Note 1 — Chapter V · ORGANIZATION AND ECONOMICS

Those who have at all closely studied primitive religious life know that this is not so.1 The savage medicine-man is up to his lights as keenly concerned about his economic interest as were the priests of ancient Babylon and Egypt—to take instances that can hardly give modern offence.2 And to say this is not to say that the “religion” involved is insincere, in the case of the savage or the pagan any more than in that of the modern ecclesiastic or missionary. It is merely to say that religion has always its economic side, and that faith may go with economic self-seeking as easily as with self-sacrifice. I at least am not prepared to say that when the Franciscans in general passed from the state of voluntary poverty to that of corporate wealth they ceased to be sincere believers; or that a bishop is necessarily less pious than a Local Preacher.