BUNYAN ON THE FOOD SHORTAGE. (To THE EDITOR OP VET
EPECTATOR."] Sea,—In your items of December 15th mention is made of Bunyan's Holy War and its noble lessons and Watchwords for these times. The following presage from Tire Life and Death of Mr. Rodman seems also particularly pertinent and helpful. I quote it, with a few omissions, from p. 125 of the "Cambridge English Classics" edition—
"Art thou a seller, and do things grow dear? set not thy hand to help, or hold them up higher; this cannot he done without wickedness neither; for this ha as making of the sheekle great Art thou a buyer, and do things grow dear? use no cunning or deceitful language to pull them down: for that cannot be done but wickedly too. What then +dealt we do? will you say. Why, I answer: Leave things to the providence of God, and do thou with moderation submit to his hand. But since, when they are growing dear, the hand that upholds the price is, for the time, more strong than that which would pull it down, That being the hand of the seller, who loveth to have it dear, specially if it shall rise in his hand therefore I say, do thou take heed, and have not a hand in it. The which thou tempest have to thine own and thy neighbour's hurt, these three ways —(1) By crying out scarcity, scarcity, beyond the truth and state of things: especially take heed of doing of this by way of a prognostick for time to come. . . . (2) This wicked thing may be done by hoarding up, when the hunger and necessity of the poor calls for it. . . . (3) But if things will rise, do thou be grieved; Be alas moderate in all thy eellinge, and be mere to let the poor leave a pennyworth, and sell thy Corn to those in necessity."
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