
changed and the church came in conflict with this sin, it is clearly
seen that the law was in a continuous binding force through the whole
period.

The later fathers were of the opinion, unanimously, that it was in
full force, not temporary or provincial, but binding for all time and
upon all people. That it is suspended is a modern idea, a suggestion
of the world to the church within the last few hundred years.

CHAPTER XIII.

OUR CHANGED CONDITIONS.

The changed conditions of the race in these last years are urged as a
sufficient reason for annulling this law. It is admitted that it was
righteous and beneficent in ages long past but with the new light and
new conditions of the present it is effete, inapplicable and unjust.
They call attention to the vast extension of commerce, to the
marvelously increased facilities for travel, transportation and
intercommunication; to the innumerable and wonderful inventions that
in their application have brightened our civilization. They exalt
present conditions and they belittle the long past conditions and
thought.

The prohibition of usury belonged to the past, the practice of usury
is all but universal in the present, therefore they argue that usur