thing, and any person may make it into a farm or garden and
build upon it his home. The land has no rights and makes no protest.
The whole earth is subject to man and is to be subdued by him. If no
owner appears his rights are not disputed. Our fathers found an
unowned continent, with all its rich resources of soil and forests and
mines. It was to them free, and with the labor of a few generations
they transformed it into farms and plantations and built it over with
magnificent cities.

Even that which formerly was the property of another has no rights.
The deserted hunter's hut in the mountains can be appropriated. The
abandoned farm does not resist a new tenant. A derelict vessel, still
afloat but driven before the winds, whose officers, crew and owners
are at the bottom of the sea, can be appropriated, for there is no one
to dispute the claim.

Even force or labor in the abstract is but a thing and has no rights.
The wind is unowned and any one who will may harness it to do his
work. The electric forces of nature are unowned, whoever will may
gather and direct them to do his purpose. The waterfall may be made to
do man's work and will not resist. The animals have no rights against
man. The broncho, horse, ox, mule, or animal of any kind, may be
turned to man's service. All the forces of nature were made for man.
They have no rights to be regarded, when his interests can be served.

It is man's high privilege to stand above all things, to call them to
his feet and to compel their service. It is the reversion of the order
for him to take the subordinate place and serve the inferior creation.
Things subdued, such as wealth secured, is to minister to his highest
good and to promote his noblest manhood. The order is reversed when
this wealth commands his service and sacrifice. The miser both
reverses the divine order and violates common sense by giving the love
and service of his shriveling soul to a thing.

The usurer and the borrower on usury, both, reverse the true order by
assuming that a thing can claim man's service. Both grant that a thing
has rights to be respected. The usurer takes the service as due to the
thing he owns. It is his property that is exalted, and for which he
claims the service must be rendered, and if the borrower will think
closely, he will find that in paying usury he is serving a thing.

A man reverses the divine order and degrades himself, and becomes a
gross idolater, when he serves thin