Earlier in the book, Butler had ridiculed the cash-register 
morality and religion of an industrialized world, under the guise 
of the “Musical Banks,” with clergy in the role of cashiers. In the 
present passage, he perceives money as “the sacrament of 
having done for mankind that which mankind wanted.” Money, 
he is saying, is the “outward and visible sign of an inward and 
invisible grace.”

     Money as a social medium or extension of an inner wish 
and motive creates social and spiritual values, as happens even 
in fashions in women’s dress. A current ad underlines this 
aspect of dress as currency (that is, as social sacrament or 
outward and visible sign): “The important thing in today’s 
world of fashion is to appear to be wearing a popular fabric.” 
Conformity to this fashion literally gives currency  to a style or 
fabric, creating a social medium that increases wealth and