UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES ourth Edition, is. Net. Cloth, 28. Net. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR BY nORRISON DAVIDSON. THE CHRIST OF THE COMMUNE. 418 8 London: FRANCIS RIDDELL HENDER5QN. Fifth Edition. Is. net. Cloth, 2s. net. THE Savagedom, Slavedom, . . Serfdom, AND THE NEW. ^a^edo™. OLD ORDER Freedom. By MORRISON DAVIDSON. Writing to Mr. Morrison Davidson, under date Aug. 23rd, 1894, Count Leo Tolstoy says : — Dear Sir, — I got your two books, and thank you heartily for them. It is the greatest joy of my life to know persons such as you, and to see that the ideas which I live for are likewise the mainspring of life unto others, and are expressed in such beautiful and vigorous style as I had occasion to notice in your two books. Both your books are remarkably good, and I cannot give the preference to either of them. In "The Old Order and the New" the Christian truth serves to corroborate the truth of the Socialistic tendencies; whereas in "The Gospel of the Poor " it is the Socialistic, Communistic, and Anarchistic theories that serve to corroborate the Christian truth, which occupies the most prominent part. Though, while there is a censorship in Russia, the pub- lishing of these books is out of the question, yet I shall get some of my friends to translate them, and will then spread them. The enemies of the Kingdom of God have but one means left them : it is to hush up the truth and make believe they neither hear nor comprehend it — the fact of which was so strikingly acknowledged by the French when they pro- hibited to publish the processes (pleadings) of the Anarchists. It follows then the chief struggle which lies before a labourer of the Kingdom of God is to frustrate this plot of non-believing and non-hearing of what is seen and heard of all. I therefore wish you, as a strong and active labourer, the greatest amount of spiritual energy and entire success in it Yours truly, LEO TOLSTOY. LONDON : FRANCIS RIDDELL HENDERSON, 26, Paternoster Square, E.G. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. LIST OF WORKS BY MORRISON DAVIDSON. Annals of Toil; Being Labour History Outlines, Roman and British, Parts i, 2, 3 & 4, paper, each Is. net. In one volume, cloth, 5s. net. The Gospel of the Poor, 4th edition, is. net. Cloth, 2s. net. Let There Be Light! New Politics for the People, Is. net. Cloth, 2s. net. The Old Order and the New, from Individualism to Collectivism, Is. net. Cloth, 2s. net. Politics for the People, First Series, is. net. Cloth, 2s. net. The Villagers' Magna Charta, 3rd edition, Cloth, IS. net. Anarchist Socialism v. State Socialisni, Price 2d. The Book of Erin ! Ireland's Story told to the New Democracy. Cloth, 3s. 6d. net. The New Book of Kings, New Edition, is. net. Cloth, 2s. net. The Book of Lords, 6d. net. Cloth is. 6d. net. Scotia Rediviya, is. net. Cloth is. 6d. net. Precursors of Henry George, Cloth, 2s. net. Africa for the Africanders, 6d. net. Scotland for The Scots; Scotland Revisited. Is. net. Cloth, 2s. net London : FRANCIS RIDDELL HENDERSON, 26, Paternoster Square, E. C. THE GOSPEL OF THE BY nORRISON DAVID50N. THE CHRIST OF THE COMMUNE. FOURTH EDITION. {Printed from Stereo). LONDON : FRANCIS RIDDELL HENDERSON, 26, Paternoster Square. To My old Friend and revered Pastor, ROBERT BLAKELY DRUMMOND, B.A., Minister of St. Mark's Unitarian Church, Edinburgh, " An Israelite indeed in whom is no guile" In slender token of sincere respect, this liitle volume is dedicated BY J.M.D. FOREWORDS TO THE FOURTH EDITION. Since this booklet was originally penned, some ten years ago, the Higher Criticism has largely busied itself with the four accepted Gospels or Biographies of the Master. With what result ? Even The British Weekly, chief oracle of Orthodox Nonconformity, is constrained reluctantly to admit "the uncertainty that seems to hang round the whole story of His life": " Who wrote the Gospels? It is not certain. ' ' When were they ivritten ? It is not certain. *' How close do they bring us in point of time to the events which they purport to record? It is not possible to give a precise answer. " How far do they represent the mind of Christ as it was in itself, giving us the very words that He spoke, and how far the mind of Christ as it had come to be in the mind of His disciples, inflected, modified, adapted by and to new circum- stances and experiences — interpreted by His Spirit perhaps, hut really interpreted — and therefore not iti the strict and literal sense historical? Once more it is impossible to draw a clear line. " There are hundreds of such problems ". But, whatever may come to be settled expert opinion regarding the letter of the Gospel narratives — and it promises to be considerably more destructive than I had anticipated — the positions taken up in The Gospel of the Poor, I find on reperusal, are not appreciably affected thereby. For said not St. Augustine, and said truly ? — That which is called the Christian Religion existed among the Ancients and never did not exist from the planting of the Human Race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true Religion, which already subsisted, began to be called Christianity. What the Christ really did was to focus in His own soul all the broken lights of Spiritual Truth in His day — lights ineffectively scattered abroad, for unnumbered preceding cW' FOREWORDS. centuries, among all the leading Nations of the Earth. Of these truths He made "current coin" by the spotless and unique example of His own life and death. Christ's Religion, therefore, is not a Religion but the Religion, because His Gospel corresponds to the inborn capacity of man as revealed in the History of the Race. He is not a Master among Masters but the Master, "God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him." Says Professor Harnack with rare penetration : What the first disciples received fram Him goes far beyond the particular words and the preaching they heard from Him, and their mode of apprehending Him, exceeds His own self- witness. It could not be otherwise : these disciples were con- scious that they possessed in Christ not only a Teacher .... they knew themselves as redeemed, new men redeemed through Him. In other words the Religion of Christ is self-illuminating and, in the last arbitrament, it is as independent of written records as of hierophants of the altar. It can very well survive the complete elimination of the supernatural by Criticism, Higher or Lower. " Be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." " He that believeth in Me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater [more supernormal, not supernatural] works than these shall he do." "To as many as received Him gave He power to become Sons of God." In the Contemporary for June (1902), a writer (D. Joye) on " The Reformed Church in France " observes, and his Faith is mine : Hoiv has He (Christ) declared Him (God)? He has declared Him as ' Truth ' and ' Love.' For all men God is undoubtedly Personal Being whose actions — almost entirely unknown — can only be epitomised in that double attribute, * Truth and Love.' When a man's intelligence, in all its natural Reason and Will, fixes its desire exclusively on Truth and Love, I cannot free myself from the idea that God would commtinicate to such an Intelligence that Positive Revelation which Orthodoxy will only recognize as supernatural. The 7(>ords of the author of the Proverbs ought to come home with all their force : * They THAT Seek the Lord understand all things !' CONTENTS. Pass No, I. Woe unto you that are rich i No. II. Is Christianity Played out ? 7 No. III. Proputty, Proputty, Proputty I3 No. IV. Strikes, b.c. 150-70 18 No. V. The Law and the Prophets 24 No. VI. The Law and the Prophets 30 No. VII. The Law and the Prophets ....>. 36 No. vin. The Law and the Prophets 41 No. IX. The Usurer — Ecrase* L'Infame 47 No. X. Usurer as Insurer 53 No. XI. The Law and the Prophets 58 No. XII. The Law and the Prophets ...... 6 No. XIII. Give us a King .....*... 71 vlii CONTENTS. No. XIV. The Prophets . • • 6 No. XV. The Messianic Expectation 8i No. XVJ. After the Captivity 86 No. XVII. The Jewish Sects 9^ No. XV7II. The Nazarene 9^ No. XIX. The Temptation loi No. XX. The Religion of Christ io6 No. XXI. Conception of the Kingdom of God . • . .no No. XXII. The " Kingdom of God " and the " World " , . . n6 No. XXIII. The Lord's Prayer « • 122 No. XXIV. Christ and Woman 128 No. XXV. Christ and Labour . 134 No. XXVJ. Christ and the State ..... c • 140 No. XXVII. Summation ... 145 Appendix I , . , . . 151 Appendix II. ,,.,...,. 13 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. WOE UNTO YOU THAT ARE RICH I And there was delivered unto Him the book of the Prophet Esaias. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the Poor ; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recover- ing of sight to the blind ; to set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And He closed the book, and gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him. — Luke iv., 17-20. Then said He unto them, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many. And sent his servant at suppertime to say to them who were bid- den, Come ; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to the servant, Go out >iuickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, " Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room." And the lord said unto the servants. Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled, For I say unto you, that none cf these men that were bidden shall taste of my supper. — Luke xiv., 16-24. And the common people heard llim gladly. — Mark xii., 37. (0 B a THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR, In looking around the so-called " civilized " world of to-day we find that the poor have been wantonly robbed by the rich ot every blessing of which force and fraud could possibly deprive them. Wherever we turn out weary eyes the fell institution of " private property" confronts us; rapacious, cruel, vindictive, all-powerful in Church and State. " And I beheld the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter, and on the side of their oppressors there was power." And, alas ! so it is. On every hand the rich man's " law-and- order" is graven with an iron pen, or traced in letters of blood. The poor know nothing of "law" but its penalties and exactions. The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law, The world affords no law to make thee rich. Most true ; but one thing " the world " might surely have left the disinherited of the earth ; viz., the Gospel of the Poor ; Christ's Glad Tidings of a Commonwealth, in which private property shall be unknown, and the server and not the served shall be the greatest of all. But no. The rich have known how to ** exploit " the sublime Communist of Nazareth and his priceless message to mankind as they have exploited all besides. Not merely have they made the Blessed Gospel of none effect by their churchianities, they have actually con- verted that which was to be *' without money and with- out price" into a mine of untold ** profit," worked for their own private advantage by competing companies of cunning ecclesiastics "of all denominations," sophists, hypocrites and trained liars whom no true Christian man can regard for a moment without feelings of loath- ing and abhorrence. In their hands, the Gospel of the Poor has become the Gospel of Mammon. Christianity is no longer recognisable. The Ministry is at best but one of the '* genteel professions " into which " respect- ability " elbows its way to the exclusion of the outcasts of society for whom the " supper" was laid. " Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven. Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation." Such I take to be the very THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 3 ssence of the " Faith once delivered to the Saints," but ow distorted almost past recognition by unfaithful ite vards of the Word. "Who, then, is the faithful nci wise Steward whom his lord shall set over his ousehold to give them their portion of food in due sason ? Blessed is that servant whom his lord, when e Cometh, shall find so doing." \h, yes, "Who then is the faithful and wise steward ? " •Iwt he of Canterbury, assuredly ; nor he of York ; nor e of London. Tliese rich priests have already received, r are now receiv^ing their *' consolation " in palaces, and stipends of ;^io,ooo and ;^i5,ooo a year, and have neither part nor lot in the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness which the poor are to inherit, not in mtbibus, as these jugglers pretend, but on this solid earth, here and now. But we must not confine the "woe" to the arch Antichrists of the National Zion. The riotous mob of greedy Nonconformist stewards whom Keir Hardie on a late memorable occasion encountered at Bradford, are, if possible, even more odious and unfaithful. They do not preach the Gospel according to Christ and His Apostles, they preach the Gospel according to the "front pews," and are to all intents the unblushing Ministers of Mammon. There is not a prominent man among them, so far as my observation has gone, who has in any way realised the true significance of Christ's life and teaching. Nay, one of their number, a " Lib- erationist " polemic of note, Rogers by name, told us apropos of the Keir Hardie incident, that " Christ was the friend of the rich," and presumably of his own, as his "gospel-shop" is understood to be a good- going concern, where the sheep are shorn to some purpose. One can only marvel at the hardihood of such an assertion. If I understand Christianity aright it amounts merely to what old Homer would have called " dog- faced impudence." Christ was indeed the "friend of the rich," but on one condition : that they sold all they had and gave to the poor. 4 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. "Woe unto you that are rich!" "Thou thoroughly respectable young man that hast great possessions, too much for one man's share, sell and distribute among those who have less than their share, and join the Communistic Fraternity or Church which I have founded — the nucleus of the Kingdom of God upon earth." We know the fate of that unhappy young man, and of nearly all others with " large possessions." He " went away sorrowful," but got over it, took to Lease- hold Enfranchisement, then joined the Personal Liberty and Property Defence League at Jerusalem, became a Vice-President, and peradventure a somewhat blatant " Liberationist." Certain sure he never entered the Kingdom of Heaven. He could no more pass the portal than could a camel go through a needle's eye. In vain do the unfaithful stewards " of all denomina- tions " try to salve their own consciences, and those of their rich huckster sectaries, with the fiction that Dives was " tormented," not because he was rich, but because he was uncharitable to Lazarus, and derelict in alms- giving. But no amount of apologetic wriggling is of the smallest avail. Had Christ intended to inculcate the mere duty of almsgiving he would not have brought a millionaire on the scene — a Westminster, a Colonel North, or a Vanderbilt. He would have been content with the case of a man just comfortably off as far more likely to bring conviction home to the general body of the well-to-do. Besides, there was nothing particularly hard-hearted or actively inhuman about Dives. He did not send his hounds to chase poor Lazurus away from his gate, as most " gentlemen of England," in the circumstances would have done. He did not grudge the woe-begone creature the crumbs that fell from his table, and from such a sumptuous table the crumbs must have been pretty palatable. Our unemployed, who know what coarse fare and no fare mean, would doubtless have appreciated them. THE GOSPEL OP THE POOR. 5 No, it was not for his niggardliness that Dives was condemned. It was simply because he was rich ; because he had a large income which he had done nothing to create, and because he lived up to it, re- gardless of the fact that he was surrounded by suffering fellow beings who had little or no income at all. In a word, Christ discerned clearly that the rich man, with his purple and fine linen, and his sumptuous feasts, was, despite his easy-going disposition, a robber. In the ** Kingdom," which has, alas ! not " come " even yet, there is no place for such. A "great gulf" must for- ever separate the kingdom (rule) of the Individualist from that of the Collectivist. In Christ's day even the elements of economic truth, were hidden from the wise and prudent. Hence the extreme difficulty His very disciples had in compre- hending the drift of His Gospel of the Poor. But in recent years, much that was dark in His wonderful say- ings has become resplendently luminous in the re- searches and writings of such men as St. Simon, Proudhon, Rodbertus, Marx and many more devoted servants of Humanity. We know now the grounds of Dives 'condemnation, which Christ left unexplained, as He did much besides, because the ignorant generation He addressed " could not bear them." " Howbeit," He added, "when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come. He will guide you unto all truth," and, in spite of the " clergy of all denominations," the Spirit of Truth is abroad to-day, as. He, perhaps, has never been before. We are just beginning to understand Christianity ; to learn that its Divine Founder was very much of a Secularist and nothing of a Sacerdotalist ; that He concerned Himself witli the life here, and sparingly with the life hereafter ; that His followers were to be as exempt from vent as the birds of the air, or the lilies of the field ; that principal as well as interest was to cease, and that the profit which constitutes another's loss cannot be tolerated in a Christian Community. ••Think not," said the Great Teacher, •' that I am come 6 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. to destroy the Law and the Prophets ; I am not come destroy, but to fulfil." In the " Gospel of the Poo: my aim will be fulfilled, and fulfilled abundantly, il can but assign some sufficient reasons for the be] that Christ was, indeed, what he claimed to be, the lo promised Messiah, the Saviour of the Race, ♦• the W the Truth, and the Lite." THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. II. •'IS CHRISTIANITY PLAYED OUT?*» Worn and footsore was the Prophet When he gained the holy hill ; •' God has left the earth," he murmured, •• Here His presence lingers still " •' God of all the olden prophets. Wilt Thou speak with men no more ? Have I not as truly served Thee, As thy chosen ones of yore ? •• Hear me, guider of my fathers, Lo ! a humble heart is mine ; By Thy mercy I beseech Thee. Grant Thy servant but a sign ! " Bowing then his head, he listened For an answer to his prayer : No loud burst of thunder followed, Not a murmur stirred the air. But the tuft of moss before him Opened while he waited yet ; And, from out the rock's hard bosom Sprang a tender violet. " God, I thank Thee ! " said the Prophet.* " Hard of heart and blind was I ; Looking to the holy mountain For the gift of prophecy. " Still Thou speakest with Thy children Freely as in old sublime Humbleness, and love, and patience, Still give empire over time. •• Had I trusted in my nature, And had faith in lowly things, 8 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. Thou Thyself wouldst then have sought me, And set free my spirit's wings. " But I looked for signs and wonders That o'er men would give me sway ; Thirsting to be more than mortal, I was even less than clay. •• Ere I entered on my journey, As I girt my loins to start. Ran to me my little daughter, The beloved of my heart. " In her hand she held a flower, Like to this as like may be. Which, beside my very threshold, She had plucked and brought to me." Lowell. In the Daily Chvomcle andsundry other journals aeon troversy was lately carried on without a parallel in th annals of journalism. •' Is Christianity Played Out ?/ was the question, and so great was the public interes t aroused in the problem that the unhappy editors wer e soon at their wit's end to know what to do with the vast volume of correspondence with which they were deluged. On the very eve of the assembling of Parliament, politics and politicians seemed suddenly to have ceased to con- cern the great majority of readers. Even the G.O.M. and Home Rule were at a discount. A considerable, if not exactly a great, poet and dramatist, Mr. Robert Buchanan, had been pleased, m his *' Wandering Jew," to summon Jesus of Nazareth before his august judgment-seat, and to convict him as an unmiti.G^ated " failure," " the very Genius of Failure." • Spiritually," he admitted that Jesus was perfect, or •almost" so; but "intellectually" He was naught. He had no " orb of rational polity," and so lost him- self in mere " nebulosity " of sentiment. Could not so much as " save a single soul ! " The world is full of misery, and Christ, with the best intentions, has been powerless to relieve it. He might have written a Manual of Political Economy, and with the aid of algebraic symbols, eliminated the unknown quantity of THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR, Q human bliss, but His feeble intellect was unequal to the task, and so He must be dismissed for ever to the limbo of heroic •' failures" with the distinction of being the very Genius of the whole tribe. " His message was spoken in vain." Well, I think it must be admitted, even by those who are most jealous for the honour of Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost, that there is a certain apparent truth in this indictment. Nowhere does the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, which He pro- claimed to be at hand, exist. But is the "failure" His or ours? Had He no " orb of rational polity " to offer for our acceptance ? I say He had, and did, and if we had but adhered to that " orb," ihe sin, sorrow, and suffering which all good men deplore would long ere now have been banished from the earth. But man is a free agent, and he has elected to reject Christ and His "polity," and the consequences are upon us to day. Now we come to the core of the whole momentous business. What was Christ's " polity " ? The answer is, however startling it may appear to some : Anar- chist Communism. This I challenge any student of early Christianity to gainsay. Indeed, the Actsoj the Apostles is conclusive on that point. The primitive Churches were fraternities having all things in common. Christ sub- stituted Collectivism for Individualism, and no Church that does not do the same has the least title to call itself Christian. The very test of a man's fitness for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, was his willingness to sell all he had and give it to the poor and enrol himself in a Communistic Brotherhood, where the distinction between mine and thine was at an end. What has the Old Man at the Vatican got to say to this ? What Our own Benson Cantuarius, the Successor of St. Augustine ? What our prosperous Dissenting Dr. Parker, of the City Temple ? I did not observe that any of the Price Hugheses, whose Sunday vapour- ings on the subject were reported at such length in the 10 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. papers, cared to face up to this, the real crux of tl controversy. The fatal elimination of Comnuinis from Christian precept and practice by the vi Imperial homicide Constantine and his pagan crew, ' the beginning of the fourth century, banished Christ, Kingdom from the earth and relegated it to the cloud where, alas, it has most unprofitably remained ev: since. Assuredly no curse so great as that of othe- worldlincss has ever befallen mankind. But Christ was in no way responsible for this bliirh- ing influence, though Mr. Buchanan says He wa •• He turned," so our poet tells us, " from this wor! as from something in its very nature base and detest able." That is, doubtless, up-to-date Christianity, bu it was not the opinion, as we know, of some of Christ's own contemporaries, who thought that He did not detest the world half enough. They accused Him of being a glutton and a tippler, with a taste for low company, and to this day, I understand, the United Kingdom Alliance bears Him a grudge for turning the water into wine — His first miracle, by the way — at the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee. It is true He did detest the vile, hypocritical world of Dives, the Scribe, and the Pharisee, and denounced it in no measured terms ; but He never once rebuked the vices of the poor, or charged them with base thriftlessness, or any other economic delinquency commonly brought 'against them. On the contrary, He pronounced them " blessed," and gave the harlots and the /jiW/c^Mt precedence over the respectable "classes" in entering the Kingdom. Did He turn even from the robber by His side on the cross, when He uttered the ever- memorable assurance — This night shalt thou be with Mc in Paradise ? No; there is no vulnerable joint in the spiritual or the intellectual armour of Christ ; but to pluck selfishness out of the heart of man, and by so doing to regenerate human society in its economic and moral entirety, was a tremendous undertaking, whose fulfilment was necessarily a work of time. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. II Queen Victoria does not care to be told that there are to be no "princes or great ones exercising authority" n the Kingdom where the greatest is to be the servan( of all. He of the Seven Hills and he of Canterbury naturally recoil from the Master who told the much- married woman at the well of Samaria that the day was coming when neither on Mount Gerizim, nor yet at Jerusalem, Rome or Canterbury were true worshippers to be found, but wherever and whenever God, who is a Spirit, is approached by man in spirit and in truth. A Westminster or a Portland does not take kindly to a gospel which teaches that all men have the same right to the soil and its products as the birds of the air and the grass of the fields. Rothscliild has naturally a poor opinion of Him who said : " Lend, hoping for nothing again." Carnegie does not much like the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, who each — short-timer and long-timer alike — received his " penny." My Lords Wolseley and Alcester naturally enough turn a deaf ear to the injunction: " Put up thy sword. He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword." The truth is, Christ and His real disciples are at mortal strife with every authority and institution of which the so-called "civilised " world of to-day boasts itself. They abominate its " Sovereigns and States- men " ; its Lords and Commons ; its priests and parsons; its judges and policemen; its jailers and hangmen ; its armies and navies ; its rates and taxes ; its prisons and work-houses ; its usury banks ; its stock exchanges ; its insurance offices and Liberator Societies — in a word, the whole monstrous paraphernalia by which the institution of private property is in- iquitously upheld, to the destruction of the poor and the debasement of the rich. Some of the preachers, I observe, endeavoured to show that the Divine Communist of Nazareth, whom they dare to call Master, was a respectable law-abiding citizen who punctually paid His taxes to Caesar. So indeed He did, though not without protest. But there again His profound philosophy of life manifested itself. 12 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. He came to destroy the empire of the Caesars, but from within, not from without. Evil was not to be over- come by evil, but by good. If a man, Caesar or another, wrongfully compels you to go a mile, go twain. If he demands your coat, add your vest also. Well, these precepts of the Kingdom are indeed hard to obey, but that they are profoundly true all the Buchanans, and all the •' Wandering Jews " in the world will never be able to disprove. They have not yet triumphed ; but the world is still only in its moral and intellectual infancy. The odds against them have been and are enormous, but in the fulness of time, the words commonly ascribed to Julian the Apostate will assuredly be literally verified : Thou luist conquered, Pale Galilean! THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 13 No. III. ••PROPUTTY. PROPUTTY, PROPUTTY." Private property is not an institution of God. God did not give the earth, its vegetables, its fruits, its mineral wealth, its cattle, the riches of river, sea and ocean into the hands of the few to the degradation of the many ; and yet almost ninety per cent, of all the so-called sins and crimes of society may be traced, either directly or indirectly, to private property. Sins against God, forsooth I They are nothing of the kind, but sins against present social arrangements. Theft, fraud, embezzle- ment, forgery, gambling, poaching, and a multitude of other crimes are the terrible progeny of private property. — Rev. J. Macdonald. " How delighted we should all be to throw open our doors to Him (Christ) and listen to His divine precepts Don't you think so, Mr. Carlyle ? " asked a fine Society lady. Carlyle answered : "No madam, I don't. I think if He had come very fashionably dressed, with plenty of money, and preaching doctrines palatable to the higher orders, I might have had the honour of receiving from you a card of invitation, on the back of which would be written, •To meet our Saviour.' But if He came uttering His sublime pre- cepts, and denouncing tlie Pharisees, and associating with the publicans and lower orders, as He did, you would have treated Him as the Jews did, and cried out, ' Take Him to Newgate and hang Him.' True, Lord Houghton might have invited Him to breakfast." Christianity has been tried for more than eighteen hundred years ; perhaps it is time to try the religion of Jesus. — Dean Milman. Broadly speaking, the elements of our boasted "civili- zation " come to us from ancient Greece, Rome and Judea. To the Greeks we owe our philosophy, science and art ; to the Romans our jurisprudence ("law and order ") ; and to the Jews our religion and morals. The prime object of Christ's Mission was to uproot from the earth the fatal poison-tree of private property, and 14 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR, to replace it by the healing plant of common possession That the latter has been of painfully slow growth, thi most cursory glance at the rampant Individualism o nearly all our existing institutions will satisfy the mos sceptical. But before we pronounce, as some in thei haste have done, Christ's Gospel of the Poor a failure it will be well first to realise, as best we may, the utte savagery and diabolical virulence of the institution o private property as it prevailed in Pagan antiquity. There may exist faint tracesof a primitive communism in Greek and Roman institutions ; but these may be safely left to the curious in " origins" and ethnology. In the most ancient times of which we know anything for certain, there were practically but two classes — masters and slaves, owners and owned. Men and things were alike property, and it is much the same to-day. Society is everywhere divided into robbers and robbed. There is only this difference : In the ancient world the proprietor kept the toiler up to his work by the lash ; in the modern world the constant dread of starvation, by reason of lack of employment, has precisely the same effect. Sir Henry Sumner Maine tells us very truly that our social progress has all been " from stains to contract." But so long as contract, impudently called " free," is in reality couipuhory, it is in essence what slavery and serfdom were before it. We have changed the name, but the thing remains. Usury became respectable when it changed its name to "interest," and so it is with slavery when it labels itself " freedom of contract." In the ancient world property based itself solely on force ; in the modern world its main foundation is fraud. In the patriarchal world the paterfamilias owned every- thing. He owned wife and child, just as he owned cattle or household goods. They were his property, and he could and did do with them as he pleased. In the Tenth Commandment, which was formulated in the patriarchal age, a man is forbidden to covet his neigh- bour's house, his neighbour's wife, or his ox or his ass. The wife was as much a chattel as ox or ass, and still THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 1 5 ore so were the children. They were all property, id could be put to death by the tyrant of the house- old for any offence or none. And this infernal /rt/ym otcstas existed long after the patriarchal families had rown into tribes, and the tribes had coalesced into itates and so-called Republics. We flatter ourselves iha.t mafnage had its origin in the ennobling sentiment of love ; but that is a fiction of the )oets. It was merely the primitive method of conveying )roperty. The paterfamilias, as a rule, had many concu- jines, but the function of the wife, whose continence was ensured by frightful penalties, was to conceive the precious heir. When the pativfannlias died his eldest son stepped into his shoes. His brothers and sisters, even those by his own mother, then became his slaves, his pvopeyty. But the exactions of the dead proprietor were by no means over. His ghost had to be appeased and kept from doing harm to the living by incessant prayers, sacri- fices and libations. These it was the function of the heir to offer up, and thus it came to pass that the son became a priest and the father a god. Like mzxriSLge, religion or ancestor- worship, was a mere incident of pvopcrty. In the person of the precious heir were united all the terrors of time and eternity. Church and State were one and indivisible. Even that very secular person Julius Ca3sar filled the office of Pontifex Maximus at Rome. Religion and marriage were for the proprietary class alone. The unfortunate beings without property could have neither God nor wife. The "masses" were things. The great aristocratic philosopher Plato with much reluctance conceded them ** half a soul." Even in the palmy days of Greece and Rome the number of proprietors was astonishingly small. In Athens, B.C. 309, there were 515,000 inhabitants, of whom only 9,000 enjoyed any political rights. There were 80,000 freed men (without the suffrage), and 10,000 strangers under the protection of the State. The slaves numbered 400,000. l6 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. In wealthy Corinth the free citizens numbered 40,000, and the bond 640,000. In Sparta the helots outnumbered the Lacedemonians by three to one, and yet, nearly 1,000 B.C., the en- lightened statesman Lycurgus had given the Spartans a SociaHst Constitution of great perfection, which lasted them for six centuries. One feature of this Constitution was the Cryptia, or ambuscade. At certain seasons the five Ephori, or magistrates, sent out the most promising of the Spartan youth, armed with daggers, to fall suddenly on un- suspecting helots, and murder them in cold blood. Without familiarity with the art of the Cryptia, the educa- tion of a young gentleman of Sparta was incomplete. The helots were, moreover, flogged regularly once a day lor faults to be committed. Thucydides gives us a good sample of the *' rights of property " as exercised by the Spartans. During the long Peloponnesian War, which lasted twenty-seven years, they were at one stage so hard pressed that they were obliged to arm a number of their helots. These fought with great valour, and at the close of the war the survivors, 2,000 in number, were promised emanci- pation, and taken into one of the temples to be gar- landed. Not one of them emerged alive. They were all treacherously murdered by order of the Ephori, B.C. 424. It is satisfactory to learn that even Plato thought this a somewhat high-handed proceeding. In Rome itself, B.C. 103, only 2,000 persons were considered taxable. All the rest were slaves or penni- less freedmen (i.e., emancipated slaves). Property ruled with a rod of iron. In early times the debtor became the slave of the creditor, and if there were more creditors than one, and they could not agree about their common property in the debtor, they cut him up and divided his limbs among them. The original Romans were a nest of robbers lurking among the Seven Hills, and down to the last the Roman State lived by the plunder and enslavement of the world. It is befitting that our " law-and-order " should be derived from such a source. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I J To acquire wealth by honest labour in any form was e deepest disgrace possible. The stigma of toil ran iplacably in the blood, and the taint was to all intents eradicable. Ventidius Bassus had the good fortune become Consul. The " classes " said to him : '* You were a muleteer." To the Emperors Galerius, Probus, Pertinax, and Vitellius they said respectively : " You were a swineherd;" "Your father was a gardener; " " Your father was a freedman ; " " Your father was a soap-maker ; " and even on the marble statue of Augustus, in the lifetime of the Master of the World, it was hardly possible to restrain them from writing : ♦* Your grandfather was a merchant, and your father an usurer." In truth, how the Gospel of the Poor, which Christ unfolded in such perfect entirety, ever found a lodg- ment of any kind in a society so diametrically and in- veterately opposed to all His distinctive teachings, is to my mind as great a miracle (if not a greater) as any to be found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. To all who ignorantly attempt to depreciate the beneficient influence of Christ on the world it is sufficient to recall the famous couplet concerning the Highland roads and their maker, General Wade : Had you seen these roads before they were made, You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade. i8 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR, No. IV. ••STRIKES" B.C. 150-70. They (the early Christians) knew that Jesus proclaimed a ^oe' news or gospel for the poor, the very foundation-stone of which is the absolute equality, liberty, and fraternity of man ; and they learned from the same Divine Teacher that kings, lords, nobles, all personal and class distinctions among men, are the mere creation of legal fiction, sustained by unjust force, like slavery and piracy, and do not exist in the nature of things, or by the will of God ; and that these laws are everywhere only the utterances of selfishness crystalized into the form of statutes, customs, or decrees, govern- ment over the peof)le being nothing more nor less than an organ- ized expression of faith in the ancient lie that " private properly " ^in estates, rank, or prerogatives) is the one thing sacred in human life, and that laws and penalties are necessary to maintain it ; which faith is the idolatry of " Mammon," the only Paganism that Jesus denounced by name, and declared to be utterly antagonistic to the worship of God. — " Arius, thb Libyan. I believe such words as "fashionable," "exclusive," "aristo- cratic," and the like to be wicked, unchristian epithets that ought to be banished from honest vocabularies. You who despise your neighbour, you who forget your friends, meanly to follow after those of a higher degree ; you who are ashamed of your poverty and blush at your calling, are a snob, as are you who boast of your wealth, or are proud of your pedigree. — Thackeray. In Pagan antiquity, free and bond, oppressors and oppressed alike acknowledged but one moral code, the stern Lex Talionis — ** an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Nor did the oppressors have it, at all times, their own way. There were occasions when the ancient chattel-slaves " struck " for improved conditions of servitude, just as our modern wages-slaves ever and THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. IQ again " strike " for shorter hours or larger pay. To abolish the entire system of " private property,'' both in persons and in things, as enjoined by Christ, has, alas, at no time been the aim of any considerable body of the workers of the world. And if the conception is too revolutionary to be grasped by the enlightened "Trade-Unionist" of to-day, is it to be wondered at that the most desperate efforts of tlie chattel-slaves of the ancient world to emancipate themselves ended in signal failure ? They produced able and resolute chiefs, who often led them to surprising temporary victories, even over the legions of all-conquering Rome, but, the Kingdom of Heaven not being within, their external triumphs, could, and did, only end in eventual disaster. Before the advent of Christ a " strike " necessarily meant an armed insurrection. " Resist not evil" was a strange precept against which the vast armaments of modern Europe are a living testimony that the anti- Christian lex talionis is still in the ascendant, and tliat the principle of mutual love — the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man — is now, as always, scouted by the "sovereigns ^nd statesmen" of the earth. The strike-wars of antiquity — the efforts of the Pagan Messiahs to free the workers from their bonds by force of arms — are among the obscurest episodes m the annals of mankind. The reason is not far to seek — contemporary history was all written by the bitterest foes of the toilers, and it is very difficult to read between the lines. Yet from about 150 to 70 b,c. something like the " Universal Strike," which is sometimes threatened even in our own day, prevailed. From Asia Minor to the Pillars of Hercules, relentless war raged between the "masses" and the "classes." In Asia Minor, Aristonicus of Pergamus ; in the island of Chios (Scio), l)rimakos ; in Sicily, Eunus, Athenion, and Salvius ; in Italy, Spartacus ; and in Spain, Viriatlius, were the Alexanders, the Hannibals, and the Julius Caesars of the ancient " masses," 20 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. How these Pagan Messiahs preached their Gospel of the Poor may, to sj:ns extent, be surmised from the following episodes : — Sicily became a province of the Empire b.c. 210, and nowhere was the condition of the poor slaves so intoler- able. Atrocities that make the llesh creep were of every day occurrence. Among the worst of the op- pressors was a millionaire slave-owner named Damo- philus. He had long been execrated for his abominable cruelties, and his wife Megallis was, if possible, still more truculent. It was not unusual with her to flog female slaves to death with her own hand. This vile couple had a beautiful daughter who did her best to mitigate the suiTerings of her parents' victims, and for a time her humanity staved off catastrophe. But re- tribution came at last. A sudden rising of the slaves took place in the mountain town of Enna, b.c. 143. The leader of the revolt was a Prophet or Messiah, named Eunus. He was a thaumaturgist, who could spit fire and perform a number of feats that inspired his *elIow-slaves with unbounded confidence in him. It is Act a little singular that this man had been brought from Apamea, a few leagues to the north oi Nazareth. Well, before Eunus as judge, sitting in the auditorium of the theatre of Enna, were brought Damophilus and Megallis. Damophilus made a cunning defence, and no small impression on the slave jury, who might have acquitted him had not Zeuxes and Hermias, two of his worst victims, rushed forward and decapitated him on the spot. As for the fiendish Megallis, her fate was even more tragic. Eunus handed her over to a jury of her female slaves. They tore her fine clothing from her back, and hurried her, bruised and bleeding, to the brink of a frightful precipice, whence she was hurled into the abyss below. It is pleasant to learn that the insurgent slaves, in their fury, were not unmindful of the goodness of the daughter. Every care was taken for her protection. Her father's executioner, Hermias, with a strong bodyguard, at great risk conveyed her in THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 21 safety to some of her relatives in the distant city of Catana, on the coast. With regard to this slave-strike, Diodorus Siculus hazards the following observation, perhaps unparalleled in the writings of any ancient pagan historian: " These slaves on strike demonstrated in showing no sympathy or mercy to those who had been their masters, and in delivering themselves up to their own violence and wrath, that what they did was not the mean promptings of barbarity, but a just retribution or punish- ment for the injustice that had been done them." For nearly ten years the revolt prospered, and the " classes " were all but exterminated. But the fire- spitting Eunus must needs take to himself the title and style of " King," an office odious even to the *' classes " of Rome. He could no more enter the Kingdom of Heaven than Dives, and cruel concupiscent Rome sealed his fate at last amid crucifixions and strangulations innu- merable. A yet more singular and in every way preferable Mes- siah of the miserable outcasts of ancient society was Drimakos, the slave of Chios. Drimakos not merely asserted that he acted under the direct counsel of the Almighty, but succeeded in persuading the Chian slave- owners that the Gods had for once espoused the cause of the slave. The extraordinary episode of his death doubtless greatly strengthened the belief in his supernatural powers. He had imposed treaty-guaranteed blackmail on the defeated Chians, and from his mountain fast- nesses had exacted it for many years, v/hen they treacherously offered a large reward in gold for his head. The old man took a singular resolution. Calling to him a young runaway slave, his sole confidant, he said : " Boy, I have brought thee up nearest to me, evet with the emotions of confidence and love, more than that felt for all others of mankind. Thou art child and son, and all that is dear to me. I have lived out my span. I have lived long enough; but thou art still young and hast blood, and hope and sprightliness, and 2a THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. there is much before thee. Thou shalt become a gooc and brave man. Son, the city of the Chians is offering to him that bringeth them my head a sum of money and promising him liis freedom. Therefore thy duty i; to cut off my head, take it to them, receive thy reward return to thy fatherland, and be happy." The youtli was horrified, but the inexorable Old RIan of the Moun- tains sternly exacted obedience. Drimakos calmly laid his head on the block. His young friend struck it off, buried the body, carried the head to the city, and duly received his reward. The death of Drimakos was soon mourned as a calamity by bond and free, and a splendid temple, whose ruins still endure, speedily rose over his tomb. The Slave King of "Scio's rocky isle" became a god. It remains to note the fate of Spartacus, the Gladiator, the last, and by far the greatest of the Labour-leaders of the Pagan world. Like the cream of the Roman " classes," the illustrious Gracchi (Tiberius and Caius) and Blossius, he looked wistfully for the advent of a World-Messiah, but does not himself appear to have laid claim to any special inspiration. But his wife — con- sort, shall I say, for no slave could have a wife — was a soothsayer to whom alone in direst straits he looked for wise counsel and moral support. As for personal am- bition, he seems to have been conspicuously and honour- ably devoid of it, and there is reason to believe that he had, in some measure, grasped the social and political principles of which Christ's Kingdom of Heaven was afterwards the completed, •' fulfilled " expression. Anyhow, the " classes " of all time cannot deny htm the possession, in the highest degree, of all those quali- ties, which by common consent they exalt in their own military demi-gods, Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus the Epirot, Hannibal the Carthaginian, the Roman Cassar, the Corsican Bonaparte, the Prussian Moltke, and similar colossal ecourges of humanity. He was never excelled in the art of handling huge bodies of men in the battle-field ; v/hile in personal prowess, beneficence of purpose, and magnanimity of character he easily sur- THE GOSfEL OF THE POOlt. ^3 )assed them all. He routed in succession eleven ;onsular or pro-consular armies, and the episode of his leath in his last great battle of Silaurus, d.c. 70, was of iurpassing grandeur. The war had lasted four years, and three Roman losts were massed against him, Crassus and Pompey )eing in command. They brouglit the hero his charger. With a stroke of his sword' he slew the rear- ing steed, and shouting to his men, " Victorious, I shall find horses in plenty among the enemj' ; defeated, I shall no longer want one," he fell upon the Roman ranks in personal combat. *' It was a fierce fight," says Appian. " Long after victory was hopeless Spartacus was traced by the heaps of slain who had fallen by his hand, and his body was lost completely in the awful carnage which closed that day of blood." His aim was to slay the hated and hateful millionaire Crassus, and he all but succeeded, killing at the foot of his standard two centurions of the Roman's bodyguard with his brand. Florus, who maligns Spartacus most bitterly, admits : " He fell, fighting most valorously in the front rank, like a Roman Imperator." Thus perished the last of the great Labour-Leaders of the ancient world. He lost, and the "classes" gloated over a million retaliatory crucifixions. The next Great Labour- Leader was crucified one hundred years later on Mount Calvary, but from His Cross He still directs the grand struggle for human emancipation which will one day be accomplished. " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty." 24 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. V. "THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS." In the eighth century before Christ, in the heart of a world of idolatrous polytheists, the Prophet Micah put forth a conception of religion which appears to me to be as wonderful an inspiration of genius as the Art of Phidias or the science of Aristotle: "And what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " If any so-called religion takes away from this grand saying of Micah, I think that it wantonly mutilates; while if it adds thereto, I ihink it also obscures the perfect ideal of religion. The antagonism of science is not to religion, but to the heathen survivals and the bad philosophy under which religion itself is well nigh crushed. And for my part I trust that this antagonism will never cease, and that till the end of time true science will continue to fulfil one of her most beneficent func- tions — that of relieving men from a burden of false science which is imposed upon them in the name of religion. — Professor Huxley. I think the necessity very great that invites all classes, all religious men, whatever their connection, whatever their specialities in what- ever relation they stand to Christianity, to unite in a movement of benefit to men, under the sanction of religion. We are all very sensible — it is forced on us every day — of the feeling that the Churches are outgrown, that the creeds are outgrown, that a technical theology no longer suits us. It is not the ill-will of the people, no, indeed; but the incapacity for confirming themselves tlierein. — Emerson. The first division of the Old Testament is the Law or " Torah " (teaching), as the Jews call it. To us the Law is more generally known as the Pentateuch or " book in five parts." Hitherto, Jew, Moslem, and Christian have been accustomed to attribute tliis five-fold collection bodily to Moses, the great Leader of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt ; but to this view the latest school of Biblical THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 2$ criticism has presented very serious objections. Tiiree redactions of the materials composing these books, it is contended can be traced: the first about B.C. 750, the second b.c. 620, and the third and final by Erza, B.C. 444, In point of fact, such Prophets as Amos, 790-780 B.C., Isaiah, 757 B.C., Jeremiah 621, and Eze'kiel 597 B.C., would thus antedate the Pentateuch as we know it. But the point is immaterial so far as the " Gospel of the Poor " is concerned. Tliere is no reasonable historic doubt that before Troy was sacked or Rome was founded, Moses was the Deliverer and Lawgiver of the unique people to whom the entire human race stands so heavily indebted in all its most precious spiritual and ethical posessions. Whoever might raise the super- structure, the foundation stones of the ideal Kingdom of Heaven on earth were laid by him. Tiie Mosaic tradition inspired the Prophets with the Messianic hope. Hence Christ's averment, that He came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfil them. Moses was the Messiah of one insignificant people ; Christ of all mankind. Eliminate from the Scriptures the idea of evolution, and they become a mass of inconsequences and contradictions. In the glimpses of Greek and Roman society, given in the last two chapters, I tried to convey to the reader some notion of the vast substratum of slavery on which these ancient "civilizations" rested. They were in truth hotbeds of human suffering, in which even the freedman or emancipated slave was treated with unbounded con- tumely. Honest toil, bond or free, was an ineffaceable disgrace. The *' classes " had a monopoly of the Gods as of everything else, and from them the emancipated must needs " borrow " a Deity if religiously disposed. "Law and order," divine and human, concerned itself with the protection of the "private property" and general welfare of the rich alone. Contrast this hopeless state of society with the Hebrew Constitution as outlined by Moses. That Constitution, it is true, was by no means perfect ; but 25 tHE GOSfEL OF THE fOOR. its God was the Righteous God of the entire nation, and its keystone the welfare of the poor rather than of the rich ; its watch-word " humanity " not " property." And this is all the more remarkable when we consider out of what a furnace of slavery the Israelites emerged. The bondage of Greece and Rome was, after all, but child's play compared with the immemorial iron des- potism of the Pharoaus. In Greece and Rome the "classes" had a high sense of freedom and justice among themselves ; in Egypt the autocracy allowed not even the most exalted to cherish such sentiments. Unnumbered millions of men wore out lives of priva- tion and misery in erecting tombs to royal taskmasters — pyramids as durable as the everlasting hills, which, even in these days of Cyclopean engineering, are the astonishment of mankind. For generations the Hebrews had suffered in this unparalleled "house of bondage" when Moses organised his grand, ever memorable " strike." He had none to appeal to but a herd of idolatrous slaves, and yet, with such unpromising materials to handle, he framed the most indestructible, asbestos-like polity, spiritual and temporal, known to the annals of mankind. Assuredly in the whole range of old-world achievement, none was comparable to this. What then, in brief, is the Mosaic " Social Compact ?" It first of all postulates that there is but one landlord, Jehovah, and that under Him possession or tenancy is to be equal for all His people : — The land shall not be sold in perpetuity ; for it is Mine : for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. — Levit. xxv., 23. To many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance ; to every one shall his inheritance be given according to those that were numbered of him. — Numbers XXVI., 54. Moses, was, moreover, in one important respect, the first asserter of •' woman's rights " on record : — And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel saying, If a man die and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. — Numbers xxvn.,8. Nor did the Hebrew Legislator, like the British THE GOSPEL 0? THE POOR. ^7 Parliament and judiciary, concern himself with petty larcenies alone. He did not, Uke these, rigorously condemn the man or woman Who stenls the goose from off the common; But let the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose. To remove ''landmarks" was to incur the severest maledictions : — Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark. And all the people shall say Amen. — Deut. xxvii., 17. Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth. — Isaiah v., 8. When Ahab set his heart on the acquisition of Naboth's vineyard, it is to be noted that he offered the Jezrcehte either '• a better vineyard than it " or the " worth of it in money" — in a word, ample *' compensation for dis- turbance." But Naboth very properly declined to part with the cherished "inheritance of his fathers," small though it might be. He was content with his " lot," and had no insensate desire to lay " field to field," or to encourage even his Monarch in so doing. The King and Queen eventually, by foul play, con- verted the coveted vineyard into a royal "garden of herbs," but at what a cost ! It was not Elijah, the Tishbite, alone that hotly denounced the transaction. There was not a horticulturist or agriculturist in Israel that did not revolt against so serious a violation of the Mosaic Code in respect of the sacred right of the humblest to sit under his own patrimonial vine and fig- tree, with none to make him afraid. What would Elijah, the Tishbite have had to say to a Highland clearance, or such unbridled landlordism as, in the forties, condemned, in the name of rent, a million and a quarter of Irish men, women, and children to death by hunger in the midst of plenty of their own creation ? During the famine Ireland was relatively the greatest food-exporting country in the world ! ^ The Law, as I have said, did not perfect any Utopian t8 THE GOSPEL 01? THE POOR. system. Though founded on abiding principles of Cfi'iity it had to be adapted to the time and circum- stances of its promulgation. For example, a man pecuniarily embarrassed, miglit part with his own in- terest in the soil, but he could not long prejudice the rights of his offspring. Every fiftieth year came the Jubilee, when all land thus temporarily alienated «o/^w5 volais reverted to the kindred to whom it had originally been allotted : — Then shalt thou cause the trump jt of the Jubilee to sound . . . . throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throufjh- out all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof ; it shall be a Jubilee unto you ; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and every man unto his family. — Levit. xxv., 9, 10. Thus, on the Great Day of Atonement, did the shivering blast of the Jubilee trumpets periodically annihilate in Israel all the monstrous evils of landlordism and landlessness which innearly every country threaten modern " civilization " with disaster if not destruction. Nay, so vigilant was the Law to maintain the principle of equal possessory rights in the soil, that it made ample provision for redemption before the year of Jubilee, should the ex-possessor, by himself or friend, be able so to redeem : — If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it : Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus to the man to whom he sold it ; that he may return unto his possession. — Levit. xxv., 25, 26, 27. The rationale of the Jubilee is thus lucidly explained by Flavins Joseplius in his " Antiquities " : — *' When the Jubilee is come which denotes Liberty, he that sold the land and he that bought it meet to- gether and make an estimate on one hand of the fruits gathered, and on the other of the expenses laid out upon it. If the fruits gathered come to more than the expense laid out, he that sold it takes the land again ; THE GOSPE'f OF THE POOR. 29 but if the expenses prove more than the fruits, the present possessor receives of the former the difference that was wanting, and leaves the land to him ; and if the fruits received and the expenses laid out prove equal to one another, the present possessor relinquishes to the former holders,'* 30 Tlili GOSPEL OV THE POOR. No. VI. "THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS." From the time of fbe first reputed murder, according to the Jewish Bible, down to the present, this question of avarice has, more than all other things, been at the root of evil and crime, ignorance and unspeakable suffering. — Rev. James Macdonald. This, in a word, is the " labour problem." The 'Church" must squarely take the side of labour against capital — not, iiideed, the side of ?he "working man" against the -'capitalist" — but the side of Iribour, labour of hand, or head, or heart, against the power of capital, tlie money power, the power to corrupt, to bribe, to unman the power which reduces "men ' to the level of " things," makes merchandise of all sacred human ministries. The "World" very frankly and flistinctly subordinates "man" to "mammon," and is governed by its "commercial interests." The Church ought to accept the challenge, ought just as frankly and distinctly to subordinate mammon to man, and ought to be governed by purely " human and divine i.'.terests." This is the kind of " Socialism " that I freely and gladly f)rofess. — Rev. Charles Ferguson, Syracuse, U.S.A. It is said of the Catholic Madame Guion, that she met in her vision an angel bearing a furnace and a pot of water. "Whither goest tliou ? " she a^.ked. "I go with this furnace to burn up i'aiadise, and with this water to quench Hell, that men may here- afier love God without fear and without hope of reward." The farm which fell by lot to each Hebrew family on the occupation of Canaan, it has been estimated, ex- tended to about twenty acres, and this possession, as has been seen, tlie Mosaic institution of the Jubilee rendered inalienable in the posterity of the original allot- tees. Every fifty years Jehovah, the sole Lord of the Soil, resumed ownership ot the entire land, and re-granted each group of offspring its ancestral domain. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 3I The constitution was thus periodically renovated according to its first principles, and private landlordism, with its inevitable train of human miseries, nipped in the bud. Every man in Israel might sit under his own vine and fig-tree, with none to make him afraid. In the Greek and Roman world it was very different. There, no year of Jubilee was known, and land monopoly speedily divided even the free citizens into two bitterly hostile camps — the patricians and plebeians — the pre- cursors of the ** classes " and " masses " of to-day. How sad and hopeless the oft-quoted words of Pliny : '• Great estates (latifundia) have ruined Italy and the Provinces as well." The evil consequences which Moses prevented by the institution of the Jubilee, our wise agriculturists, in conference assembled, lately sought to undo by " protection " and *' bimetallism " ! And hardly less remarkable than the Jubilee was the Seventh or Sabbatical Year: — And six years thou shalt sow the land and gather in the increase thereof; But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow ; that the poor of thy people may eat ; and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vine- yard and thy olive yard. — Exodus xxiii., 10, 11. In those primitive days there was of course no such thing as " scientific farming." The plough was rudi- mentary in form, and manuring and crop-rotation were little, if at all, understood. Consequently the " year of rest to the land " was a wise provision to prevent exhaustion of the soil. But what is most significant is, that in the six years of ploughing, sowing, and reaping, the Hebrew yeomen should have been able to store up enough to keep them and theirs in comfort for a whole year without making any demand on the soil whatever, the spontaneous fruits of field and orchard being the portion of the poor. Conceive of the producers of this country being able every seven years to take a twelve months' holiday ! And yet, with just laws controlling the production, and still more the distribution of wealth, there is no 32 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOS, reason why we should not have our Sabbatical Year as well as those for whom Moses legislated over three thousand years ago. Even in ancient Collectivist Peru, if the best authori- ties are to be believed, production was 2L\v!a.ys four yean ahead of consumption. With us, alas, in this horrible swelter of competition, which is the mainspring of our so-called '* civilization,'' life (for all honest producers at least) has become so utterly a hand-to-mouth affaif that it may justly be described as the Universal Same Qui Pent; and I entirely agree with John Stuart- Mill, when he says : — " If the bulk of the human race are always to remain, as at present — slaves to toil in which they have no interest, and, therefore, feel no interest — drudging from early morn till late at night for bare necessaries, and with all the intellectual and moral deficiencies which that implies — without resources either in mind or feeling — untaught, for they cannot be better taught than fed ; selfish, for all their thoughts are required for themselves ; without interests or sentiments as citizens and members of society, and with a sense of injustice rankling in their minds, equally for what they have not and what others have — I know not what there is which should make a person of any capacity of reason concern himself about the destinies of the human race." ** Untaught, for they cannot be better taught than fed!" True; and Moses, as will be seen, recognised the fact. He made the Sabbatical Year, when physical industry was relaxed, the occasion for a large measure of mental activity and instruction. The nation was sent to school : — And Moses commanded them saying : At the end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of release, in the Feast of Tibet- nacles. When all Israel is come before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this Law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, the men and the women and the littit; ones, and the stranger that is within :hy gates, that they may hear and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God and observe to do all the words of this lawj THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR 3^ And that their children, who have not known, may learn, and fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it. — Deut. xxxi., 10-13. Now, it is to be observed about this Law that it was a compendium relating to matters of purely mundane interest. There is not a breath of otherworldlincss about it. It is concerned with history, biography, economics, sanitation, taxation, the administration of justice, the conduct of war, and a great variety of other topics ; but not one word is said about the immortality of the soul, or any system of rewards or punishments after death. All the sanctions of the Law affect the living alone. It was things secular that were sacred. Indeed, as Mr. Fred Verinder lately put it, in the Church Refoymev, in a searching series of articles on " The Bible and the Land Question," the '* subjects '' are " exactly comparable to those discussed in our Sunday newspapers and at the Sunday meetings in working men's clubs, to the great dissatisfaction of those who profess the most reverence for the Law which made the study of all these ' secular ' matters a sacred duty, and provided the weekly rest-day and the Sabbath- Year in order to set men free to study them." Jehovah inspired alike artizan and husbandman. The prophets had no monopoly of divine inspiration : — And the Lord spake unto Moses saying : See, I have called by name Bezaleel, the son of TJri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass. And in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood to work in all manner of workmanship. — Exod. xxxi., 1-5. Give ye ear, and hear my voice. Doth the plowman plow con- tinually to sow ? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches and scatter the cummin, and put in the wheat in rows, and the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in the border thereof ? For his God doth instruct him aright, and doth teach him. — Isaiah xxviii., 23-26. Here we have the true and broad as opposed to the c 34 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. thousand false and contracted theories of Revelation. The deft mechanic, or tiller of the soil is as truly inspired of God as ever was prophet, priest, or savant. Their functions are equally, if not more, sacred. "This also Cometh forth from Jehovah of Hosts whose counsel is miraculous, and His wisdom great." Just as we are only beginning to grasp the true import of Christ's mission, so are we only as yet groping after a correct rationale of Revelation. But the Sabbatical Year brought with it something more than a cessation from husbandry. It cancelled the personal debts of the poor, just as the Jubilee restored his land to the mortgagor. At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release : Every creditor shall release that which he hath lent unto his neighbour ; he shall not exact it of his neighbour or of his brother, because the Lord's release hath been proclaiiTTcd. Howbeit, there shall be no poor with thee ; for the Lord will surely bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it, if only thou diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all this commandment. — Deut. xv., I. 2.4, 5. Such then was the main feature of the Mosaic Poor Law. The more fortunate neighbour was bound to lend to the less fortunate, and if the latter could not repay him when the Sabbatical Year came round, the loan was blotted out. Not to lend to the needy, even on the eve of the year of release, was a " sin " ; to lend was to be blessed. Beware that there be not a base thought in thine heart, saying, the seventh year, the year of release, is at hand ; and thy eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou give him nought ; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee. Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be greived when thou givest unto him, because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy work, and in all thou puttest thy hand unto. — Deut. xv., 9, 10. The problem of how best to relieve the necessities of the poor must always cry aloud for solution wherever *' private property" is an institution, and the processes of production and distribution are left to competition instead of co-operation. Now, the Hebrew commanity. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 35 with every safeguard against abuse, was constituted on an Individualist basis, and poor there consequently were to be cared for. But poverty was not treated as we pre- tended Christians treat it. The poor were not thrust into workhouse bastiles and treated like criminals to the loss of all self-respect and manhood. They were Jehovah's poor, and it was the duty of every well-to-do neighbour not merely to minister to their immedia-te wants, but to encourage them by sympathetic counsel, the only kind of help that is really serviceable in the end — the help that enables the unfortunate, the weak, or the erring to help themselves. It is most creditable to the Hebrew race that to this day, in their world-wide scattered communities, they are the faithful custodians of their own poor. 36 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. VII. ••THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS." That which is called the Christian Religion existed among thft ancients, and never did not exist from the planting of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already subsisted, began to be called Christianity. — St. AUGWSTINE. Many things are called Christianity — a name dear or hateful, aa you define it one way or another ; often it means repeating a liturgy and attending church or chapel ; sometimes it means burning men alive ; in half the United States of America it meant kidnapping enslaving men and women. The greatest heroism of our day spends itself in lanes and alleys, in the haunts of poverty and crime, seeking to bless such as the institutions of the age can only curse. If Jesus of Nazareth were to come back and be Jesus of London, I ttunk I know what (negative and positive) work He would set about. He would begin a new Revolution of Institutions, applying His universal justice to the causes of all ; but also an Angel of Mercy, palliating the effects of those causes, which could not be at once removed or made null. — Theodore Parker. Thy Kingdom Come. — Matthew vi., io. Did the Mosaic Constitution recognise the institution of slavery ? Most commentators assume that it did ; but if such were indeed the case, slavery as it was in Israel and as it was among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, or Carthaginians, differed not merely in degree, but in kind. A Hebrew servant or slave, unless he were a thief unable to make restitution, was seemingly his own vendor. And just as he could part with his patrimony in the land only for a term, so only for a term could he " sell " himself to another : — And if thy brother be waxen poor with thee, and sell himself to the@, thou shalt not make him to serve as a bond servant; THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 37 As an hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with thee ; he shall servo with thee until the year of Jubilee ; Then shall he go out from thee, he and his children with him and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are My servants whom I bronght forth out of the land of Egypt ; they shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigour ; but shalt fear thy God.— Levit. XXV., 39-43. Nor is it difficult to divine the reason for this peculiar contract of sale. With few exceptions, the entire nation was made up of husbandmen and herdsmen. Consequently, if a citizen parted with his interest in the soil, for however brief a space, his means of subsistence were gone, and his best course would naturally be to serve another, say, the mortgagee of his farm, till the advent of the Jubilee. The ordinary term of service, however, seems to have been for six years, and not till the Jubilee : — If thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou lettest him go free from' thee, thou shalt not let him go empty : Thou shalt furnish him liberally out Of thy flock, and out of thy threshing floor, and out of thy wine press ; as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee shalt thou give unto him. It shall not seem hard unto thee when thou lettest him go free from thee ; for to the double of the hire of an hireling hath he served thee six years ; and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest. — ^Dbut. xv,, 12, 13, 14, 18. A poor Hebrew selling himself to a wealthy " stranger " or non-naturalised citizen needed not to wait till the Jubilee for release if he or his could redeem him : And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of Jubilee; and, the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall he be with him. If there be yet many years, according to them shall he give back the price of his redemption out of the money he was bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year of Jubilee.t hen he shall reckon with him ; according unto the years shall he give back the price of his redemption.— Levit. xxv., 50, 51, 5a. If the slave or servant was aggrieved by the treat* 38 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. ment to which he was subjected, he might run away with impunity. Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant who is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best ; thou shalt not oppress him. — Deut. xxiii., 15, 16. Kidnapping was a capital offence : If a man be found stealin.q any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selieth him ; then that thief shall die ; and thou shalt put away evil from among you.— DkUT. XXIV., 7. Such, then, were the leading principles which regu- lated the relations of Labour and Capital among the Ancient Hebrews. They were not perfect, and some of the subsidiary rules laid down seem in places to derogate from them. But for the time and circum- stances in which they took legislative form they were a marvel of humanitarian achievement. The hardness of the Hebrew heart was a thing not easy to overcome, otherwise, a greater than Moses has assured us, they would have been better. The Mosaic Labour Laws at least secured for the man who had temporarily lost control of the means of production on his own account, requisite food, raiment, and shelter, and in addition something like an outfit when his service was ended, and he came again into his patrimony. What would not our own hopelessly toiling, utterly disinherited " wage-slaves " give for the prospect of such a termination of their ceaseless servitude ? What inalienable vine and figtree can they hope to sit under, in their old age, with none to make them afraid f Their vine is the workhouse, and their figtree the public asylum, with heartless officialdom to embitter existence at its close. While their strength lasts they also "sell" themselves for a "price" — the price of one-third of their labour's worth ; but for them, alas, there is neither redemption, seventh year of releascj nor year of Jubilee. And such assuredly will continue to be the sad fate of the toilers until they determinedly resolve to compel THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 39 the Legislature to take a leaf out of the Code of the great Hebrew Lawgiver, and restore to every man Iiis birthright in the soil of his native land. I do not, of course, mean that we are, Moses-wise, to redistribute the land by lot in equal portions among the whole people. That were, indeed, in our complex society, impossible ; for " history " never really, as so often alleged, "repeats itself." Moses discerned clearly that whenever and wherever equality of right in the soil is denied among men, human welfare is rendered im- possible. But he did not, and could not foresee the proper apphcation of the principle in ages then un- born. Accordingly, we must do as he did, adjust theory to existing social surroundings, leaving posterity to do the same. Now, were Moses with us to-day — and Heaven knows we are in sore need of a real Grand Old Man at the helm of affairs — how might he be expected to assert, on God's earth, the equality of every man's right of possession ? Terram, autem, dedit filiis hominmn. As nearly as possible, it seems to me, in the language of incomparable old Thomas Spence, of Newcastle-on- Tyne, who took up his parable against our nefarious system of private landlordism as far back as 1775, and propounded a remedy, which he that runneth may read, and reading, understand, unless he be a hereditary land- lord or a born fool. Spence correctly regarded the Parish Council — even yet the child of promise — as the true unit of social organization ; and this is how it was to solve the bottom question of to-day, the Question of the Land. It is a imique imiUutn in parvo. THE "LAND QUESTION" IN A NUTSHELL. Spence's Plan. " Let all the Parishioners unite, take Archdeacon Paley in the one hand and the Bible in the other, assemble in an adjoining field, and, after having discussed the subject to their own satisfac- tion, enter into a Convention and unanimously agree to a Declara- tion of Rights, in which it is declared that all the land, including coalpits, mines, rivers, etc., belonging to the Parish of Bees, now in the possession of Lord Drone, shall, on Lady Da/, 25th March 18 — 40 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. become public property, the joint stock and common farm in which every Parishioner shall enjoy an equal participation. " The same Declaration shall serve as a notice to Lord Drone to quit possession, and to give up all right and title to all the land, etc., he has hitherto possessed, to the people of the said Parish of Bees, on or before the above-mentioned day, for ever. "And it may be further declared that on Mid-summer Day en- suing, all the rents arising from the lands, mines, rivers, coal pits, etc., belonging to the said parish, instead of being paid as hitherto into the hands of Lord Drore or his Steward, shall be paid into the hands of a Parish Committee or Board of Directors, who may be appointed for that purpose, after being duly elected by a respect- able majority of the whole Parish ; and that, after the national, provincial, and parochial governments are provided for out of the rents thus collected, the remainder maybe divided into equal shares among all the Parishioners — men, women, and children, including Lord and Lady Drone, and all the little Drones belonging to their family— and the like division to be made on every succeeding quarter day for ever." What were the Hebrew worker's hours of daily toil ? Were they many ? We cannot tell ; but in the aggregate they must have been surprisingly few. One Bible Cyclopedia authority, who has gone into the matter, calculates that, what with the weekly Sabbath, the Sabbatic Year, the Jubilee Year, the Feasts of Trumpets, Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, and minor holidays, the Hebrew " slave " (who fully parti- cipated in them all) must have had nearly half the year to himself! He assisted, moreover, at the national banquets with the rest, and shared with the poor the spontaneous crops of the Sabbatic Year. Nor did the Law refuse its protection to the " stranger." Towards him, as to the native poor, com- passion and charity were specifically extended : — Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. — Exod. XVIII 9. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 4X No. VIII. ••THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS." When properly looked at, Interest is seen to be branded with absurdity on the face of it. It is a law of mechanics that we cannot get any more out of a machine than we put into it ; but with this machine called Interest, it is assumed that by putting in a definite quantity at one end we can grind out unlimited returns at the other. Robbery is only possible on condition that there are some who honestly labour. Increase the relative number of those who live upon theft and you decrease in a corresponding ratio the number of those who live by their honest exertions, and whose joint efforts alone make thieving impracticable. This is precisely the case with Interest, yet while the machinery of the law is employed to suppress the one it encourages the other. — A. W. Raymknt. Usury (alias Interest) bringeth the treasure of a realm into few hands for the usurer being at certainties and the other at uncer- tadnties, in the end of the game most of the money will be in the box, and ever a State flourisheth when wealth is more equally divided. — Francis Bacon, Some persons imagine that Usury obtains only in money, but the Scriptures, forseeing this, have exploded every increase, so that yoB cannot receive more than you gave. — St. Jerome. Lend hoping for nothing again. — Jesus Christ. The keynote of the Mosaic legislation, it has been seen, was every man his own landlord, or rather, every Man the tenant of the Lord. The land could only be temporarily alienated. In the year of Jubilee it in- evitably reverted to the mortgagor or his offspring. The misfortune or misconduct of the former, could not be visited on the latter. Similarly, the seventh or Sab- batic year cancelled all personal debts, and personal 42 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. service to another was likewise restrained by the year of release (the seventh) and the year of universal emancipation or Jubilee (the fiftieth). By these means the inspired Hebrew Lawgiver did all that foresight could do to prevent his people from at any future time, sinking into poverty, and the servitude which poverty inevitably entails. But in nothing was the profound wisdom of Moses' legislation so conspicuous as in his absolute prohibition of Usury or Interest, the most subtle and terrible scourge with which mankind has ever been afflicted. If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor, neither shall ye lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbour's garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him by that the sun goeth down. For that is his only covering ; it is his garment for his skin ; wherein shall he sleep ? And it shall come to pass when he crieth unto Me that I will hear; for I am gracious. — Exod. xxii., 25, 26, 27. When the collective wisdom at St. Stephen's comes to deal with the enormities of our pawn-broking system — and it is surely high time — by which the poor are so unmercifully fleeced, perhaps some spiritual lord in the Upper House will be good enough to preach a short homily to noble lords on the above text. A delicate al- lusion to the inconvenience of having one's lawn sleeves in pawn might point the moral and adorn the tale, albeit they are not an *' only covering." But Moses did not confine his attention to the operations of the humble pawnbroker. He had his eye on the Rothschilds, Vanderbilts, and Jay Goulds. Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother, usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury. — Dedt. XXIII., 19. If thy brother be waxen poor and fallen into decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him, yea thougVi he be a stranger or a sojourner that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, norland him thy victuals for increase. — Levit., xxv., 35, 36, 37. _ Needless to say, the Hebrews in time shamefully violated these Statutes, and do still notoriously violate THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 43 them ; but heavy indeed has been, and, peradventure, will yet be their punishment. The Continental Europe of to-day is practically owned by their financiers, who proclaim war and make peace as best suits their un- scrupulous avarice. Nor has this nation any exemption from their nefarious machinations. The inexpiable guilt of the Egyptian war must primarily be laid at the door of the Hebrew Usurers, the Rothschilds, Oppen- heims, and Goschens to wit. Our Grand Old Man and his Liberal Cabinet, were but as putty between their dexterous manipulating fingers. It is not as Jews but as callous usurers that the Russian Hebrews are now being persecuted. The miserable Muscovite peasant, the most kindly and hospitable creature in the world, is not in the least stirred to intolerance by race-hatred. It is usury- hatred that incites him to the deeds of barbarity so much deplored at the Mansion House. For my own part, though also, but not likewise, deploring the out- rages that have been committed, I must confess that I consider them, if not justifiable, at least perfectly natural, and to be expected in such a poverty-stricken land as Russia. Every country in Mediaeval Christendom bitterly persecuted the Jews for essentially the same reason as they are to-day being harried in the dominions of the Czar. Edward I., " the English Justinian," in 1278, hanged 280 of them in the city of London, then, comparatively speaking, a mere village, for the crime of Usury, and when they proved themselves hopelessly incorrigible, expelled the whole fraternity from the realm. The usurper Cromwell, for his own sinister ends, permitted them to return, but they must not imagine that the New Democracy has the same sym- pathy with *' Usury," and ** Increase," as the fleecing middle-class which has since then governed the destinies of this great nation. The honest Hebrew toiler will be cordially received by the British Democracy, when at last it comes into its kingdom, and be treated in every respect as a brother, but the whole tribe of professional Usurers deserve to, and, probably, after due warning, 44 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. will, be visited with expulsion. Their own prophets have duly admonished them of the consequences of such inveterate misconduct. Thou hast taken usury and increase, and thon hast greedily gained of thy neighbour by extortion, and hast forgotten Me sayeth the Lord. Behold, therefore, I have smitten Mine hand at the dishonest gain which thou hast made. Therefore have I poured out Mine indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath ; their otm way have I recompensed upon their heads, sayeth the Lord. — Ezekibl XXII., 12, 13, 31. Nor is there wanting precedent for timely repentance and reformation in Holy Writ. All that is needed is another Nehemiah to convince the most hardened Rothschild or Goschen of transgression. Then I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I held a great assembly against them. And (I said unto them) I likewise, my brethren and my servants do lend them money and corn on usury. I pray you, let us leave off this usury. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day their fields, their vineyards, their olive yards, and their houses ; also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them. Thus said they, we will restore them, and will require nothing of them ; so will we do even as thou sayest. Then I called the priests and took an oath of them, that they should do according to their promise. Also I shook out my lap and said, So shall God shake out every man from his house and from his labour that performeth not this promise 1 even thus be he shaken out and emptied. And all the con- gregation said Amen, and praised the Lord. And the people did according to this promise. Nehemiah v., 7, 10, ii, 12, 13, 14. But Nehemiah's short way with usurers though in itself most commendable and instructive, is obviously inapplicable to the complex economic relations of to- day. Since the so-called " Reformation " in the reign of Henry VHI., when Usury first ceased to be a crime in the eye of the law, the evil has grown to such enormous dimensions that we can no more hope to •• shake out " or " empty " it generally, than we can hope to restore the land to the people by re-enacticg I THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR» 45 the Mosaic Jubilee. Were it the Jew alone that we had to deal with, another Nehemiah, or "English Justinian" might well enough be equal to the occasion. But the respectable Christian banker, mortgagee, and dividend- monger is a harder nut to crack. In spite of the explicit injunction of the Master, " Lend, hoping for nothing again," not even the principal, the professed disciples of Christ rival those of Moses in the pursuit of usurious gain. They hope for everything again that can pos- sibly be wrung from the toil of their fellow-men, and they have shamelessly prostituted both religion and economic science to justify their insatiable avarice. But they have been found out, and the time will come when usurer and landlord — they are twin brethren — will be overwhelmed in a common condemnation. Money-rent (Usury) will some day be as intelligible and as execrated by the ** masses " as land-rent and house-rent. Did I say they were twin brothers ? Nay, they are related as father and son, and the latter cannot long survive the former. Replying to Aristotle's famous argument against usury, that it must be regarded as sordid and unjustifiable, inasmuch as money put aside cannot pro- duce money, John Calvin thus lucidly traced the iniquity to its source, and I beg every reader to weigh well his words : " It is undoubted that money does not produce money ; but with money land is bought, which produces more than the returns for the labour applied to it, and which gives a surplus income to the proprietor, after all expenses of wages and other things have been met. With money a house can be bought bringing a rent income. Objects with which things can be bought, pro- ducing INCOMES BY THEMSELVES, CAN CERTAINLY BE CONSIDERED AS BRINGING INCOMES BY THEMSELVES." Such, then, is the simple solution of the mystery of the origin of Usury which has befogged the intellect of nearly every expounder of the " dismal science " from the author of the *' Wealth of Nations " down to the " Prophet of San Francisco." 46 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. And now for the remedy. It will be found in " Spence's Plan " of Land Restoration laid before the reader in the last chapter. Calvin, it is noteworthy, places house-rent and land-rent in the same category as things, purchaseable with money, that produce incomes by themselves. To stifle the Usury-fiend, therefore, we must not merely abolish private property in the soil, but in everything that adheres to it, be it house, railway, mine, factory, or workshop. With collective ownership of all these monopolies every door will be closed in the face of the usurer. His vast *' interest " will sink to zero or below it. " Profitable investments " will be at an end, and the Jay Goulds, great and small, cease from troubling. The Amazons and Missisippis of usury will be lost in the ocean of wages. For the first time in the history of mankind, the slave of toil will be (he master of the situation. THE GOSPEL OF THb. POOI* 47 No. IX. THE USURER— ECRASEZ L'INFAME. Some persons imagine that Usury obtains only in money, but the Scriptures, forseeing this, have exploded every increase, so that you cannot receive more than you gave. — St. Jerome. The heathen was able by the light of reason to conclude that a Usurer is a double dyed thief and murderer. We Christians, how- ever, hold him in such honour that we fairly worship him for the sake of his money. Whoever eats up, robs and steals the nourish- ment of another, commits as great a murder as far as in him lies, as he who starves a man or utterly undoes him. Such does a Usurer, and sits the while safe on his stove when he ought to be rather hanging from the gallows. Little thieves are put in the stocks. Great thieves go flaunting in gold and silk. Therefore is there on this earth no greater enemy of man, after the devil, than agripe-n>oney and Usurer. — Martin Luther. Usury has always caused the ruin 'of States where it has been tolerated, and it was this disorder which contributed very much to subvert the Constitution of the Roman Commonwealth, and to give birth to the greatest calamities in all the provinces. — Rollin " Ancient History." Among economists, Henry George may to day be regarded as the prime defender of Usury. The author of " Progress and Poverty *' is a good and able man, and the New Democracy owes him much, but I have never been able to fathom his attitude on this momentous issue. One ot his very best compositions is a pamphlet on " Moses " as a legislator; and, strange to say, he is entirely silent on the great Hebrew Lawgiver's explicit anti-Usury enactments ! '* Hamlet," with the Prince of Denmark left out, were a trifle to that. 48 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. After a convincing refutation of the defensive grounds taken up by other pro-Usury economists, he proceeds to define his own position, which is in brief this : — " It is true," he says, " that money will not increase if put away. It only claims interest, because it can be ex- changed with other kinds of wealth which claim interesti as for instance wine, which improves in quality, and bees, sheep, hogs, and cattle which increase in number." &c. Let us consider the wine illustration. According to the taste of the great majority of wine-drinkers, wines, if well looked after, do undoubtedly improve up to a certain date. After that they deteriorate and turn to vinegar. Now suppose the wine is sold in due season, is there any increase of value beyond that which pays for the rent of the cellar, the labour of bottling, the risk of breakage, fire and thieves ? Yes, there is added the Usury which the capitalist! might in the interval have had by investing in land or other related monopoly, condemned by Henry George. Instead of a cause we have only an effect, and so it is with all his other illus- trations. Herr Flurscheim, in his masterly but some- what involved work, ** Rent, Interest, and Wages," thus lucidly refutes the Prophet of San Francisco " :— " If I have ;^ioo worth of goods of any description, with which I can purchase a piece of land, bringing £^ worth of rental income, I should certainly be a fool if I lent this ;^ioo in money or goods of any kind to any- body unless he paid me at least £'^ a year for the privi- lege of getting the use of my capital during that time. '•Here we have in a few words the answer to the question where the real origin of Interest is to be found. Not because old wine has by natural causes obtained an increase of value beyond that added by labour, storage, rent, etc., do we obtain the higher price, but because the same capital invested in land purchase would have brought a certain rent. When, instead of purchasing land with his money, our wine merchant bought new wine with it, hi had to add to thfi cost of his wine the rent he sacrificed*^ THE GOSPEL OF THE FOOR. 49 But land, though the original source of incomes obtained without work, is not the only one. All railway, canal, gas, water, bank, insurance, and such like "securities" are sinks of Usury in which the poor ar^; helplessly engulfed. Some short time ago, it will be re- membered, a single, " share " in the London New River Water Company was sold, for ^95,000. The correspond- ing value of the reservoirs, tubes, etc., could not exceed, say, ;^i 0,000. That was the ym/ capital. The remaining ;^85,ooo was the spurious capital, consisting of the monstrous water-rate tribute, which the purchaser bought the privilege of extorting from a given popula- tion of unresisting victims for a prime necessary of life. But, outside the land monopoly, the most infamous source of usury is unquestionably the so-called "National Debt." There the whole of the capital is absolutely spurious. The real capital consisted of the gunpowder and the lead which " Sovereigns and Statesmen " expended so liberally about a century ago in attempting to murder Liberty on the Continents of Europe and America. Our War-Debt is the most stupendous monument of human crime and folly in existence ; and worst of all, the " butcher's bill " has already been paid by the unhappy toilers thrice over in Usury. We hear a great deal about the " Funds," and are apt to beheve that it must be a place where national treasure is kept ; but the " Funds " are nowhere except in the workers' pockets, out of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer contrives annually to fish them to the tune of ;^26,ooo,ooo for the behoof of the " Classes." When this pretended debt was contracted, the country w,as in the remorseless grasp of the most unscrupulous oligarchy known. Out of 658 members of the House of Commons 306 were returned by 159 persons, mostly peers! And yet the unhappy" Masses" are to be mulcted eternally by reason of the crimes of a hand- ful of defunct miscreants, who can by no stretch of imagination be regarded as related to them, even by 50 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. ties of ancestry ! Whatever are Burns and Hardie about that they do not move the immediate repudiation of this outrageous and most C7;mational Debt ? Such, however, is Usury, and it is with this crying iniquity that the " Classes" have cunningly contrived to enmesh the provident toilers by the wicked device of Post Office and Trustee Savings Banks. And now, in case some of my toiling readers may not be convinced that they ought, on no account, to participate with the "Classes" in usurious investments, let me reproduce the following narrative from Hosmer's "The Jews" (Story of the Nations Series), the moral of which is that " he should have a long spoon who sups with the devil," a Rothschild, or other professional trafficker in " the accursed thing." — " On the memorable iSth of June, 1815, the sharp eyes of Nathan Rothschild watched the fortunes of Waterloo as eagerly as those of Napoleon or Wellington. He got into some shot-proof nook near Hugomont, whence he peered over the field, saw the charge before which Picton fell, the counter-charge of the Inniskilleners and Scots Greys, the immolation of the French Cuirassiers, the seizure of La Haye Sainte at the English centre, the gradual gathering of the Prussians, and at last the catastrophe, as the sunset light threw the shadow of the poplars on the Nivelles-road across the awful wreck, and the ' sauve qui pent ' of the panic-stricken wretches arose, who fled in the dusk before the implacable sabres of Blucher. When the decision came, the alert observer cried exultingly; 'The house of Rothschild has won this battle ! ' Then, mounting a swift horse, which all day had stood saddled and bridled, he rode through the short June night at a gallop, reaching, with daybreak, the shore of the German ocean. The waters were tossing stormily, and no vessel would venture forth. The eager Jew, hurrying restlessly along the shore, found a bold fisherman at last, who, for a great bribe, was induced to risk his craft and himself. In the cockleshell, drenched and in danger of foundering, but driving forward, the THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 5I English coast was at length gained, and immediately after, through whip and spur, London. " It was early morning of June 20th when he dropped upon the capital, as if borne thither upon the enchanted mantle of the Arabian Nights. Only gloomy rumours, so far, had reached the British world. The hearts of men were depressed and stocks had sunk to the lowest. No hint of the truth fell from the lips of the travel- worn but viligant banker, so suddenly at his post in St. Swithin's-lane. Simply, he was ready to buy Consols as others were to sell. With due calculation, all appearance of suspicious eagerness was avoided. He moved among the bankers and brokers, shaking his head lugubriously. 'It is a sad state of affairs,* his forlorn face seemed to say ; ' what hope is there for England ? ' And so his head went on shaking solemnly, and those who met him felt confirmed in their impression that England had gone by the board and that it was, perhaps, best to get away in time before the French advanced guard took possession of the city. But he bought Consols, for some unaccountable reason, and his agents were in secret everywhere, ready to buy, though a panic seemed to be impending. So passed June 20th — so passed June 2ist. On the evening of that day the Exchange closed, and the chests of Nathan Meyer were crammed with paper. An hour later came galloping into the City the Government courier, with the first clear news of victory. London flashed into bonfires and illuminations. The Exchange opened next day with everything advanced to fabulous prices. In the south corner, under a pillar which was known as his place, leaned the operator so matchless in swiftness and audacity. His face was pale, his eye somewhat jaded ; but his head, for some reason, had lost its unsteadiness. His face, too, had lost i ts lugubriousness, but had a dreamy, happy ex- pression, as if he beheld some beatific vision. The little gentleman had made ten millions of dollars.' "Had made" (!) had stolen, by a well-acted lie, ;^2, 000,000 from the bank of human misery. Was he 52 Tim GOSPEL OF THE POOR. punished for the fraud ? Not a bit. He was honoured as "a good business man," and "Hved happily ever afterwards." His descendants are in the peerage, and flourish everywhere like green bay trees ; and there is probably not a speculator on the Stock Exchange to-day who would not applaud the transaction, and exclaim : " Well done, thou good and faithful servant ! " And, worse and worse, out of the vast legion of mercenary *' clergy of all dominations," I doubt if there could be found half a dozen who would venture to address their congregations in the language of old Arch- bishop Sands : " This canker (Usury) hath corrupted all England. It has become the chief chaffer and merchandise of England. We shall do God and our country good service by taking away this evil. Repress it by law, else the heavy hand of God hangeth over us and ^"ill Strike us." THE GObPEL OF THE POOR. 53 No. X. THE USURER A3 INSURER. It is undoubted that money does not produce money ; but with money land is bought, which produces more than the returns foi the labour applied to it, and which gives a surplus income to the pro- prietor, after all expenses of wages and other things have been met. With money a house can be bought bringing a rent income. Objects with which things can be bought, producing incomes by themselves, can certainly be considered as bringing incomes by themselves. — ■ John Calvin. As the sole landowner, the sole proprietor of the fountain of all material existence — the possession of which entails the right of levying a tribute from all the inhabitants equivalent to all their earnings beyond their legitimate wages, and even more if found necessary — the State with such a power would always have been the greatest capitalist in the land, so far exceeding all others in the magnitude of her wealth, that instead of ever having to borrow, she would have become the principal lender. She would have been en- abled to build the railroads and canals from her own capital, and so gas and water works, etc., would have been built by the community. — Michael Flurscheim. In the last section we left Nathan Meyer Rothschild gloating over the ;^2, 000,000 he "made" out of the carnage of Waterloo. Not all the vultures that hovered over that stricken field combined, were actuated by so fell a purpose as Nathan. They could but rend the bodies of the slain who were at rest ; Nathan took measures to spoil and enslave unborn generations of his fellow men. To what use did he put his plun der ? Did he spend it in the purchase of articles of consumption? No. Did he buy new tools of production with it? No, Did he simply hoard it ? No. 54 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. Had he done any one of these things the workers would not have been enthralled by him in their present house of bondage. Nathan knew better. He " in- vested " his plunder in such a way as to give it per- petuity, nay, unlimited fecundity. He made it the safe basis of innumerable future robberies. He proceeded to "operate" on the Stock Exchange, which is but another name for what, in less pharisaic days, would have been called the slave market. " Stocks," when analysed, in nine cases out of ten, simply mean the right to squeeze tribute out of workers who are nominally *' free." By far the greatest part of what is set down as national *' Capital " is merely slave flesh- and-blood. If all monopolies, including the father of them all, private land-ownership, were to be abolished to-morrow, Mr.GifFen'spompous tables of national wealth would assume very modest dimensions. With the usurers' tribute-rights over the toilers swept clean away, we should have nothing left but the real capital of the community, viz., the roads, canals, railways, embank- ments, drainage and irrigation works, etc., the whole of which we owe to human industry past and present, with the precious and powerful aid of science and art. It is the peculiarity of the millionaire — Rothschild or any other — that he always deals by preference in assured tribute-rights which he knows he will have the whole power of the State to enable him to extort from the toilers. In France alone — peasant-proprietary France — the Rothschilds own 800,000 acres. The Austrian Rothschild owns, in Bohemia chiefly, more land. Government bonds, mortgages, mines, oil wells, etc., than the Emperor. Such " investments " give no employment to anybody. They consist of transferred tribute- rights. The "property" is property in slaves. An analysis of the " fortune " of J. D. Rockefeller, the American millionaire, made in 1890, showed that out of 117 million dollars which the good man was "worth," 100 millions, at least, consisted of capitalised tribute-rights- Standard Oil Company Shares, railway monopolies, gas THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 55 monopolies, and the like, every dollar of which was false, fictitious, and spurious capital. In the American Republic the Usurer has done his fell work even more efficiently than here, and in the best instructed circles there is nothing but a fearful foreboding of social catastrophe. Mr. Thomas G. Shearman of New York, an eminent lawyer and statistician, makes the following calcula* tion : There are in the United States to-day — 70 men possessing more than 37,500,000 dols^ 90 „ „ ,, ,, 11,500,000 ,, 180 „ ,, ,, ,, 8,000,000 ,, 135 „ ,, ,, ,, 6,800,000 ,, 1,755 »> „ n M 2,300,000 ,, 6,000 ,, „ ,, ,, _ 1,250,000 ,, The wealth of the Republic is estimated at 65,000,000,000 dollars, and one half of this grand total is owned by 35,000 individuals out of a population of 65,000,000. Fifty years ago there was but one millionaire in the United States ; but then beggars, tramps, and " unemployed " were equally scarce. Slavery is far more rampant in America now than it was in ante bellum days, and, with singular foresight, Abraham Lincoln, when he emancipated the blacks, predicted that such would be the case. He saw that the dire monetary necessities of the Government had, for the first time, delivered the Republic over to the money-power, helplessly bound hand and foot ; and he groaned in spirit to think of the inevitable misery which the Usurers' yoke would im- pose on his country. But there, as here, there is a shaking of the dry bones of democracy, and a more and more settled conviction that, outside Collectivism, pure and simple, and the con- sequent extinction of all tnbute-rights, the usurer must remain the master of the situation, and the unhappy worker be bought and sold by him on every Stock Ex- change in the world. I have dwelt longer on this Usury question than I had intended : but it is so vital, and the effects of its subtle poison on the body social are so imperfectly understood, 55 Tllli GOSPEL OF THE POOR. that almost no amount of iteration is without justifi- cation. I shall now conclude, however, with a fcAV words regarding the Usurer as Insurer. The Insurance Office is, next to the Bank proper, the greatest and most dangerous of the usury dens. Especially so are all those Life Offices in which the workers are prone to take out policies. But let us look at the ways of the very best of them, those that are never tired of flaunting in our faces their enormous Reserve Funds, Bonuses, &c. Under the present system of life insurance a person aged thirty, who *' lives out his expectancy," will have paid (at existing rates and including 4 per cent, com- pound interest) nearly ;i<f2, 000 for a life policy of ;^i,ooo. He may at times get what is called a "bonus" added to his ** claim," but that is only a portion of the excessive premium he has been charged. It is a sort of office " conscience money," for which the insured owes the same sort of gratitude as the traveller owes to the robber who strips him of his clothes, but considerately leaves him his shirt. When a man insures his life he makes a sort of ghastly bet that he will die prematurely, and so cheat the insurance office. The office, on the other hand, bets that the insured's days will be long in the land ; and that, in old age, or in consequence of misfortune or improvidence, he will no longer be able to keep up his premium-payments. The insured has but one chance against the office's two, and the second of these is a factor regarding which he is entirely in the dark. The adult death-rate per thousand every office is careful to set forth. It does not exceed thirteen or fourteen per thousand per annum. But what of the percentage and the aggregate amount per annum of policies forfeited by reason of supervening poverty on the part of holders ? Docs any office divulge that little secret ? I trow not. If it did it might as well put up its shutters. Nevertheless, we have it on the authority of the Institute ot Actuaries, that in a given term, " claims " were to " lapses " as 72,162 to 176,330 ! THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 57 In i8gi the Mutual Life of New York rejoiced in 14,645 " lapses " against 3,462 " claims " ; while another American Office did even better, "scooping" 18,637 "lapses" to 3,931 "claims." I am, of course, an advocate of a complete system of Old Age State Pensions; but, assuming that life insurance is commendable, what about the monstrous Premium Rate that prevails ? If the Death-rate is 13 or 14 per thousand, Death Claims (exclusive of the cost of management) ought clearly to be met by annual premiums of ;^i3 or ;^i4 per ;^iooo. Yet the Average Premium Rate of British Life Offices is from £^0 to £\o pev amium. What is the result ? In 1890-91 the twenty leading British offices paid in Death and Endowment Claims ^^6,155, 388, and received in Premiums and Interest ;^i 1,535,686, or nearly twice their disbursements! The surplus of Premiums and Interest over Claims was ;^5.58o,298! The British Life Offices have now accumulated out of surplus premiums and interest the stupendous sum of ^216,500,000, and are, without exception, unredeemed sinks of Usury. Their vaunted Reserves, their hand- some Dividends, and their palatial mansions have all been coined out of the sweat and tears of toil. In the United Kingdom alone they have ^93,000,000 out on mortgage ! What chance has the widow or orphan against the Men of Belial, who have set up these high places of Insurance in the land ? Truly does " he require a long spoon who would sup with the devil " of Usury. 58 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. XI. ••THE L.\W AND THE PROPHETS." Thou hast embarked, thou has made the voyage ; thou hast coitte to the shore ; get out. If, indeed, unto another Hfe, there is even then no want of Gods ; but, if unto a state devoid of sensation, thou wilt cease to be held of pains and pleasures. — Marcus Aurelius. Come now, therefore, remove this fear of death, and bring as many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt soon per- ceive how great tranquility and calm are in that reason which is the ruling faculty of the soul. Thou must be absolute. Thou must be absolutely resigned to the will of God. Thou must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. — Seneca. The days of the nations bear no trace Of all the sunshine so far foretold ; The cannon speaks in the teacher's place— The age is weary with work and gold. And high hopes wither and memories wane ; On hearths and altars the fires are dead ; But that brave faith hath not lived in vain And that was all that our watcher said. I have now dealt with the main features of the Mosaic Legislation from the economic point of view. It insti- tuted a system of rigorously restricted IndividuaUsm. It strove to strangle the rent-fiend by making every Hebrew his own landlord. It prohibited interest or "usury," and anathematised projit or "extortion." It made generous provision for the "poor," the " stranger," and the "sojourner." The " servant " or Avorker had nearly half the year to himself in Sabbaths, Sabbatic years. Jubilees, etc. The very ox was not to be muzzled while treading out the corn. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 59 Moses, it is clear, recognised the difficulty perhaps even the certain impossibility, of raising a structure of complete social equality and justice on an Individual- istic foundation ; but every other was then out of the question. At any rate, he did his best to impose all manner of checks on the evils that inevitably flow from the Individualist principle. He tried to secure for his people the benefits of Collectivism under the forms of Individualism, and for that purpose sounder rules could not have been laid down. They are for their time a miracle of wisdom and humanity, and, indeed, would be a vast improvement on any laws affecting the econ- omic welfare of the " masses " on our own statute book to-day. Our Social system is, alas ! also Individualistic, but Avithout any of the prudent restraints and limitations imposed by Moses on private greed, The laws fabri- cated at Westminster intensify, and are meant to in- tensify, every evil which the Hebrew Lawgiver strove to repress or nullify. The land is " sold in perpetuity." Usury is encouraged, not forbidden. Profit or inequit- able exchange is blessed, not cursed. •' The Rich Man's Club at St. Stephen's " is merely a committee of Pluto- crats — rentmongers, interestmongers and profitmongers — assembled for the purpose of safeguarding the spoils which the "classes" have theftuously contrived to heap up. And the despoiled " masses " look on like men dazed or indifferent. Nay, they even vote for the ** six hundred and odd scoundrels," as O'Connell, in a moment of extraordinary veracity once called the " faithful Com- mons," and thus actively assist in rivetting the fetters of their own servitude. Or worse even, were that possible, to keep their fleecers in secure possession of their ill-gotten gains, our Tommy Atkmses are ever ready, at any moment, to silence possible discontent among their mates not in scarlet and buttons, by the invincible argument of the Gatling gun. Nor is the toiler in blue far behind the toiler in red 60 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. in his zeal to protect the " rights of property " (of which he has none, or none worth mentioning), as witness for us " Robert's" memorable feats in Trafalgar-square on •' Bloody Sunday." If Pharoah had been cute enough to recruit his army and police force from the ranks of Hebrew toil, Moses, you may be sure, would have found the task of leading the Israelites out of the house of bondage one of immensely increased difficulty. Paley, albeit an Archdeacon, understood the mechan- ism of modern British society perfectly. Here is a pic- ture he draws, and it is not flattering either to the in- telligence or the manhood of the nation : — " If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn, and if (instead of each picking where and what it liked, taking just as much as it wanted and no more) you should see ninety-nine of them gathering all they got into a heap ; reserving nothing for themselves but chaff and refuse ; keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps worst, pigeon of the flock ; sitting round and looking on all the winter, whilst this one was devouring, throwing about, wasting it ; and if a pigeon more hardy or hungry than the rest, touched a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly flying upon it and tearing it to pieces ; if you should see this, you would see nothing more than what is every day practised and established among men. Among men you see the ninety-and-nine toiling and scraping together a heap of superfluities for one (and this one too, oftentimes the feeblest and worst of the whole set, a child, a woman, a madman, or a fool) ; getting nothing for themselves all the while, but a little of the coarsest of the provision which their own industry produces ; looking quietly on, while they see the fruit of all their labour spent or spoiled ; and if one of the number take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others joining against him and hanging him for the theft." One reason — and it is, perhaps, the chief — why the British toilers have come to act with such irrational servility, is the persistency with which the *' clergy of all denominations " have taught that the life here is nothing, Till! GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 6l and the life hereafter everything. Had Moses started in the " sky pilot " line of business, he would assuredly never have piloted the Israelites through the Red Sea and across the arid Desert beyond. It was not " man- sions in the sky," but " a land flowing with milk and honey," that he promised to the Children of the Exodus. Unlike the clerical tribe, who so frequently ignorantly appeal to Iiis authority : " He preached no future worlds of pain or bliss To cheat the weak and rob the poor in this." Jehovah was a present God — I AM, not I WILL BE. On the immortality of the soul Moses was simply silent. He was in no way afflicted by the " Selfishness of Sal- vation," the spiritual malady from which so many good Catholics, Protestants, Buddists, and Theosophists suffer so grievously. Of the life beyond the grave the Hebrew Law-giver would probably have said with the Roman Stoic, *' that is Jupiter's affair not mine." But that he should have entirely ignored the subject is beyond measure singular, especially when we considei that he was " learned in all the learning of the Egyp- tians." Of what that learning essentially consisted it is im- possible to say, as its depositaries, the priests, de- liberately taught two doctrines, an exoteric for the uninitiated vulgar, and an estoric for the aristocracy of intellect. To the inquisitive thinkers of Greece, they contemptuously said, ** Ye are children," and, like Mrs. Besant, kept their occultism to themselves on the plea that the mere Huxleys or Tyndalls of " material plane " science might injure themselves or others by improper applications. It is not improbable that Moses was an honest democratic " Mahatma," who, in his Code, fearlessly embodied the secret Monotheistic doctrine taught only to the select few by the juggling priests of Ra Ptah, Hesiri Hes, and the awful Ma-t. In like manner it is quite credible that Moses was taught by these occultists to regard with contemp ■ everything enjoined in their gruesome " Book of the 62 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR, Dead ; " that both sarcophagus and mummy availed the departed nothing ; and that the awesome Silent Judgment Hall of the Two Truths was but a cunning fiction, designed, as Burns said, was '• the fear o' hell," merely as a " hangman's whip to keep the wretch in order." But over exoteric, uninitiated Egypt, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul exercised a most degrading and pernicious influence, as it has always done, and always will do, if left to professional priests and pre- rogatived rulers to manipulate. The Egyptian's greatest passion in life came to be the preservation of his body after death. Duty to the living was forgotten in care of the dead. Moses apprehended the full extent of the evil, and took effectual precautions against any outburst of mortuary idolatry in his own case. The magnanimous leader died unattended and in solitude. So Moses, the Servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him [or he was buried] over against Bethpeor, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. — Dkut. xxxiv., 5, 6. This protest against otherworldliness in its crudest form, on the part of Moses, is all the more significant when it is recollected that the Hebrews were even then carrying back to ancestral soil the bones of Joseph, who had been dead for several centuries. But if Moses neither affirmed nor denied the im- mortality of the soul, it is certain that later teachers did not remain neutral on the subject. They confidently denied, and it was not until a period of the greatest national suflering and degradation was reached, that the idea of a life of after-death compensations took serious hold of the Hebrew mind. Even in the time of Christ, the respectable, conservative Sadducee remained incredulous. But that Christ clearly but cautiously announced to man his immortality there can be no doubt. He did not, however, like St. Paul, with his somewhat lame logic, argue a question which is in its nature unarguable. He simply revealed this transcendant truth in the words: 1 i THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 63 " I am the Resurrection and the Life." With similar directness He said to the thief on the cross: "This night shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." {Hac nocte mectim in Paradiso esto.) But He vouchsafed no details beyond the very general assurance that "in My Father's house there are many mansions." And there can be no doubt that, when we consider the vile purposes to which designing men in confessional, inquisition, and pulpit have put His assurance of immortality, He dis- closed quite as much as was good for mankind. What- ever directly, or indirectly, tends to compete with the ideal Kingdom of God on Earth does not assuredly qualify for celestial mansions. It is not difficult to apprehend why so many of the old Hebrew writers combated the notion of personal immortality. It was not the individual Hebrew, but the Hebrew nation, that was the object of Jehovah's care. It was Israel that was immortal. It was only as component members of the entire community that individual Israelites could come into relations with their Deity, and I AM was peculiarly the God of the living. At death the weak and pithless shade enters the realm of Sheol, where oblivion reigns supreme : — For to him that is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die ; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward ; for the memory of them is forgotten. As well their love, as their hatred, and their envy is now perished ; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun. — Ecclesiastes ix , 4, 5, 6. There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster. The small and great are there ; and the servant is free from his master. — Job hi., 17, 18 ig. Even the remembrance of God Himself is blotted out : — For in death there is no remembrance of Thee ; in Sheol who shall give Thee thanks ? — Psalms vi., 5. 64 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. For the grave cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee. They that go down to the pit cannot hope for Thy truth. — Isaiah XXXVIII., iS. Eat these melancholy passages, and others even more convincing that might be cited, though they ex- plicitly deny immortality to man, none the less imply that the desin for it was in the hearts of the writers. And it was this vague and hopeless longing that Christ, who came to fulfil, and not destroy the Law and the Prophets, satisfied when he declared : •' I am the Resurrection and the Life." HIE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 65 No. XII. "THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS." Whence thinkest thou Kings and parasites arose ? Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap Toil and unvanquishable penury On those who build their palaces and bring Their daily bread ? From vice — black, loathsome vice— From rapine, madness, treachery and wrong ; From all that genders misery, and makes Of earth this thorny wilderness ; Irom lust Revenge and murder. — Shelley. And as at first the Conqueror did by violence and force deny that freedom to the people which was their natural right and privilege, so he and his successors all along lay as bars and impediments to the true national interests and public good, in the very national councils and assemblies themselves, which were constituted in such a manner as most served for the upholding of the private interest of their famihes. — Sir Harry Vane. O thou that sea-walls sever From lands unwalled by seas I Wilt thou endure for ever, O Milton's England these ? Thou that wast his Republic, Wilt thou clasp their knees ? These royalties rust-eaten, These worm-corroded lies That keep thy head storm-beaten, And sun-like strength of eyes From the open air and heaven Of intercepted skies I — Swinburne. The economic sections of the Mosaic Constitution having been discussed, it remains to speak briefly of lliose juucly political. What was the foivd of govern- 66 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. ment which found favour in the sight of Jehovah ? A Republic, Federal and Democratic. In the Hebrew Republic or United Tribes of Israel the principle of local autonomy was carried to the utmost limit. There was no bond between the Twelve Tribes or Commonwealths during the period of the RepubUc, except that dependent on the common worship of Jehovah and the observance of His written Law. Moses, it is true, was assisted by a Senate or Council of Seventy Elders, and it is possible that at the great religious festivals, which were virtually " con- gregations" or parliaments of the nation, the authority of some such body was generally recognised, as was certainly the Sanhedrim after the Babylonish Captivity. But as the abomination of a standing army was not permitted, its authority, like that of the Judges or Pre- sidents that from time to time ** arose " to ward off foreign aggression, must have been chiefly of the moral order. If one of the States were assailed, the fighting men or militia of the others were in duty bound to arm in its defence. Beyond this, and payment of a national tax of two-tenths for the support of the Levites or literary class and provision for the public sacrifices and ban- quets, there was no inter-State obligation. The compiler of the Book of Judges, though incor- porating in his text historic matter of high authority, did not live till the sixth century before Christ, and his narrative leaves out many details aflfecting the adminis- tration of the Republican State, which it would have been of interest for us to learn. But the aim of the Republic was peace, not war, and history, as we know, chiefly concerns itself with the crimes of " Sovereigns and Statesmen." When every deduction is made, however, for intermittent sufferings under a foreign yoke, nearly three centuries of uneventful national happiness must be set down to the credit of the Federal Republic, and Dean Milman, now esteemed a some- what belated authority, is justified in holding ; ♦' If the Hebrew nation did not enjoy a high degree of intel- i THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 67 2ectual civilization, yet, as simple husbaudmen, possessing perfect freedom, equal laws, the regular administration of justice, cultivating a soil which yielded bountifully, yet required but light labour ; with a religion strict as regards the morals which are essen- tial to individual, domestic and national peace, yet indulgent in every kind of social and festive enjoyment — the descendants of Abraham had reached a higher state of virtue and happiness than any other nation of the period." Now for the fatal change which, in the days of the Prophet Samuel, the last and greatest of the Judges, converted the peaceful Republic into a warlike Monarchy. The Elders came to the venerable Chief of the State and said ; ** Make us a King to judge us like all the nations." And they had their wish under solemn divine protest that in choosing a King they were rejecting God Himself: — And the Lord said unto Samuel : Now therefore hearken unto their voice ; howbeit thou shalt show them the manner of the King that shalt reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a King, and he said : This will be the manner of the King that shall reign over you ; he will take your sons, and appoint them unto him for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and they shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint them unto him for captains of thousands, and captains of fifties; and he will set some to plow his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the instruments of his chariots. And he shall take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive- yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take a tenth of your seed, and ol your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliebt young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your flocks ; and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall call out in that day because of your King which ye shall have chosen you : and the Lord will not answer you in that day. — I. Sam., viii., 9-18. Now, therefore, stand still and see this gre^t thing, which th" Lord will do before your eyes. 68 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. Is it not wheat -harvest to-day ? I will call unto the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain ; and ye shall know and soe that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a King. So Samuel called unto the Lord ; and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day ; and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel : Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we die not ; for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a King. — L Sam., xii.. 16-19. To pen a more vivid description of Monarchy than is here presented were impossible. It is applicable to the institution wherever and whenever it has been tolerated, and the Israelites were not long in feeling its baneful effects. Their first King, Saul, repeatedly violated the Con- stitution, and, like so many modern crowned heads, intermittently went mad. David, it is clear, was both a grossly self-indulgent and negligent ruler, otherwise it is inconceivable that his son Absalom should have been able to head so very formidable a rebellion against him. As for the " glory " of Solomon, it was the offspring of oppression unknown before in the annals of the nation. He was an oriental despot of the worst type, and the true effects of his own and his father's rule on •' the condition-of- Israel question " are to be found in the insurrection of Jeroboam. That democratic leader had been compelled to seek refuge in Egypt in Solo- mon's reign ; but he returned at his death, with what results we know. Jereboam " and all the Congregation of Israel " demanded of the new Monarch, Rehoboam, a redress of national grievances as the condition of their allegiance: — And the King answered the people roughly, saying : My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke ; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. And when all Israel saw that the King hearkened not unto them, the people answered the King, saying. What portion have we in David ? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse ; to your tents, O Israel. — I. Ki.\gs, xii., 13, 14, 16. The nation split into two kingdoms, and the breach was never healed. The divinely-constituted Home THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 69 Rule Republic had preserved the national integrity for probably four centuries and a half; three monarchical reigns sufficed, permanently, to disrupt it. Calamity followed calamity, until at last the frightful maledic- tions pronounced by Moses against the stiff-necked royalty-ridden race, were startlingly realised by the Hebrews in full measure. The Lord shall bring thee and thy King, which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers ; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb and a by word, among all the peoples whither the Lord shall lead thee away. Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be thine ; for they shall go into captivity. The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flieth ; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand ; a nation of a fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land ; and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of thy foot. — Deut. xxvni. 36, 37, 41, 49, 50, 52. 64, 65. But the internal misery which the Monarchy brought on the Israelites has a deeper meaning for us, and for all Monarchical Europe, than the complete external ruin. The Prophets who stood up so manfully for the democratic principles of the old Republic were not slow to note the infinite social woes which Hebrew Royalty, according to prediction, brought in its train :^ The Lord will enter in judgement with the Elders of his people, and the Princes thereof. It is ye that have eaten up the vineyard ; the spoil of the poor is in your houses ; what mean ye that ye crush my people, and grind the face of the poor, saith the Lord. — Isaiah hi., 14, 15. Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers that write perverseness ; to turn aside the needy from judgment and to take away the right of the poor of my people that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey! — Isaiah x., i, 2. The author of the magnificent drama of Job, who tttE COSPEL of tHE POOft. wrote about the end of the seventh century before Christ, thus sets forth in words that burn the sufferings of the land-robbed poor of his day, begotten of the monarchical regime : — 2. There are that remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed them. 3. They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widows Ox for a pledge. 4. They turn the needy out of the way ; the poor of tho :earth hide themselves together, 5. Behold, as wild asses in the desert they go forth to their work, seeking diligently for meat ; the wilderness yieldeth them food for their children. 6. They cut their provender in the field, and they glean the vin- tage of the wicked. 7. They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold. 8. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter. g. There are that pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor. 10. So that they go about naked without clothing, and being an hungred they carry the sheaves. — Job xxiv., 3 — 10. After a somewhat similar recital of oppressions the Prophet Amos (790 b.c.) asks, what the awakened con- science of England is asking to-day, ** Shall not the land tremble for this ? " THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR, 7t No. XIIT. •<GIVE US A KING."— Sam. vni., 6. William came over the sea With bloody sword came he. Cold heart and bloody hand Now rule the English land.— Snorro's Saga. Still press us for your cohorts, And when the fight is done. Still fill your garners from the soil That our good swords have won. Still like a spreading ulcer That leech-craft may not cure. Let your foul usance eat away The substance of the poor.— Macaulay's LavP. God said I am tired of Kings, I suffer them no more ; Up to mine ear the morning brings, The outrage of the poor. My angel, his name is Freedom, Choose him to be your King ; He shall cut pathways east aud west, And fend you with his wing. I break your bonds and masterships, And I unchain the slave ; Free be his heart and hand henceforth As Wind and wandering wave. — Emerson. There is nothing more remarkable in Jehovah's deal- ings with the Israelites than the fact that they were permitted to break His law, if such was their wish. If they desired to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good 72 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. and evil, let them eat and abide the consequences. A King they would have, and a King they got, to their lasting confusion and ours. Christ, it is true, abolished the godless institution, root and branch, when He enjoined on His followers : The Princes of the Gentiles bear dominion over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them, hut among you (Christians) it shall not be so. He that would be greatest among you let him be the least, let him be the servant of all. But being Christians only in name, we care nothing for the Master's plain admonition, and like the Jews of old will have Kings to reign over us. And even in countries that are ostensibly Republican it is much the same. In the United States, for example, the President's privileges are enormous. He is, in point of fact, what among German Republicans is called Ein Konig im frack — a King in a dress coat, and an enormous influence for evil in the Republic. We tried a Republic once ourselves in these islands, with a similar result. We beheaded Charles Stuart, the King, but hastened to set up in his place Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. Nothing was changed but the name. If the Monarchy of Queen Victoria were to be set aside to-morrow, a Gomarchy of some sort would almost certainly take its place. Christ said : My service is perfect freedom ; but we will have none of it. Guelphs and Grand Old Men are the Gods of our demented adoration. Among the Jewish Kings, in whose favour the Israel- ites ** rejected " Jehovah that He " should not reign over them," were a few whose careers seem not wholly unworthy ; but among our own crowned heads not one that may not, without exaggeration, be described as criminal. Norman William, the Conqueror, and his sons who successively succeeded him, William Rufiis and Henry I., cut off by the sword and famine, it has been calculated, one-third of the entire English people, and divided the whole soil of the country among them- selves, and the bandits who aided them. What a commentary have we here on the words of THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 73 the Lord to Samuel touching the manner of the King that should reign over the infatuated Israelites : And he (the King) will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. — I. Sam. vhi., 14. Not content with the "best of them" the Conqueror and his cut-throats practically took all of them. Before they set sail from Normandy they procured a map of England with every castle and manor carefully indicated, and, by anticipation, divided the vast spoil among them on paper. And this robber compact, as if to justify the proverbial honour that is said to obtain among thieves, was afterwards executed with scrupulous fidelity. Nor was that all. It is in force to this day, with a whole Hereditary Chamber of the Legislature (the House of Landlords) to see that from generation to generation it shall fail in no jot or tittle. Five hundred hereditary Peers to-day own one-fifth of the soil of the whole country. For liberty — a very restricted liberty — to till this goodly domain they levy on the cultivators a private tax called Rent of more than fourteen millions sterlings per annum. Public taxa- tion is inquitous enough and crushing enough, but as compared with this monstrous system of private tribute wrung from the landless multitude by the landed few, it is what the late Lord Beaconsfield would have called a •• flea-bite." All the same, the system is of the very essence of " law and order." What then can be said ? '* The prophets prophesy falsely ; by them the priests bear rule ; and my people love to have it so." But these evils, it may be said, are the natural out- come of the despotic military Monarchy which they have outlived, and not inherent in the institution as such. What of the benign Constitutional Monarchy of Queen Victoria ? Well, let us see. Foolish people in the South often grumble because of the Queen's alleged partiality, and that of her late husband, for the Highlands of Scotland ; but they little know how glad we Scotsmen would be to see the last of her and hers on Deeside. From first to last the presence of Royalty 74 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. at Balmoral has been an unmitigated curse to the country. From the moment the Prince Consort set the example of deer-stalking, deer-preserving, and deer-foresting, that quadruped became ^^a^, while the unfortunate biped man became correspondingly cheap. The Court set the fashion, and every wealthy " Society " snob, or would- be " Society " snob, must have his deer-forest or shoot- ing-box, in as close proximity as possible to Royalty, at whatever cost. Need we wonder then at the de- population of the Highlands, which is even now going on under the eyes of the nation almost with impunity ? I can just remember the cry of alarm that went up, led off by the Tunes, at the most critical moment of the Crimean War. " Where are our brave Highlanders ? " Where ? Why, banished by whole clans almost to the snows of Canada, the Australian bush, and the slums of Glasgow, to make room for the more profitable sheep and deer. It was not polite then to let the truth be known, for the war was a war of the " classes," whose also was the work of depopulation, and sheep and deer could not well be sent out to fight the Russians. And he (the King) will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your menservants and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. — I. Sam., viii., 13 — 16. To war, land-grabbing, and the chase — the pastimes of Kings and aristocrats and the ruin of nations — the heavy burden of wasteful luxury and its purveyors, the "confectionaries, the cooks, and the bakers" of the text, must be added. Mr. Alexander Wylie, in his " Labour, Leisure, and Luxury," calculates that !tj this country the enormous sum of ;^4oo,ooo,ooo per annum are spent in downright superfluities. Of this criminal waste Royalty and the Rich (7 per cent, of the population), to whom Royalty is as the sun in the firmament, are responsible for ;^37o, 000,000, or 92 per cent, of the whole; while 36 per cent, of the entire work done in the country is absorbed in this scandalous fashion. The COSt»EL OP THE POOR. ^5 Yet tht doom of Prince, Peer, and Plutocrat is fixed and the vindication of the Poor is determined in the counsels of the God of Righteousness : — 7. Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung : They which have seen him shall say, Where is he ? 8. He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found. Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night. 9. The eye which saw him shall see him no more ; Neither shall his place any more behold him. 10. His children shall seek the favour of the poor, And his hands shall give back his wealth. 11. His bones are full of youth, But it shall lie down with him in the dust. 12. Though wickedness be in his mouth, Though he hide it under his tongue. 13. Though he spare it, And will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth ; 14 Yet his meat in his bowels is turned ; It is the gall of asps within him. 15. He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again ; God shall cast them out of his belly. 16. He shall suck the poison of asps ; The viper's tongue shall slay him. 17. He shall nci look upon the rivers. The flowing streams of honey and butter. x8. That which he laboured for shall he restore and shall not swallow it down ; According to the substance that he hath gotten, he shall not rejoice. 19. For he hath oppressed and forsaken the poor ; He hatb violently taken away an house, and ha shall not build it up.— Job XX, 7 — 19. I 76 THE GOSPEL OF THE POORo No. XIV. THE PROPHETS. On earth of all deeds that are done, O God, there is none without Thee. In the holy aether not one, nor one on the face of the sea ! Save the deeds that evil men driven by their own blind folly have planned ; But things that have grown uneven, are made even again by Thy hand! And things unseemly grow seemly, the unfriendly are friendly to thee! For so good and evil supremely Thou hast blended in one by decre3. For all Thy decree is one ever — a word that endureth for aye, Which mortals rebellious endeavour to flee from and shun to obey. Ill-fated, that, worn with proneness for the lordship of goodly things. Neither hear nor behold, in its Oneness the law that divinity brings ; Wliich men with reason obeying, might attain unto glorious Ufe, No longer aimlessly straying in the ways of ignoble strife. O Father I dispel from their souls the darkness, and grant them the light Of Reason, Thy stay, when the whole wide world Thou rulest with might. That we, being honoured, may honour Thy name with the music of hymns, Extolling the deeds of the Donor, unceasing, as rightly beseems Mankind, for no worthier trust is awarded to God or to man Than for ever to glory with juGtice in the law that endures and is One. — Thomas Davidson : Cleanthcs. It is now time to resume the thread of Hebrew history, and in the fewest strokes possible to bring it down to the days of Christ. Solomon died in the year B.C. 978, and his death, it has been seen, was speedily followed by revolution and the irrevocable disruption of the kingdom. His gilded I THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 77 yoke, which had become intolerable to men who remem- bered the old days of Republican simplicity and freedom, his foolish son, Rehoboam, threatened to aggravate, and forfeited, in consequence, the allegiance of the Ten Northern Tribes. In place of one fairly powerful Monarchy, two fatally weak ones now struggled side by side for a precarious existence. Of the Monarchs both of Israel and Judah almost nothing need be said, except that they were, in nine cases out of ten, tyrants and idolaters of the worst type. But there was a vigorous Democratic Opposition in both kingdoms with which we are more concerned. These were the " Prophets of God " who strenuously kept alive the idea of a Righteous Ruler of the Universe, whose especial care was the poor and oppressed^.. 2nd in Whom there was neither variableness, nor shadow of turning. Prophecy proper had its birth in the days of Samuel. Up to the Eighth Century B.C. the Prophets formed a distinct party in the State, and acted in union. Their guilds materially influenced national politics and were at the bottom of several radical revolutions. They frequently succeeded in removing vicious princes and in changing dynasties. Prophets of the school of Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha differed greatly in character from those of the Eighth and Seventh Centuries b.c, whose words have come down to us. They were men of action rather than preachers or writers. But in one respect they and such noble inheriters of the prophetic spirit as Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah did not differ. All were profoundly pious men who firmly believed that they were directly commissioned by Jehovah to reveal His will to their fellow men. Their ideas were not the offspring of earnest reflection or patient investigation, but of swiftly miraculous intuition. Such intuitions were to them the '• Word of God," and it were hard to And a fltter definition. Prophets, it may be said, were common enough Among othernations of antiquity, besides the Hebrews. True, but there was this difference : Among the Greeks •^8 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. and Egyptians, for instance, the prophetjc function was as closely connected with temple-service as the priestly. The Prophets of Israel, on the contrary, were an entirely independent body of men drawn in- differently from all ranks and occupations of the people. In their criticism they spared neither prince nor priest, and even at times disparaged the temple sacrifices and ritual as matters of indifference. The good revered them ; the evil feared them. But, just as Christianity began to '• fail" the moment It was transformed, or rather deformed, into Churchianity by a paid priesthood, so did the sources of Prophecy dry up when it came to be regarded as a genteel means of livelihood. " False prophets," inspired only by iove of lucre and social status, arose, and the prophetic function rapidly sank in public estimation. So much so was this the case that Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa in Judah (790 — 780 B.C.), boasts that he is neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, that is to say, that he had not been trained in their schools, and did not affect their status. After Amos the schools of the prophets ceased to exist, and the phenomenon of prophecy became sporadic and a source of infinite tribulation to him "to whom the Word of God came." The later prophets were, for the most part, isolated preachers, tar in advance of public opinion, and seldom able to rally even a handful of followers. Yet great has been the influence of these faithful voices crying in the wilderness. Until the times of Amos (B.C. 790), Hosea(B.c. 775-745), Micah(B.c. 757), and Isaiah (circa 757), strict Monotheism can hardly be said to have been taught in Israel or elsewhere. Jehovah, had indeed been the Lord God of Israel, but It was not denied that surrounding nations had their Gods also. Chemosh was the God of Ammon, Milcom was the God of Moab and so forth. The Gods were tribal and territorial. Hence the otherwise inexplic- able proneness of the Hebrews to participate in the vile sensual worship of their Canaanitish neighbours, when they believed they had come within the juris- THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 79 diction or circle of influence of their neighbours' Gods, .\s soon as the Prophets announced that the God of Israel was also the God of all other nations, the solidarity of mankind; Jew and Gentile, was practically affirmed. Jehovah ceased to be a God amon^ Gods, and, though the Hebrew might still patriotically appeal to Him as the Lord God of Israel, He had become much more — He had become the common Divine Inheritance of the human race. When the Son of Man came, He fulfilled the Prophets by expand- ing correspondingly the other term of the relation. For " Israel, the People of God," He substituted «• Man, the Child of God." Dr. Robertson Smith, in his Prophets in Israel, claims for Isaiah the grand distinction of having been the first completely to disassociate religious faith from the bondage and trammels of national forms : — " The circle that gathered round Isaiah and his household in these evil days, holding themselves apart from their countrymen, treasuring the word of revelation, and waiting for Jehovah, were indeed, as Isaiah describes them, 'signs and tokens in Israel from Jehovah of Hosts that dwellethin Mount Zion.' The formation of this little community was a new thing in the history of religion. Till then no one had dreamed of a fellow- ship of faith, dissociated from all national forms, main- tained without the exercise of ritual services, bound together by faith in the Divine Word alone. It was the birth of a new era in the Old Testament religion, for it was the birth of the conception of the Church, the first step in the emancipation of spiritual religion from the forms of political life — a step not less significant that all its consequences were not seen till centuries had passed away.'' The glorious roll of Hebrew Prophets terminated with Malachi, who was a contemporary of Ezra, Nehemiah and the generation of exiles who returned from the Babylonish captivity. From that time the Law took fatal hold on the religious life of the nation, and the quickening spirit of free prophecy was almost 8o THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. crushed out of existence by its deadening weight. As the scribe became a power, the prophet's creative energy waned. God ceased to speak to and through the living soul of man. The Word of God could only be read in parchment rolls, from which the most unwarrantabl* deductions were but too frequently made. THE GOSPEL CF THE POOR. 8l No. XV. THE MESSIANIC EXPECTATION. One's duty is to become first man, then God. — Hierocles. What is loved by us here is mortal and hurtful. Our love is love for an image that often turns into its opposite, because what we loved was not truly worthy of love, nor the good which we sought. God alone is the true object of our love. — Plotinus. My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. — Isaiah. Are not five sparrows sold for tv.-o farthings ? And not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. — Jesus Christ. If God acts in all things, and such action in no way derogates from His dignity, but even belongs to His universal and supreme power, He cannot consider it below Him, nor does it stain His dignity, if He extend His providence to the individual things of this world. — St. Thomas Aquinas. We loved Him because He first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his neighbour, he is a liar. — St, John, Love ! Yes, the whole secret is in that one word. By adding love to the conception of the God of His people, by exemplifying it in His own life, and demanding it in His followers, Jesus accom- plished what had baffled all the wisdom of the Greek sages. Ha restored the moral unity of man, abolished the whole world, and made a new heaven and a new earth. — Thomas Davidson : Aristotle. Religion, as we conceive it, is the relation that exists betweenthe immortal soul of the individual and Supreme Being. But this was far from the standpoint of the 82 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. Old Testament Proplicts. They regarded the indi- vidual as mortal, and the entire Hebrew community as the religious Unit. In the New Testament every believer becomes a child of God ; in the Old Testament it is the nation of Israel that is Jehovah's Son. The distinction is fundamental, and, though very simple, it yet requires no inconsiderable effort of attention to grasp its full significaxice. The surrounding tribes or nations held precisely the same idea respecting the relation between themselves and their Gods as did the Hebrews ; but there was this cardinal difference : Jehovah was a moral, just, righteous and holy God, whereas the deities of the Canaanites were as frail as themselves, or worse. Even the enterprising and intelligent Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon, the maritime pioneers of civilization in the Ancient World, carried the frightful pollution of their worship into the most distant lands which they visited. Their Gods had a two-fold type — male and female. The male was Baal, the female Ashtoreth. They were the productive powers of Nature, and often, in conse- quence, identified respectively with the Sun and the Moon. The feasts held in their honour were all literal expressions of sexuality and sensuality, in which these deities were themselves supposed to delight. No sexual excess, no drunken carousal was other than an act of devotion if performed at the sanctuaries or sacred feasls of the Baalim. Hence the vast superiority of the Hebrew faith over that of every other people of antiquity. Even the Gods of Greece and Rome perished with the States in which they were worshipped for ages. Not so the religion of Israel. Every calamity that be- fell the Hebrew Commonwealth seemed to bestow on it a fresh lease of life, to expand, purify, and exalt it. But it was an affair of very slow and painful develop- ment ; and they err greatly who seek in the Old Testa- ment for too precise previsions of the events and doctrines of the New. Take, for example, the Messianic hope or expectatioa THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. , 83 undoubtedly entertained in some form or other by most of the Prophets. These holy men, it is clear, only saw ** through a glass darkly," and held no uniform views of what the " Christ," the " Anointed One," was to achieve for mankind. They were agreed as to the certainty of "the good time coming," but portrayed the lineaments of the ** Messiah "' in very different, if not positively inconsistent, colours. Amos, Hosea, Zechariah, Micah, and Isaiah sketch the glories of the Coming Day in language of great sublimity and much to the same pur- pose. Jehovah is to reunite the kingdoms of Israel and Judah under a Davidic Prince of noble qualities, on whom His Spirit should be abundantly outpoured. But Jeremiah, a century later than Isaiah, put off the setting up of the Tabernacle of David to a much remoter future, and predicted the carrying away into Babylon and endless miseries antecedent to the return thence. Thereupon Jehovah would enter into a new covenant with Israel: — *' He will put his law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ; He will be their God, and they shall be His people. And they shall teach no more every man his brother saying * Know Jehovah,' for they shall all know Him from the least of them unto the greatest of them ; and Jehovah will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more." Like other prophets, Jeremiah makes a righteous branch of the house of David inaugurate this era by blessing and felicity ; but on that point the wonderful "Second Isaiah," as he is called, an unknown prophet of the captivity period is silent. He strikes a keynote of the most novel and extraordinary character. The Messiah no longer figures as a puissant prince, but as a suffering saviour of mankind. Knappert in his Religion of Israel (Armstrong's translation) writes thus of the Messianic exjiectation of the " Second Isaiah." — " Instead of the ideal put forward by the older Prophets, we find him expressing the expectation that Jehovah would glorify Himself in His ' servant.' Jehovah has chosen this servant to Himself, and for his sake He will be gracious to the whole of IsraeL , But to thut end the 84 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. servant must take the sins of bis people upon himself; being a part of Israel he must bear Israel's diseases, be wounded for Israel's sins and bruised for Israel's iniquities. Then, and not till then, shall the glory of old be restored, and Israel shall have dominion over the heathen. And even these shall be converted by the servant of Jehovah. They shall be witnesses of his patient suffering, they shall hearken to his preaching, and become acquainted with Jehovah, and call upon him as their God. Thus shall the servant of Jehovah be a light to the Gentiles and lead them unto righteous- ness." In the "Second Isaiah," Messianic prophecy cul- minated. Knappert is of opinion that by •' the Servant of Jehovah " the Prophet did not mean any particular individual, but "the religious kernel of the nation" personified. But even were that so, the kernel of the "religious kernel of the nation " was undoubtedly the Man of Sorrows, whether the prophet had an absolutely clear conception of His wonderful personality and career or not. Professor Robertson Smith, in his Old Testament in the Jewish Church, thus pertinently speaks of the human element inseparable from the divine in revelation, and with his wise words I fully agree. " If the Bible sets forth the personal converse of God with man, it is absolutely essential to look at the human side. The Prophets and Psalmists were not mere impassive channels through whose lips or pens God poured forth an abstract doctrine. He spoke not only through them ; they had an intelligent share in the Divine con- verse with them ; and we can no more understand the Divine Word without taking them into account, than we can understand a human conversation without taking account of both interlocutors. To try to suppress the human side of the Bible, in the interests of the purity of the Divine Word, is as great a folly as to think that a father's talk with his child can be best reported by leaving out everything that the child thought, and felt THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 85 *' The first condition of a sound understanding of Scripture is to give lull recognition to the human side, to master the full situation and character and feeling of each human interlocutor who has a part in the drama of revelation. Nay^ the whole business of scholarly exegesis lies ivith this human side. All that earthly study and research can do for the reader of Scripture is to put him in the position of the man to whose heart God first spoke. What is more than this lies beyond our wisdom. It is only the Spirit of God which can make the Word a living word to our hearts, as it was a living word to him who first received it." 86 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. XVI. AFTER THE CAPTIVITY. He that does good to another man does also good to himself, not only in the consequence, but in the very act of doing it ; for th'j consciousness of well-doing is an ample reward. — Seneca. A noble heart will disdain to subsist like a drone upon others' labours ; like a vermin, to filch his food out of the public grauciries ; or like a shark to prey upon the lesser fry. — Barrow. You are no sister of ours ; what shadow of proof is there ? Here are our parchments, our padlocks, proving indisputably our money- safes to be ours, and you have no business with them. Depart ! It is impossible ! Nay what wouldst thou thyself have us do ? cry indignant readers. Nothing, my friends — till you have got a soul for yourselves again. Till then all things are impossible. — Carlyle. Unless institutions are souled by earnest and capable men tliey have no more chance of earnest and beneficent activity than dead bodies have of climbing mountains. — Peter Bayne. Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his. — Habakuk II.. 6. I desire that all my brethren should labour at useful occupations, that one may be less of a burden to the people. Those who cannot work let them learn to work. The lukewarm, and those who do not work sincerely and humbly, v/ill be rejected by God. — St. Francis d'Assisi. In order to understand the Chiist and Ilis IMessage to Mankind, it is necessary, in some measure, to realise the condition of the society into which He was born. It was a society on which conquest by foreign nations had worked great changes. The carrying away into THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. ^J Babylon (b.c. 597) by Nebuchadnezzar brought the Jews into intimate relations firstly with the Chaldeans, and secondly, when Babylon was taken by Cyrus (b.c. 538), with the Persians. These great Oriental Powers, as well as the Hebrews, had their Wise Men, their Religions, their Scriptures, and it was not possible that they should fail to impart to the Jewish exiles some portion of their own spirit and vieAvs of life. For some reason or other Cyrus was remarkably gracious to the Jews whom he found in Babylon. They may have helped him to capture the city, or he may have been struck by the similarity of their religion to his own. Anyhow, he permitted them to return to their own land, under the leadership of Zerubbabel, of the Davidic line, and Joshua, grandson of the last Hi^h Priest. But, though many returned, others elected to remain, and between the remnant and their brethren in Palestine a constant intercourse was kept up. One notable result was the adoption into the Hebrew ritual of the Persian Feast of Purim. From the Persians the Jews, to a very large extent, acquired their ideas about "angels" and "devils." In the older ante-Persian theology Satan takes his place in the Council of Heaven with the other Ministers of Jehovah. He is the accuser merely, a sort of public prosecutor whose function it also is to execute the judgments of Jehovah on erring men. The Satan of Job has a poor opinion of human nature, but he has no personal animus, so to speak, against the Man of Uz. It is Jehovah that brings evil on individuals and communities. Amos (in., 6) asks pointedly: "Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it?" But after the Captivity, Satan entered on what, in Spurgeonic phraseology, may be called the " down grade." He appears as the Creator of evil, and no longer the Minister, but the powerful adversary of Jehovah. He assumes the garb of the Persian Ahriman, and Jewish Monotheism is in peril of being trans- 88 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. formed into Persian dmlism, or the belief in two ultimate powers, Ormuzd and Ahriman. How far the Jews were indebted to the Persians for their notions of personal immortality it is difficult to say. The Tory Sadducee rejected the belief even in Christ's day, whereas the Persians, it is certain, entertained the doctrine from a remote antiquity in the very definite form of the resurrection of the dead. The Temple was rebuilt by the returned exiles (B.C. 516), and the Jews entered on a fresh era of more or less dependent national life, in which the Chiei Priest was the most prominent actor. Under this regime, " burnt-ofiferings," thank-oflferings," " sin-offer- ings," and guilt-offerings " abounded. The theory of the " sin-offering " was that Jehovah accepted the soul of the dumb animal in place of that of the articulate sinner. It helped to deaden the moral sentiment, and indirectly antagonised much that was best in the teaching of the Prophets. Ritualism took the place of inner righteousness. The Law, as modified by Ezra, became the special study of a class of men called " Scribes," or *' Lawyers," who copied it out and explained it to the people. The reading and explanation of the Scriptures took place in the Synagogue or Assembly- hall, an institution that had sprung up in Babylon. Synagogues were erected in every community, and no Jew needed to remain in ignorance of the contents of the Scriptures of his nation. The struggle with the earher and grosser forms of idolatry is now over. In B.C. 332, Alexander the Great entered Jerusalem in triumph, and Palestine became part of his vast dominions. After his death Ptolemaeus, son of Lagos, seized Judaea, which remained subject to Egyyt till B.C. 203. In that year the Seleucidse dynasty who ruled over Syria and Babylon mastered it. In B.C. 175, in the reign of Antiochus the Fourth, the Jews successfully rebellal, captured Jerusalem, and became once more an inde- pendent people. The valiant Judas Maccabaeus (the THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 8g Hammer) with his heroic brothers Jonathan and Simon, was the chief instrument of this surprising dehverance. John, son of Simon, greatly extended the borders of Judaea. He annexed Samaria, Gahlee, and the country of the Idumasans (Edomites). John's son, Aristobulus, assumed the title of King. To him succeeded Alex- ander Janngeus, whose wife Alexandra, surviving him, reigned as Queen till B.C. 70. A bitter feud between Alexandra's two sons, Hyrcanus the High Priest, and Aristobulus, brought the Romans on the scene. Pompey captured Jerusalem b.c. 63, and set up Hyrcanus as King. Antipater, the Idumaean, had greatly contributed to the success of Hyrcanus, but on his death Antigonus, son of Aristobulus renewed the contest. Antipater's son, Herod (surnamed the Great) had married Mariamne, the granddaughter of Hyrcanus. He endeavoured to assert his supremacy, but had to seek safety in flight, B.C. 40. At Rome, the Senate recognized him as King. He captured Jerusalem, B.C. 37, and rebuilt the Temple with unbounded magnificence. Herod had three sons who succeeded to his dominions — Archelaus in Judea, Herod Antipas in Galilee, while Philip ruled beyond Jordan. Archelaus was deposed A.D. 6, and Judaea became Roman teritory. Herod Antipas was banished a.d. 39, and Philip died a.d. 34. The Governor of Syria ruled Judea also, but under him, with head-quarters at Caesarea, was a Judean Procurator, an office filled, a.d. 26-37, by Pontius Pilate, under whom the mighty tragedy of the Crucifixion was enacted. After Pilate's time, the procuratorship Was suppressed, and Judea was fully incorporated with Syria. In A.D. 37 Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, obtained the Transjordanic Principality. To this he added Galilee in 40, and in 41, by iavour of the Emperor Claudius, Judea also. He died a.d. 44, and Rome again asserted her unqualified supremacy. Numerous insurrections followed, until at last, a.d. 6s(5 came a general rising and massacre of the Romans. 90 THE GOSPEL OF Tllli: TOOR. The Jews fought with the utmost resolution, and taxed all the energies of Vespasian and his son Titus, two of Rome's most capable commanders, to subdue them. But the end came at last in the most appalling form recorded in the pages of Universal History. The Temple was given to the flames, the city razed to its foundations, and the Hebrew nation, as such, blotted out. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. QX No. XVII. THE JEWISH SECTS. In Rome every vice flaunted itself with revolting cynicism. — Renan. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. — St. Paul. On that hard Pagan world disgust A(d secret loathing fell, Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell. In his cool hall with haggard eyes The Roman noble lay ; He drove abroad in furious guise. Along the Appian Way. He made a feast, drank fierce and fast. And crowned his hair with flowers — No easier, nor no quicker pass'd The impracticable hours. — Arnold. In order to render unto Cassar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's, we must give to the Emperor the money which bears his effigy, and to God man himself, made in His image. — Tertullian. The character of Christ has been the soul of all philanthropic action in the modern State — has been the dynamical force in all the beneficent agencies in our modern civilization. — Fairbairn. In the year b.c. 332, Alexander the Great entered Jerusalem, and from that date Greek and Gra^co- Roman civilization began to affect Hebrew modes of thouglit just as Persian ideals had formerly done. Indeed, at one time the religion of Jehovah was in imminent danger of effacement. King Antiochug 92 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. Epiphanes, b.c. 167, not without the support of a section of renegade Jews, actually sacrificed in the Temple to a " strange God," probably Jupiter or Zeus, and abolished the observance of the Sabbath and the national festivals. But this was going too fast and too far. The servants of Jehovah rose in stern revolt under Judas Maccabaeus captured Jerusalem, purifaed the sacred fane, and in memory of the event, instituted the annual Feast of the Renewal of the Temple, or Feast of Lights. No sooner, however, was danger from without averted than internal strife set in. The Saducees and the Pharisees came into active conflict. The former were probably so named from one Zadok, of whom nothing is known. The latter — '* Pharisee " means separated — were strict observers of the Law, and to them adhered most of the Scribes whose origin and functions have already been noted. The Saducee was a Conserva- tive Aristocrat, the Pharisee a Puritan or Progressive, who might be rich or poor, so long as he accepted the party principles. In doctrine the Saducee differed from the Pharisee in one vital respect — he repudiated the immortality of the soul, and made light of "angels" and "evil spirits " as latter-day innovations and post-captivity conceptions. The Pharisee, on the contrary, main- tained the resurrection of the dead, and accepted generally the novel ideas set forth in the Apocolyptic {i.e. revealing) Book of Daniel, which the Saducee must have regarded as unauthoritative. In the reign of Alexander Tannaeus (b.c. 105-113), Saducee and Pharisee actually came to blows, and as many as 50,000 Pharisees were slain. In Christ's day the Pharisee was often a hypocrite who ♦' for a pretence made long prayers," but in the main he was zealously religious according to his lights, and demo- cratic in his sympathies. Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Another religious sect, not named in the New Testament, was the Essenes, to whom, some are of THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 93 opinion John the Baptist was attached. Their origin is involved in great obscurity, and even the significa- tion of the word " Essene '' is unknown. They lived in remote villages near the Dead Sea, and, strange to say, though minutely observant of the Law, they took no part in the Temple services, and regarded sacrifices with abhorence. They were total abstainers, vege- tarians, and Communists. Admission to the order involved a noviciate of three years, and the absolute surrender to the Community of all private property. To bear or forge arms was alike forbidden. The stricter Essenes were celibates, but others married like the rest of the world. Prayers were said before sunrise. They then laboured till eleven, when they bathed their bodies, dressed in white linen, and partook of the common repast with song and thanksgiving. They then resumed labour till the evening. The government was by universal suffrage, and the elected were implicitly obeyed. The relation of this pheno- menal and most interesting sect to Christianity has never yet been determined ; but that they were ani- mated by a truly Christ-like spirit is undoubted. Such, then, was the world of Jewish sects into which Christ was born. It was not a lovely society, certainly, but it was not wholly corrupt and degraded like the circumjacent Roman Empire which even before the advent of the Messiah, Judaism had gone some little way to renovate morally. The spread of Christ's Gospel of the Poor among the Gentiles was vastly facilitated by the fact that in every considerable centre emigrant Jews had already established little colonies, with the inevitable Synagogue for the inculcation of the Law and the Prophets. They had colonies at Babylon, Damascus, Antioch, and all through the confines of Asia Minor. They passed into Egypt, Nubia and Ethipia. In Alexandria their influence almost predominated. They settled in Greece and Macedonia, and even as early as B.C. 150, they had secured a footing in the Eternal City. They had learned in captivity that Pales- tine was not the only land flowing with milk and honey. 94 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. They found Paganism nearly ** played out " and a certain readiness on the part of the more intelligent and upright heathen to acknowledge the superiority of Judaism and the unrivalled " righteousness " of its ethical system. Many became proselytes. These were either " Proselytes of Righteousness," or " Proselytes of the Gate." The former undertook to observe all the obligations of the Law ; the latter merely not to take the name of Jehovah in vain, not to worship idols, and not to eat things containing blood. These three Com- mandments were termed Noachic, after Noah, and were held as binding on all men. Of the numerous Mosaic Commandments specially given to the Israelites, the gatemen who sat near the entrance of the Synagogue were expected to observe only two ; viz., to rest on the Sabbath day and to use unleavened bread at the feast of the Passover. But if the influence of Hebrew ideas on the Grseco- Roman world outside of Palestine was not inconsider- able, Greek philosophy re-acted on the religious thought of the Jews correspondingly. Especially was this the case in the great centre of intellectual activity, Alex- andria. It was there that the famous Septuagint or Greek translation of the Old Testament came into use among the Hebrew population that had ceased to speak their own tongue, and there it was that the celebrated man of letters, the Hellenist Jew Philo, a contemporary of Christ, flourished. Philo, though remaining a Jew, was thoroughly im- bued with Greek ideas. He was a voluminous writer, and in his allegorical system of scriptural interpreta- tion is to be found the key to much that is mystical in the beautiful Fourth Gospel. Take, for example, the famous doctrine of the Logos. Philo held that God does not operate directly on matter from which he is eternally separate. With him the Word of God is not merely a spoken fiat. It is the Divine Personified Thought itself. Sundry other Powers, such as Wisdom, proceed from God, but of these the Logos or Word is the greatest. It is, in fact, THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 95 God Himself as He reveals Himself in humanity. Man is Logos and Matter in strife, and it is given to Logos by slow degrees to prevail and to come wholly to God. " In the beginning," writes St. John, " was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God." Further on we read that this Logos, in its Divine plentitude, " was made flesh, and dwelt among us " in the Son of Man, Son of God, the Divine Man, the Carpenter of Nazareth, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, who came to sum up once for all the whole of thd Law and the Prophets. 96 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR, No. XVIII. THE NAZARENE. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord : And shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge after the sij^lit of His eyes, Neither reprove after the hearing of His ears; But with righteousness shall He judge the poor. And reprove with equity for the meek of the earth ; And He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, And faithfulness the girdle of His reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, And the leopard shall also lie down with the kid, — Is.^i.'VH xl., 2 — 6. For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers. Where truth in closest words shall fail. When truth embodied in a tale Shall enter in at lowly doors. And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds. More strong than all poetic thought ; Which he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs the grave, And those wild eyes that watch the wave In roarings round the coral reef. — Tennyson. The tale of Christ's Hfe, as recorded in the four Gospels is either fact or fiction. If the latter, then it is the business of the historian to explain the growth of the legend and be done with it. This is what Strauss THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 97 and Renan, with much learning, have attempted to do, and the results of their labours are before us. To some these seem convincing, to others tl;ey do not. Of the others, I, in all modesty, claim to be one. But were I competent to break a controversial lance with these paladins of unbelief (which I am not), the pages of the Gospel of the Poor would not be the place for so unequal a combat. Suffice it to say that I regard the artless, but vivid narratives of the four Gospels, as genuine first century history, as credible as Caesar's Commentaries, and entirely inexplicable by the " myth " theory or any other hypothesis, except that Jesus was what He affirmed Himself to be, the long- looked for Messiah. The " myth " theory will soon be as discredited as the **sun" theory which preceded it. Twenty Shakespeares rolled into one could not have created Jesus of Nazareth. At the same time it is no reproach to these two great Continental scholars that having started on a wrong track the farther they steered along it the more remote became the haven of truth which they earnestly sought. They have, in point of fact, rendered the cause of Christ, which is the cause of Humanity, a most essential service. Theologians in all ages have been far too apt to magnify the Divinity of the Messiah at the expense of His Manhood. They are perpetually to be found looking for a God hidden away in a human form instead of grasping the far more important truth that the Christ submitted Himself to the hard condi- tions of human existence in their entirety. If He worked miracles for others He worked none for Him- self. Hence it was said of Him as He hung on the Cross, " He saved others ; Himself He cannot save." Christ was, above all things, the Perfect Man, and it is as such that He can best be contemplated. If I were asked to define my own theological standpoint, I should feel disposed to call in the aid of the Poet Burns rather than that of any ecclesiastical authority or professional creed-maker. In one of his letters to Clarinda, the fllustrious Peasant Bard, who was at bottom of a 98 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. sincerely reverent nature, though he remorselessly slew the foul dragon of Scottish Calvinism, writes : — " I will lay before you the outlines of my Belief. He who is our Author and Preserver, and will one day be our Judge, must be (not for His sake in the way of duty but from the native impulse of our hearts) the object of our reverential awe and adoration. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to everlasting life. Consequently, it must be in every- one's power to embrace His offer of ' everlasting life ;' otherwise He could not in justice, condemn those who did not. A mind pervaded, actuated, and governed by purity, truth, and charity, though it does not tnerit Heaven, yet it is an absolutely necessary pre-requisite, without which Heaven can neither be obtained nor en- joyed, and, by Divine promise, such a mind shall never fail of attaining everlasting life ; hence the impure, the deceiving, the uncharitable extrude themselves from eternal bliss by their unfitness for enjoying it. The Supreme Being has put the immediate administration of all this, for wise and good ends known to Himself, into the hands of Jesus Christ, a Great Personage, whose re- lation to Him *we cannot comprehend, but whose relation to us is that of a Guide and Saviour, and who, except for our own obstinacy and misconduct, will bring us all, through various ways and by various means, to bliss at last." This rational, manly and hopeful Credo, I venture to affirm, is consonant with the reason and conscience of mankind, and no theologian, priest, or " mahatma " living could rest belief in the Unseen and Eternal on firmer ground. Burns great compassionate nature reached out even to the "puir deil" : — •• But fare ye weel. auld Nickie Ben, Oh, wad ye tak' a thocht and men', Ye aiblins micht, I dinna ken, Still hae a stake ; I'm wae to think upon yon den, Even for your sake. The Christ was born in the year of Rome, 750. His THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. QQ Advent was very generally expected at the time, and even the Pagan world was strangely affected by the tremor of Messianic hope. For five centuries no prophet had appeared in Israel, when John the Baptist's power- ful voice awoke the echoes of the desert. The Fore- runner was a striking figure, as became his august function. From his youth up he had been a Nazarite, that is to say, one on whose head no razor had ever come and who had never tasted any fermented liquor. His food consisted of locusts and wild honey, while his clothing was of camel's hair. ' * Repent y e ; the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," was the burden of his message. In him was incarnated the spirit of Old Testament prophecy. The multitude was greatly moved by the intense earnestness of his discourses, and the rumour not unnaturally spread abroad that this singular being was He who should come. John at once disavowed any such pretension. " There Cometh One after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. I baptize you with water ; but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." He, John, is only a voice, a witness to the light. *' There standeth One among you whom ye know not. He it is who, coming after me, is preferred before me, for He was before me." At this time Jesus and John were young men, probably in their thirtieth year, and unknown to each other from childhood. The Messiah's career had hitherto been wrapped in obscurity. " The child," Luke tells, " grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him." This would of course strike His mother, though it seems to have impressed few besides. His kinsfolk and the companions of His youth were hardest of all to convince of His Divine mission. Yet, as Irenseus beautifully says, " He sancti- fied childhood by passing through it," in unstained innocence and humility. The veil of his boyhood is but once lifted, when at twelve years of age he astonished the Temple Doctors of the Law by the profundity of the questions he ad* 100 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. dressed to them ; but from that hour to His baptism by John— a period of eighteen years — His record is a strange blank. That event marked the opening of Christ's public career. When He presented Himself to John for the performance of this rite of purification, the Baptist hesita ted. He vaguely felt himself in the presence of the Master, of Him that was to come. " I have need to be baptised of Thee, and cometh Thou to me ?" " Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," was the meek reply. When the ceremony was over and the voice from Heaven had proclaimed in his ears, " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," — then only did it fully dawn on the Forerunner that he was in the actual presence of Him whose speedy advent he had announced in the wilderness. And what more natural than the expression which rose to his lips, " 1 knew Him not." Even Mohammed calls Jesus the " Sinless Prophet." Why, then, it has been asked, should He submit to any symbolic form of purification ? Simply because, as has been said, He accepted without qualification all the conditions of our common humanity, including those peculiar to His time and country. He was a man, and, like other men shared man's spirtual as well as physical needs. Just as He hungered and thirsted so He prayed, and was himself anointed by John for the Divine work of human regeneration on which He was about to enter. Next day John again met Jesus, and, to the two dis* ciples who were with him he bore the solemn testimony, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." When Jesus perished on Calvary, the entire sacrificial system of the Jews became a mean* ingless anachronism. tHE GOSfEL OF tHfi POOR. 10 No. XIX. THE TEMPTATION. Once upo n a time the fishes of a certain river took counsel together and said, " They tell us that our life and being is from the water, but we have never seen water, and know not what it is." Then some among them wiser than the rest, said, " We have heard that there dwelleth in the sea a very wise and learned fish who knowcth all things ; let us journey to him, and ask him to show us water, or to explain to us what it is." So several of them set out upon their travels, and at last came to the sea wherein the sage fish resided. On hearing their request he answered them thus : — Oh, ye who seek to solve the knot, Ye live in God, yet know him not. Ye sit upon the river's brink, Yet crave in vain a drop to drink. Ye dwell beside a countless store. Yet perish hungry at the door.— Sun (Palmer.). In the market place lay a dead dog. Of the group gathered around it, one said, " This carcase is disgusting." Another said, " The sight of it is torment." Every man spoke in this strain. But Jesus drew near and said, " Pearls are not equal in whiteness to his teeth " Look not on the failures of others and the merits of thyself; cast thine eye on thine own fault. — Nizami (Persian). Before passing from the Baptism of Christ to His Temptation in the wilderness, it may be well to glance at the doubt that unquestionably arose in the mind of the imprisoned Baptist, whether after all Jesus was the Messiah, He that should come. From his cell in the gloomy fortress of Machero, in the wild and savage country to the east of the Dead Sea, John dispatched two of his disciples to question Jesus about His mission : — And when the men were come unto Him, they said : John the Baptist hath sent us onto thee, saying, Art thou He that cometh, or look we for another ? 102 THE GOSPEL OP THE POOR. Here at first sight is a singular enigma. When John baptised Jesus he explicitly recognized the Nazarene as the Messiah. Why, then, this note of interrogation ? But John, be it remembered, was essentially an Old Testament Prophet who looked for a speedy and glorious manifestation on the part of Him that was to come. The idea of a crucified or suffering Christ would doubtless have been as staggering to John as it was to the great mass of the Jewish people. His conception of the Kingdom of Heaven corresponded but faintly with that which Jesus actually inaugurated. Christ was neither offended nor surprised at John's misgivings, but His response was conclusive. In that hour He cured many of diseases, and plagues, and evil spirits ; and on many that were bli •'.d He bestowed sight. And he answered, and said unto them : Go your way and tell John what things ye have seen and heard ; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them. — Luke vn., 20, 21, 22. Such were the fruits of the Kingdom of God on earth. The grand distinguishing mark of the Messiah is not even mighty works of healing. It is : '• The poor have the Gospel (glad tidings) preached to them." Whether Christ's reply to John ever reached the Forerunner is not recorded, but it may be permissible to hope that it did, and that it consoled and reassured that ardent and heroic soul in his last moments on eartli. Be that as it may, the tribute which the Messiah paid to John is the noblest on record : And when the messengers of John were departed, He began to say unto the multitude concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to behold ? A reed shaken v.'ith the wind ? But what went ye out to see ? A man clothed in soft raiment ? Behold, they which are gorgeously appareled, and live delicately are in Kings' Courts. But what went ye out to see ? A prophet ? Yea, I say unto you more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written. Behold, I send my messenger before Thy face, who shall prepare the way before Thee. I say unto you among them that are born of women there is none greater than John ; yet he that is but little in the Kingdom of God is greater than he. — Luke vn., 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR, 10^ In Other words, though none exceeded John in moral grandeur, he could not cross the boundary line which separates the moral atmosphere of the Old Testament from that of the New. He groped in comparative dark- ness, and his sun finally went down ere it was yet noon; but the Master's commendation was enough, and more than enough to compensate him for all his suffer- ings : '* Verily, I say unto you, among those that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." John was, in a special sense, the first Christian martyr, the first witness to the New Faith. If we ascribe impeccability to Christ the entire narrative of the Temptation becomes unintelligible. His humanity is no more real. It is an illusion, and being no more like unto us He is no more ours. Truth to tell, Jesus was intensely human, and the real signi- ficance of the story of the terrible spiritual struggle which He endured when He " was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil " appears to me to be this : Up till this period of His career He had led a life of pure instinctive innocence, under the most favourable conditions, in beautiful Galilee of the Gentiles. He now for the first time was brought face to face with the terrible problem which every great soul sooner or later has to settle in the innermost recess of consciousness : Am I to serve myself or my fellow-men, good or evil, God or the Devil ? Instinctive goodness is not un- common, but the goodness of deliberate choice is rare, and it not unfrequently happens that the best natures fare worst in these painful combats of the free will. Corruptio optimi pessima. When Christ was tempted in the wilderness, He was already fully conscious of the extraordinary powers with which He was gifted. Were He but to say, "Evil be thou my good," a dazzling vision of empire and worldly power, pomp, and pleasure at once rose before His eyes. He might as a Great Prince restore the regal glories of David and Solomon, or like another Alexander set about the conquest of the whole earth. The Jews looked for a 104 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. deliverer of the type of Maccabaeus, the Hammer, and mif^ht He not be that Hammer ? We know how Napoleon and even Cromwell acted in like circumstances. They fell. Christ rose, and rose on the same wings of trust in God and Man on which the most degraded may mount above their baser selves. I hold it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in diverse tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to nobler things. The most trying moments of Christ's life were not those spent on Calvary. They were passed at the beginning of His public career in the Judean desett, and, at its close, in the Garden of Gethsemene, when He prayed that, if it were possible, the cup which He was so soon to drain to the dregs might pass from Him. Many martyrs have deliberately expedited their own martyrdom. Not so Jesus. He would gladly have escaped the ordeal of the Cross had there been an alternative ; but as there was none, '• He learned obedience," as it is written in Hebrews, end, unscathed underwent the perilous freedom of moral choice which, in some form or other, awaits all men and nations. Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. In the strife of truth with falsehood for the good or evil side. Some cause God's great Messiah offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right. And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and that light. It is clear that the story of the Temptation in the wilderness is not to be taken literally. The "exceed- ing high mountain " from which all the kingdoms of the world were visible does not exist and never did exist. But the meaning of the vision, or whatever the phenomena of the Temptation may really have been, is plain enough. The Messiah was not tempted as ordinary men are tempted. He was tempted as the Messiah. Would He be God's Messiah or the devil's ? Would He use His miraculous powers on His own account, for His own selfish ends or for the good of all mankind ? " If Thou be the Son of God, command I THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I05 that these stones be made bread." In other words, Thou art hungry, therefore use Thy divine power over material phenomena to fill Thine own empty stomach. Do not work beneficent miracles of healing, whispered the tempter. Work useless prodigies that will dazzle the multitude. Leap scatheless from a pinnacle of the Temple in the sight of all the people, and they will make of Thee a King. " All this power and glory will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me ; " that is to say, if thou wilt cast aside this foolish im- practicable ideal of a Kingdom of God on earth, and substitute selfishness for love of God and man. The '• Kingdom " for which nearly all Christ's con- temporaries looked was precisely similar to that which floated before the Messiah's ej-es in the great Tempta- tion in the wilderness. The Alexandrine Jewish Sybil depicts the Messiah as girt with a terrible brand before which every foe quails. He is also a mighty wonder- worker, and Judea is the theatre of his brilliant achieve- ments. And, as a matter of fact, Christ was oftener than once in actual danger of being proclaimed an earthly King against His will. After the miracle of the five barley loaves and the two fishes — When the people saw the sign which He did, they said^: This is of a truth the Prophet that cometh into the world. Tesus, therefore, perceiving that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him King, withdrew again into the mountain Himself alone. — John vi., 14, 15. The Temptation in the wilderness was therefore no chimeia, but perhaps the most decisive turning-point in the whole history of humanity. When Christ de- liberately rejected the Jewish conception of an Imperial Messiah, He must have clearly discerned that in re- jecting a Throne He was courting a Cross. " No man (He said) taketh my life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." It was in the wilderness of Judea that He laid it down. Io6 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. XX. THE RELIGION OF CHRIST. One night, Gabriel, from his seat in Paradise, heard the voice of God sweetly responding to a human heart. The angel said, "Surely this must be an eminent servant of the Most High, whose spirit is dead to lust and lives on high." The angel hastened over land and sea to find this man, but could not find him in the earth or heavens. At last he exclaimed, " O Lord ! show me the way to this object of Thy love." God answered, "Turn thy steps to yon village, and in that pagoda thou shalt behold him." The angel sped to the pagoda, and therein found a solitary man kneeling before an idol. Returning, he cried, " O Master of the World ! hast Thou looked with love on a man who invokes an idol in a pagoda?" God said, " I consider not the error of ignorance; this heart, amid its dark- ness, hath the highest place." — Attar (Persian). Tsze-Kung asked, saying, " What do you say of a man who is loved by all the people in his village ? " Confucius answered, " We may not for that accord our approval of him. ' "And what do you say of him who is hated by all the people of his village ? " The Master said, " We may not for that conclude that he is bad. It is better than either of these cases that the good in the village love him and the bad hate him." — Confucius' Analects. So to the calmly gathered thought The innermost of Truth is taught, The mystery dimly understood That love of God is love of Good, And chiefly its divinest trace In Him of Nazareth's holy face ; That to be saved is only this — Salvation from our selfishness ; That worship's deeper meaning lies In mercy and not sacrifice. — Whittier. The forty terrible days of inward struggle in the wilderness over, the Messiah emerged having " over* THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I07 come the world " «.«., " the prince " (or controlling prin- ciple} of the world ; viz., selfishness. " The seed of the woman " had completely triumphed at last in the entire self-renunciation of Jesus. The Son of Man had even received " power to forgive sins " and to " save to the uttermost " all other sons of men who should follow in His footsteps and worship God (the Good) in spirit and in truth to the annihilation of self-love in their hearts. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father. — St. John xiv., 12. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. — Matt, xviii., 18. Jesus, the Messiah, was indeed the Man of Men. He identified Himself with Humanity in the most explicit manner possible. He was actually at greater pains to affirm his humanity than his divinity. He recognised Man's dual nature — Son of Man, Son of God — and affirmed that perfection was within his reach here and now. Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.— Matt, v., 48. Beloved, let us love one another ; for love is of God ; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God ; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. And we have known and believed the love which God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. — i John iv., 7, 8, 9, 16. In the wilderness Jesus once and for all put aside self which is Satanic, and embraced love, which is Divine, as his guiding principle of action, and, inasmuch as •* sin had no dominion over him," therefore is He abundantly qualified to *' help those that are tempted." Wliere the first Adam had failed the second Adam had triumphed, and thus became the true Saviour of man- kind. His thoughts, words, and deeds, were begotten of the Divine Love that burned unconsumably in His I08 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. own oul, and therefore did He say with sublime con- fidence, " X and My Father are One." But though the Messiah was sinless and therefore Divine — " one with the Father " — being still seed of the woman, Son of Man, He never for a moment laid claim either to omnipotence or omniscience on earth. As to the former : — He saith unto them, ye shall drink, indeed, of my cup . . . but to sit on my right hand, and on my left is not mine to give, but it is given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. — Matt, xx, 23. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do ; for what things soever He doeth, these also the Son doeth likewise. — John, v., 19. As to the latter : — Heaven and earth shall pass away ; but My words shall not pass away. But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no not even the angels in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. — Mark xiii., 31. 32. In other words, though Jesus, in the domain of religion was, and is the infalHble Guide of Humanity, He did not, at a bound, attain to a complete knowledge of the Divine purpose or method. Being Son of Man, and therefore subject to the law of development, it is not difficult to mark successive stages of progression in His spiritual conceptions. But imperfect knowledge is not a synonym for error. «• Truth," says Schleiermacher, " is the natural heritage of man ; his faculties in their normal condition ought to lead him to it. The state of ignorance or uncertainty is not error ; the latter commences the moment the mind has arrived at a false conclusion ; for, in order to do this, it must have Btopped too soon in its search after truth, and consequently must either have been wanting in its love, which truth deserves, or must have had a sectet interest in accepting an incomplete result. It is not then possible to distinguish absolutely between error and sin, at least in relation to that order of truths which address themselves to the conscience and the soul. If it is fhus with man in his normal condition, with how much stronger reason may we attribute this infallibility THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. IO9 to Jesus, who presents to us the highest ideal of humanity. With a mind upright and pure, He dis- cerned religious truth as it was reflected in Holy Scripture, in nature, and most of all, in Himself, the most perfect mirror of things divine. All He needed, then, was to arrive at the full consciousness of His own being." Such then was Jesus of Nazareth according to His own showing. He claimed to be the sinless Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God, and to be divinely com- missioned to set up his Father's Kingdom upon earth. Love was that Father's supreme attribute, a love immeasurably surpassing that of all earthly fathers, and from man He asks for nothing but love, perfect love towards God and man. His religion was summed up in two precepts of marvellous simplicity : — Then one of them, who was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying. Master, which is the great commandment in the Law ? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all hy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great Commandment. And the second is like unto it : — Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.— Matt, xxu., 35, 36, 37. 38. 39. 40. This, the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, is indeed a small programme, but never assuredly was there one propounded for fallible man's adoption more arduous. It is, in truth, a most exacting Credo, and professing Christians in all ages have taken refuge in this baleful theology and in that to escape from its obligations. But it has lived them down one after the other, and will continue to live them down until the final triumph of the Christ is accomplished. — And when all things shall be subdued unto Him [Christl then shall the Son al.so himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him that God may be all in all. — L Cor., xv., 28. no THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. NO. XXI. CONCEPTION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. There is no unbelief ; Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod And waits to see it push away the clod, He trusts in God. Whoever says when clouds are in the sky. Be patient, heart : light breaketh by-and-by, Trusts the Most High. Whoever sees, 'neath winter's field of snow, The silent harvest of the future grow, God's power must know. Wheever lies down on his couch to sleep, Content to lock each sense in slumber deep, Knows God will keep. Whoever says, " To-morrow," " The Unknown," " The Future." trusts that Power alone He dares disown. The heart that looks on when the eyelids close. And dares to live when life has only woes God's comfort knows. There is no unbelief ; And day by day. and night unconsciously, The heart lives by that faith the lips deny — God knoweth why. Edward Bulwer Lviton. Were His blameless feet To-day within our streets, methinks men's doubts Would chafe Him little, and His hand would grasp The hand of many an outcast from the fold That boasts Hira shepherd, and His test of love Would turn much dross to gold, much gold to dross. Alfred Haybs THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 1X1 •»< Jesus," says R6nan, with much insight, " was the Man who believed most thoroughly in the reality of the ideal." Indeed to Him the ideal was the real. The Kingdom of Heaven was within men, not outside them. It was first of all for guileless children,' and such as resembled them in innocence and simplicity. To be- come again a little child in feeling, qualified for admission into the Kingdom. Secondly, it was for the poor in this world's goods without regard to the cause of their Poverty. He drew no distinction between the " deserving " and the " undeserving " poor, and indeed, He Himself with His vagrant life, as was very wittily shown in a recent number of the Church Reformer, could not have stood one of the tests laid down by our precious Charity Organisation Society. Thirdly, the Kingdom was for all manner of social failures ; harlots, publicans, prodigal sons, theives on the cross and such like disreputable persons, being truly humble and penitent. Fourthly, the Kingdom was for all manner of heretics : Samaritans, pagans of Tyre and Sidon, Sabbath- breakers and persons generally in bad religious odour. It is the rich, the fashionable, the respectable, the " unco' guid " that are alone excluded from the Kingdom of God, whose foundations He laid on earth. Nor does He exclude them. He invites them, but they exclude themselves, The parable of the "great supper" is singularly delightful : — Then said He unto him, A certain man made a great supper and bade many : And sent his servant at supper-time to say to them that were bidden, Come ; for all things are now r«ady. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground and I must needs go and see it ; I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to prove them ; I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out 112 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in hither tho poor, and the maimed, and the halt and the blind. And the servant said, Lord it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant. Go out into the highways aod hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you. That none of those men which were biddea shall taste of my supper. — Luke xiv. 16-24 Mark who were the persons debarred, or rather who debarred themselves, the supper chamber. First came the greatest author of economic wrong, the private Landlord. He could not come because he had his rents to collect, rack-rented tenants to evict, crofters to drive into the arid region around the Dead Sea, or to swell the multitude of unemployed in the streets and lanes of the East End of Jerusalem and Caesarea Phillippi. Next came the CapUalist intent on money-making and labour-sweating. He did not mean to do any honest ploughing himself with the five yoke of oxen. Not he! He meant to get some Hebrew Hodges, or any stray Gibeonites he could impress into that service. These he would keep at work from dawn till dusk, feed on the coarsest fare, and house in hovels worse than pigsties. With the grain thus raised he would go up to Jerusalem, at the proper season, and enter into a conspiracy with a few other greedy rascals like himself to starve and rob the Jerusalemites by forming a •' corner" in corn. He was too absorbed in this con- genial devil's work even to celebrate the rites of hospitality at the invitation of an open-handed and open-hearted host. Lastly came the selfish "family man," who systemati- cally set the supposed interests of wife and weans above those of the community at large. This very respectable person never troubled himself about politics, never voted at elections, never read the Jerusalem Daily Chfonich prided himself in fact on discharging none of the duties of a good citizen, so much was he absorbed in the arduous task of be-decking and be-jewelling his sensuous wife, and laying up a fortune for hopeful young " Mr. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. II3 Abingdon " when he should come of age and go to Rome to aid Nero in his orgies. Next mark the persons not so much invited to the supper as compelled to come in. The streets and the lanes are to be scoured for the victims of the landlord, the capitalist, and the selfish " family man." The rural landlord has driven them off what he has been pleased to call his land, and they have been perforce obliged to take refuge in the " slums " of Jerusalem. Here they find themselves confronted by the urban landlord, a yet more oppressive personage. The rent of their *' slum " is rendered fabulous by Hebrew Westminsters, Bed- fords, Cadogans, and other vampires. Many of them are entirely homeless, and sleep under arches, in cellars, and in holes unknown to Hieroslymite Robert. Those of them who are able to obtain any work receive very little wages, because the capitalist employer has a whole " reserve army of labour " standing idle in the market- place ready to take their place the moment they show any disposition to lay claim to their due. All these off- scourings of street and lane are therefore bidden to the supper. It is next poor Hodge's turn. The highways and the hedges of rural Judea must be raided by " Red Vans," and as Hodge is very ignorant — having been purposely kept in mental darkness for many centuries by those who have iniquitously ** laid field to field and house \o house" in collusion with the Priest, the Scribe, and the Levite — to him a little gentle.' compulsion has to be applied. But the supper-chamber is filled at last with this motley crowd, in which there is neither Saducee nor Pharisee, nor any ** respectable member of society ; " and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven ! Need I illustrate the composition of the Kingdom further ? Were I to do so, it would be to stamp with approval some of the legislative proposals of the present Government, especially the Parish Councils Bill, as the most efficacious and courageous steps that have yet been taken to seat the poor and friendless at the " great 114 "T^^ GOSPEL OF THE POOR. supper," with the squire and the parson left severely out. The parable of Dives and Lazarus is yet more re- markable. Dives has been called the " wicked, rich man," but without the slightest justification. The best exegesis by far that I have seen is contained in a little volume, entitled " Dives and Pauper," by the Vicar of Lucton, Arthur Compton Auchmuty. He points out that it is not the sin of uncharitableness that is con- demned by the parable, but the sin of being rich at all. In point of fact, Dives was an easy-going, self-indul- gent millionaire. We do not read that he refused to let Lazarus have the goodly crumbs that fell in such abundance from his table, and he certainly allowed his hounds to lick the poor sufferer's sores. If Dives had been a " gentleman of England," it is perfectly safe to affirm that Lazarus would never have got " within a measurable distance" of his gate, inasmuch as the dogs would have been sent to frighten the vagrant away. But Christ recognised, all the same, that being a million- aire he habitually reaped what he had not sown, or, in other words, that he was a robber, and that till he and. his entire class were abolished there could be no true Kingdom of God on Earth. We are not told how Dives acquired his wealth, but it was certainly not by honest industry. " Opulence," truly says St. Jerome, "is always the product of theft committed, if not by the actual possessor, then by his ancestors." And such, doubtless, was the judgment of the Messiah: " Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation." There is but one way for you to pass into the Kingdom. Sell whatever you have and distribute among those you have helped to nn- poverish. That is your only chance; but, alas, alas ! " it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." The rich are often charitable, but seldom or never just, and mere charity will not, cannot save them. By them the great lessons, " Be just before you are generous," •* Prevention is better than cure," are read in vain. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. II5 They "go away sorrowful, because they have great possessions." The terrible simile of the camel and the needle's eye was staggering even to the disciples. But yet if one reflects on it it is not so strange. It would be an incon- ceivable Heaven here or hereafter in which, say, Jay Gould or Colonel North, should find himself at home. In the very best natures, by the law of compensation which runs through all things, riches produce an a p- palling coldness of heart and involve their possessor in countless temptations unknown to the honest toiler. Hence it is the duty, the positive duty, of a Christian community, so to legislate as to divest the rich oJ all the superfluous wealth which now hopelessly dis- qnahfies them from entering the Kingdom of God on Earth, and from singing with William Blake : — I will not cease from mental fight, Nor let my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem, In England's green and pleasant land. Il6 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. XXII. THE "KINGDOM OF GOD" AND THE "WORLD." Jesus of Nazareth who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and aU the people. — Luke xxiv., 19. Immortal by their deed and word, Like light around them shed. Still speak the Prophets of the Lord, Still live the sainted dead. The voice of old by Jordan's flooc* Yet floats upon the air ; We hear it in beatitude. In parable and prayer. And still the beauty of that life Shines star-like on our way And breathes its calm amid the strife And burden of to-day. Earnest of life for evermore, That life of duty here — The trust that in the darkest hour Looked forth and knew no fear. Spirit of Jesus, still speed on ! Speed on Thy conquering way. Till every heart the Father own, And all His will obey. — F. L. HosMER. The Magna Charta of the Kingdom of God, whose immoveable foundations Jesus laid on Earth, is the Sermon on the Mount. Of all recorded utterances it is immeasurably the most memorable. It constituted a revolution in the realm of thought so fundamental that its ulterior consequences are still discernable only in the dim and distant future of mankind. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. II7 Gracious as are the Beatitudes in every line ; yet are they the sternest declaration of war against the " world " and all its works. They subverted the very ideals of manhood by which the world both of Jew and Gentile was governed. An entirely new concep- tion of what is noblest in life and character was given to humanity — a conception henceforth ineradicable from the soul of man. Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by supplementing them in a manner never dreamt of by Saducee, Scribe, or Pharisee. The Pharisee multiplied outward observances, the better to escape the obligation of inner rectitude. He eschewed the act of murder, but hated his neighbour. To him Christ said : — Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remem- berest that thy brother hath aught against thee ; Leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. — Matt. v. 23, 24. Similarly, in regard to incontinence Christ went straight from deed to thought. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery : But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. — Matt. v. 27, 28. The Mosaic Code condemned perjury ; Christ con- demned untruthfulness in every form : — Swear not at all. Let your communication be, Yea, Yea; Nay, Nay; for what- soever is more than these cometh of evil. — Matt. v. 34-37. And now we come to the distinctive precept of the Christian Faith, which is summed up in the three momentous words : Resist not evil : — Ye have heard that it hath been said. An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth : But I say unto you. That ye resist uot evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on the right clieek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the Jaw, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. — Matt, v., 38, 39, 40, 41. Il8 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. " Resist not evil ! I abrogate, nay, flatly reverse, the entire Lex Talionis by which the world has hitherto been governed. There are to be no more soldiers, no more policeman, no more lawyers, no more private property." Such were the astounding announcements from the Mount — more astounding by far in the domain of the ethical than aught set down as " miracle " or •• sign " in that of the physical. But yet once admit that the institution of private property is mere organized selfishness — embodied '• covet- ousness " — and the rest follows as a matter of course. I am aware that most "divines" and commentators wriggle hard to identify Christ with the support of this, the basic principle of the " world," whicih it was His mission to overthrow, but without avail. The Messiah clearly taught that all things should be accumulated, owned, and used in common, as every one had need, just as air, sunlight, and the boundless sea are common. The word " Catholic " (Kata holos) was unknown to Jesus and His Apostles. The word "Common" (Koinos) is the key to all His teachings, social and spiritual. Christ, in point of fact, rigorously condemned whatever is known to jurists as " Acquired Rights," and substituted for them the " Natural Rights of Man," which need no " Law and Order " to support them. A simple " Yea, Yea : Nay, Nay," amply sufficeth. It has been said that He did not even expressly condemn slavery ; but if He condemned private pro- perty in toto He necessarily proscribed the chattel slavery which was its corner-stone in the ancient world. And with the abolition of private property the trade of soldier and lawyer — at all times flagitious — for the first time in the world's history, became meaningless. Nay, Kings and Queens, *' Sovereigns and Statesmen," judges and magistrates, admirals and generals, police- men, jailers and hangmen — in a word, the whole super- incumbent paraphernaha of" law and order" fell flat to the ground, a heap of dust and ashes. In a Communistic THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. llg State the occupation of the whole of these would be hopelessly gone. The reason is plain. They all exist for the purpose of bolstering up the property of the rich. The poor in reality know nothing of the law except its penalties and exactions. If a merciful Providence were to " remove " the whole tribe of the workers' pastors and masters to-morrow, a terrible incubus would be lifted off their shoulders. What is a soldier but a murderer hired by the wealthy to defend or acquire for them that which does not right- fully belong to them ? What are our dragoons and marines about at Hull at this moment?* Coercing Labour in the interest of Capital ! Could the '* Masses " have a better object-lesson in the true significance of our standing armies and bloated armaments ? We were thanking God the other day that we did not, like our American kinsmen, employ ** Pinkertons " in such odious enterprises. But to-day our rulers are doing worse. They are wantonly terrorising an industrious and peaceful population by crack national troops recruited from, and paid by, the '• masses " them- selves. It 'S long since old Minister Necker saw through the so-called "rights of property" and its defenders: " What do your laws of proper iy, they (the toilers) might say, concern us ? " We own nothing ! Your laws of justice? We have nothing to defend! Your laws of liberty ? If we do not labour to-morrow we shall die! ' But if the soldier and policeman are hired to defend private property by violence and legalised murder, the lawyer is even better rewarded for tlie exercise of craft and fraud in the same cause. In litigation, ninety-nine cases out of a hundred grow out of the foetid soil of private property. Inheritance and bequest, contract and crime, the grand sources of litigation are all medi- ately or immediately rooted in private property. * This was written at the time of the Hull Stvike. I 120 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. Abolish that accursed institution, and the lawyer, with all his "quiddets, cases, tenures, and tricks," will be withered up like Jonah's gourd, and his vast tomes of statute and case law will have about the same sort of interest for mankind as mediaeval treatises on astrology or the black art. The serious question remains to be considered. Can any man who accepts the Christian Faith intelligently become either soldier or lawyer ? Frankly, 1 think not. To the Christian both professions are prohibited. They are the main props of this " world," and therefore the chief impediments to the advent of the " Kingdom of God." They represent respectively force and craft, and are utterly repugnant to the spirit and regenerative purpose of Christianity. " He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword." " Woe unto you lawyers, for ye have taken away the key of KnoAvledge." On these precepts of the Master the early Christians acted implicitly. Like Him, they paid taxes to the Roman authority to avoid giving offence, but in no other way did they recognise it. They avoided alike Caesar's cohorts and his tribunals. They never had recourse to any temporal penalties to enforce the law of Christian brotherhood. The Church was a complete fraternity, having " all things in common." The only law that obtained was the law of love. In the Imperial world they were not of it. They had no use for the Roman Government, which hated them accordingly and perse- cuted them as "enemies of the human race," just as their Master had predicted. The primitive Church of Christ was a perfect inpeviiim in imperio, and bade fair at first to leaven the entire lump of cruel, concupiscent Imperialism. But where fire and faggot had ignominously failed, Imperial cunning in the person of Constantine eventu- ally succeeded. That vile murderer of wife, son, and nephew craftily "nobbled " nascent Christianity, and by a series of politic strokes converted the "Communion of the Saints " (the practice of communism) into a worship of Mammon as gross and more hypocritical THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I2t than that which distinguished the superseded pagan culte. Howbeit the end is not yet. Christ's ideals of Hfe are to-day perhaps better understood than they have been at any time since the ApostoHc age. The Sun of Nazareth has not yet reached the zenith, but the morning is fast breaking into day. 122 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. XXIII. THE LORD'S PRAYER. His Kingdom slowly dawns upon the earth. Far off we see and hail the coming day, And cheer us in the twilight with its joy. Amidst the din of wars and strife of men, The rotting pools of crime and ignorance, The greedy selfishness that eats and drinks While brother men in wolfish famine cry. His words of faith still ring with steadfast note To lead the way to perfect victory. His vision high of earth redeemed to God, Still shines before our eyes with holy cheer. We, too, in our highest moods catch gleams Of one wide brotherhood from pole to pole. Each man still mindful of his fellow's weal : Of children unpolluted by foul sin And growing in all beauteous grace and truth ; Of laws the reflex of the mind of God. Not needed to restrain, but set to draw All hearts in one vast harmony of truth. Not of a distant heaven Jesus dreamed. But of this beauteous earth on which we dwell. Made doubly beauteous by sweet peace and love. He prayed tha.t here God's kingdom blest should come That heye His will be done as 'tis in heaven. And in that word spake forth the thought divine To which all saints and sages still aspire. For this men toil, and hope, and daily pray. And, toiling thus, they^yet but follow Him. H. C. Hawkes. If nothing but the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer had come down to us of Christ's actual sayings, they would constitute by themselves the most precious inheritance of mankind. In its simplicity and com- I THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 123 pleteness the latter, in particular is unapproachable. It is for all time the model of prayer for all sorts and conditions of men. And the context is hardly less instructive. Christ clearly deprecated praying in public : And when thou prayest thou shall not be as the hypocrites are ; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father who seeth in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall recompense thee. — Matt, vi., 5.6. What a rebuke have we here to " the clergy of all denominations," and to our street preachers ! The true prayer must ever be secret to be effectual. Laborare est ovave (to work is to pray). That is the form which public prayer ought ever to assume if we would escape the condemnation of the ** hypocrites." And even in the performance of good works, alms- giving for example, secrecy is expressly enjoined : — But, when thou doest alms, let not thyjileft hand know what thy right hand doeth. That thine alms may be in secret ; and thy Father who seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly. — Matt. vi. 3, 4. Here again we have a distinct precept of the T^Taster Bystematically violated by His pretended followers. When we subscribe money for any charitable purpose we must needs have our names paraded as munificent donors, otherwise we incontinently button up our pockets. Our charity subscription lists — what are they but the analogues of the trumpets which the "hypocrites" sounded before them in Hebrew street and synagogue when they did their alms ? And verily we, as they, receive our reward : — And not merely was prayer to be secret, it was to be to the last degree concise and comprehensive : — And when ye pray use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do ; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye, therefore, hke unto thani, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him. — Matt. vi. 7, 8. And assuredly the form of prayer which Christ 124 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR: taught His disciples has a business-like directness— curtness almost — about it (if I may use such language), which is at first sight amazing. But a little reflection, and all is plain. The Supreme Being whom Christ revealed was no longer the awful, sternly righteous "jealous " Jehovah of the Law and the Prophets, but a loving Father ready to kill the fatted calf for the most prodigal of His erring sons. All through His ministry "Father" is the name the Messiah applies to God as best expressing the true relations existing between the human and the Divine — " My Father and your Father, My God and your God." In prayer, therefore, there was no need of many words : — For every one that asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. And of which of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone ; or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent ? Or if he ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion ? If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit [spiritual health] to them that ask Him ?— Luke xi. lo, ii, 12, 13. We are now in a position to interpret the prayer itself. To pray, is to commune with a gracious Father. Oi(r Father. ''Ouy Father," be it observed, not my Father. Prayer though it be secret communion be- tween the individual soul of man and God, is 5'et a collective act, inasmuch as he who prays is pre- cluded from asking for any "good gift" for himseli which he does not equally ask for the entire brother- hood of mankind. The common Father has no favourites, and will assuredly turn a deaf ear to every petition that is not universally applicable to all His childrens' needs. Most prayers, it is to be feared, are mere expressions of selfish desires that cannot, and do not deserve, to be heard. If we do not first fully grasp the Brotherhood of Man how are we to conceive adequately of the Fatherhood of God ? If we love not brother man, whom we have seen, how arc we to love ^jid trust God, whom we have not seen ? WhQ art in Heaven. Where is Heaven ? Somewhere THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 125 up in the sky is still the general impression. But Heaven is where God is, whose '* Kingdom cometh not by observation." ** Behold the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." The heaven or hell within us is the true heaven or hell for us, individually and collectively, and we need inquire no further as to its location. Hallowed be Thy Name. What does this mean? It means that we are not to attribute to God character- istics foreign to His Divine Fatherhood. " God is love" and "perfect love casteth out fear." This is what nearly all the Churches forget to inculcate. They often drive the very best men and women into in- difference or positive irreligion by false representations of the Father's character. Instead of setting forth His perfect holiness they make him worse than the worst of His earthly children. Thy Kingdom come. That is to say, Abolish O just God, the cruel social inequality by which for long ages Thy children have been aflhcted. Cast down Mammon in all his polluted sanctuaries of monarchy, hierarchy, aristocracy, and plutocracy, and banish the monster for evermore from the face of Thy fair earth. Exorcise the foul fiend of Competition and replace him by Divine Co-operation, communal and inter-communal, national and inter-national. Erect on the firm foundations of absolute social and economic equality a lasting Temple of Humanity in which till the end of time the sublime song of triumph shall ascend, '* Glory to God in the highest, on the earth peace and goodwill to men.' " Thy will he done on earth as it is in Heaven. That is, inspire all men to do Thy will, and thereby enable them to convert this thorny world into an earthly Paradise, the vestibule of that other which lies beyond where •' God shall be All in All." Give us day by day our daily bread. The Rev. Stewart Headlam in his " Laws of Eternal Life " — a most suggestive little volume — thus faithfully explains this petition : — " Us, not me. If I am getting my daily bread at the cost or at the risk of depriving others of theirs, m6 the gospel of the poor. I pray Thee, Oh! Father, take it from me. If I have bread enough for many days, and others have not bread enough for to-day, I pray Thee to take it trom me and give it to them. I pray for a distribution of wealth according to Thy just and Fatherly laws." In the light of this, the true significance of the petition, how is it to be regarded, say, in the mouths of the " Successors of the Apostles " ? One would think for example, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, with his two palaces and his ^15,000 a year would fairly choke on the words, Carlyle spoke of the Anglican Establish- ment as " that great lying Church," and could there be any better proof of its unblushing mendacity than that its hierarcy should dare to repeat, " Give us this day our daily bread." I am not surprised to know that a Minister of Christ so thoroughly faithful to His Master as Mr. Stewart Headlam has had difficulties with such ♦' successors of the Apostles." And forgive us otiv debts as wt also have forgiven our debtors. The debts here spoken of are called " sins " by St. Luke, and in the shorter Catechism of the Westminster divines, if I recollect aright, "sin" is defined as " any want of conformity to, or transgression of, the will of God." Any way, the definition is a good one. " Be ye perfect," said Christ, " even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." " God is love," and all his sons owe Him an immense debt of filial love, which can only be discharged by strict conformity to His will as revealed by Christ. And Christ left us iu "no doubt as to what that will was. It was not sayers, but doers of the " Word " who were to be justified. " Verily I say unto you, inas- iiuich as ye have done it [fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the prisoners, etc.] ye have done it unto Me." Christ, " the Word made fiesh," identified Him- self with all humanity — especially suffering humanity — and declared that a cup of cold water given to one such was given to Himself. Truly, then, have we all tremendous debts to be forgiven us for neglected oppor- tunities of rendering service to our fellow-men. But, THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I27 just as it is our dut}' to forgive those that trespass against us " until seventy times seven," so is it in an in- finitely greater measure with Divine mercy and forgive*- ness. " Seek and ye shall find." And bring us not into temptation Strong are heredity and environment, and no man can hope to escape their influence ! Mammon, the God of this world, has his emissaries everywhere to entrap the unwary and make them fall down and v/orship him. •* Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." But God is stronger than Mammon, and can and will Deliver us from evil. And Christ Himself was, and is that Deliverance, the Grand Emancipator, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, who, being lifted up, will eventually draw all men unto Him 128 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. XXIV. CHRIST AND WOMAN. O woman, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please And variable as the shade By the light, quivering aspen made. When care and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou ! Sir Walter Scott. The morality of antiquity could not rise to the redemption of woman —Schmidt. The female sex, in which antiquity saw nothing but inferiority, which Plato considered intended to do the same things as the male, only not so well, was understood for the first time by Christ. — EcCE Homo. The courtesan was the only free woman in Athens. — Lecky. It is noteworthy that there is no record of any insult offered by any v/oman to the Son of Man. On the con- trary, from Pilate's wife to Mary of Magdala, woman- kind loved and befriended Him with a constancy and fearlessness that may well make the " lord of creation" blush for shame. All His relations with women were exquisitely beautiful. He was known to His contemporaries as " the Son of Mary," not as the " Son of Joseph." To the loving and loved Magdalen He made His first appearance after His resurrection, and to the much-married (and unmarried) Samaritan woman at Jacob's well at the foot of Mount Gerizim, He delivered the greatest oracle THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I29 ever uttered in this world — an oracle not even yet *• understanded " of the Churches : — The woman saith unto Him .... " Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus saith unto her, " Woman believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father." " But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." " God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." — St. John iv., 19, 20, 21, 23, 24. The " Disciples," we learn, " marvelled that He talked with the woman." (Ibid v. 27.) They might have marvelled still more at the talkf for it embodied for evermore the very essence of all true religion. The absolute, indestructible religion that requires neither temple, priest, nor parson, was for the first time revealed by Christ, not to His Disciples, but to a frail Samaritan woman! Moreover, as we know, "the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans." It was pollution to eat or drink with them and, even if the woman had been a correct and orthodox Jewess, to accost her publicly was a most reprehensible breach of decorum on the Messiah's part. The Pharisees held it heinous for a man to salute a woman in a public place, even if she were his wife. Well might the woman declare, " Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." — v. ig Among the Jews the position of woman was un- doubtedly better than anything the Pagan world could show. But in the devotions of the synagogue there is a thanksgiving that speaks volumes : " Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe ! Who hast not made me a woman." Concubinage was a recognised institution. Polygamy was not forbidden, and divorce by reason of the hardness of the male heart was easy. In a word, there was then, as now, great inequality — social and political — between the sexes ; but in excep- tional circumstances the "capable woman" of the Book of Proverbs was neither unknown nor unhonoured 130 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. The " mother in Israel," the Sarah, the Miriam, the Deborah, was a very different person from the Greek or Roman matron. In early Greece and Rome the status of the wife was hardly distinguishable from that of a slave. She was held in perpetual tutelage by her husband, or in the event of his death, by her sons with whom she could not so much as sit down at table. Women of the type of Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi, were regarded as portents, and little wonder. Philosophy encouraged rather than discouraged, the grossest forms of sensuality. Even Socrates, the purest and wisest of the Greeks, seems to have seen nothing very reprehensible in the occupation of the beautiful courtesan Theodota. Nay, the sage is said to have given her some good advice re- ing her relations with her lovers. As for Plato, he sought to abolish marriage altogether and to reduce woman to a mere matrix from which the children of the State were periodically to issue, according to the ex- igencies of the Commonwealth. Such were ancient philosophy and morality with respect to maternity. What wonder then that the most frightful excesses everywhere prevailed. Female virtue came to be regarded with contempt. Men did not desire it, and women made no pretence of practis- ing it. From all parts of the East the most winsome girls were sought out and consigned to Rome in vast numbers to minister to the brutal passions of the de- graded nobles. They received a special training in sensuality, and at banquets they were expected to gratify their masters by the most shameful exhibitions. Moralists like Cicero and Seneca regarded almost the whole womanhood of their day as hopelessly depraved and abandoned. Abortion and infanticide were so common that hardly anybody thought it worth while to censure them. In Imperial Rome the infidelity of wives was taken for granted. *» Women reckoned their age not by the number of consulates, but by the number of husbands they had divorced." They emulated the professional Hetatrai or " companions ' to the best of THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I3I their ability. In a word, the Grseco-Roman world of Christ's day had sunk so low in every form of sensu- ality and bestiality, that if Christ had not, by precept and example, restored woman to her true place in society as mother and helpmate of man, utter perdition must have overtaken it. In order to judge of the degree of civilization attained at any time by a given State, it is only necessary to ascertain the position assigned to woman by it. Until women are placed, in all economic and political circum- stances, on a perfect footing of equality with men, society remains Pagan rather than Christian. To en- franchise women would be to abolish war with all its burdens and barbarities, with many another hoary iniquity. To erring, but penitent woman, Jesus was peculiarly gracious. Indeed, though enjoining a much stricter marriage law in the interest of wotnan than that of Moses, He dealt so leniently with sins of the flesh that He was stigmatized by the " unco' guid " of his day as a friend of harlots. But He explained this friendship in a way that confounded the Pharisee, who " spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him ; for she is a sinner." Christ freely admitted that her sins were "many " — And Jesus answering said unto him, " Simon, I have somewhat to Bay unto thee." And he saith, " Master say on." " There was a certain creditor who had two debtors : the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. " And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. " Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most ?" Simon answeral and said, " I suppose that he to whom he forgave most." And He said unto him, " Thou hast rightly judged." And He turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, " Seest thou this woman ? I entered into thine house, thou gavest Me no water for My feet ; but she hath washed My feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss ; but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss My feet. " My head with oil thou didst not anoint ; but this woman bath anointed My feet with ointment. 132 THE GOSPEL OP THE POOR. "Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins which are many, are forgiven for she loved mucn. But to whom little is forgiven the same loveth little." — Luke vii., 40 to 47. Peccata nmiitunhir quia multitm amavit ! Her sins are forgiven because she loved much. That is to say, she recognised in Christ the beauty of perfect hoHness, and was drawn towards it as if by a magnet. The Pharisee was whole and needed no physician, but the woman was sick and did. The Physician of Souls had come, and for her love's sake He cured her on the spot. Is not God Himself love, and was the " sinner" not to have her great love reciprocated ? I waive the quantum of the sin, The hazard o' concealin", Bat oh ! it hardens a' within', And petrifies the feelin'. So, sorrowfully sang Burns, but his heart, like the erring woman's of the gospel, never underwent com- plete petrification, and to him, as to her, Christ's mercy has doubtless been bountifully extended. The story of the woman taken flagrante delicto is yet more striking. On that occasion, as has been beauti- fully said, " He wrote but once, and then on sand." Who shall point the moral or adorn the tale of that opisode? And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery ; and when they had set her in the midst. They say unto Him, " Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now, Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned, bnt what sayest Thou ? " This they said tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not. So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said unto them, " He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they who heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went oilt one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last ; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted Himself, and saw none but the woman, He said unto her. " Woman, where axe those thine accusers ? Hath ao man condemned thee ? " THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 133 She said, " No man, Lord." And Jesus said unto her •• Neither do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more." — St. John, viii., 3— II. Hath no man condemned thee ? No man, Lord ? Then neither do /, the Son of Man, condemn thee. Did He lay emphasis on the " I " ? 134 The gospel of the poor. No. XXV. CHRIST AND LABOUR. It is right tliat Greeks should rule over barbarians but not bar- barians over Greeks; for those are slaves, but these are freemen. — Eoripides. Nature endeavours to make the bodies of freemen and slaves dififerent ; the latter strong for necessary use, the former erect and useless for such operations, but useful for political life. ... It is evident, then, that by nature some men are free, others slaves, and that, in the case of the latter, slavery is both beneficial and just. — Aristotle. Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary ?— St Mark. Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands. . . . These hands ministered to my neces- sities, and to them that were with me.— St. Pa0l. My Father worketh hitherto and I work.— Jesus Christ. Then gird thy loins to manly toil, | j And in that toil have joy ; Greet hardship with a forward smile, And love the stern employ. Thy glory this — the harsh to tame, And by wise stroke, and technic flame, In Godlike labour's fruitful name Old chaos to destroy. Of all Greece's great poets, Euripides was the most tender-hearted ; of all her boasted philosophers Aristotle was the most profound; yet neither had the faintest conception of what we moderns understand by the Rights of Labour. Their world was a world of bullies THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I35 and slaves, where the slaves had no rights whatever. Slave and worker were practically synonymous, and even to speak to a slave was a dishonour. Cato, most unbending of Roman moralists, would turn out his most aged and infirm slaves to perish by the riverside of cold and hunger without the slightest compunction. The polished Pollio, the founder of the first public library at Rome, would feed the lampreys in his fish- ponds with such slaves as gave him offence. When a great man died his obsequies could not well be celebrated without a gladiatorial exhibition, in which two or three score workers were made to murder each other. On one occasion the great Imperial administrator Trajan celebrated public " games," which lasted for four months. In that time the blood of ten thousand workers soaked the sands of the arena. Even women and children were made to gash each other with knives " to make a Roman holiday." Lions, wolves, panthers, bears, and snakes were frequently among the combatants. It was a horrible world, and if the Son of Man had not appeared when He did to proclaim the glad tidings of Universal Human Brotherhood, the Empire of the Caesars, its letters, science, and art must have gone to utter wreck and ruin. The Messiah's mission was to make the first last and the last first; to cast down the "Classes" and exalt the " Masses." Has He succeeded ? Has His Kingdom come ? Is it coming ? That is the problem which perplexes all earnest thinkers at this moment ; for it is clear, at least to my mind, that *• without Me ye can do nothing." Roswell D. Hitchcock (U.S.A.), quoted by Dr. Clifford in his admirable pamphlet. The New City of God states the grand problem thus : — ** Christianity triumphed over the Graeco-Roman civilization ; has triumphed in mediaeval and modern Europe ; has, in short, conquered all the best races in history thus far. Now, can it conquer to the bottom, as it has always conquered to the top ? Can it evangelise its own cities, going down into the cellars, up into the garrets of its own heathen at home ? Hard as the task 136 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. pay be, Christianity stands squarely committed to it. If Christianity fails in this— its supreme endeavour, — it is not of God. But it will not fail." I have taken the liberty of italicising the last sentence ; for, if I could not endorse the prediction, then to me as to so many other footsore travellers in the arid desert of the present, life would indeed seem to be no longer worth living. The decisive battle of the religion ol Christ is at hand, and on the field of Labour it must be fought and won : — And before Him shall be gathered all nations ; and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from his goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand : Come, ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world : For I was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink ; I was a stranger, and ye took Me in : Naked, and ye clothed Me : I was sick, and ye visited Me : I was in prison, and ye came unto Me : Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying: Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, and fed Thee ? or thirsty and we gave Thee drink ? When saw we Thee a stranger and took Thee in ? or naked and clothed Thee ? Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison and came unto Thee ? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me. — Matt, xxv., 32-40. In hoc signo vinces. *' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Here we have the talisman that repels every doubt as to the supreme worth of every human life ; for who would not live to enjoy the privilege of ministering to the physical needs of the Blessed Nazarene ? Charles Lamb, I think it was, that once said to some literary friends in the course of a discus- sion : " If Shakespeare were now to enter this room we should all stand up to do him honour ; but if Jesus of Nazareth were to come in, we should all fall down and kiss the hem of His garment." " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I37 Slow indeed has been the process by which men have been drawn to Christ, but when the Labour Problem is solved, banishing hunger, nakedness, homelessness, and premature death from this beautiful earth, then will His Kingdom {regnum, rule) have come, not " with ob- servation," but '• with power." Then will the Brother- hood of Man cease to be a phrase and become a reality. Then shall the Son of Man reign in the hearts of all His •• brethren." Abou Ben Adhem (May his tribe increase I) Awoke, one night, from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, An Angel writing in a Book of Gold. Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said, " What writest thou " ? The Angel raised his head, And, in a voice made all of sweet accord. Answered ! "The names of those that love the Lord. " And is mine one ? " said Abou. " Nay, not so," Replied the Angel. Abou spake more low. But cheerily still and said ; " I pray thee then Write me as one who loves his fellow-men." The Angel wrote and vanished. Next night he came again with a great awakening light And shewed the names of those whom love of God had blest. And lo 1 Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. " From each according to his deeds, to each accord- ing to his needs." Such is the formula of the most advanced school of Continental Socialism. It is also the principle regulating Labour in the Kingdom of Heaven, not in nubibus, mind, but on this solid earth — here and now. For the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man that is a house- holder, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place. And said unto them : Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatso- ever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye all the day idle ? 138 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard ; and whatsoever is riefht that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came they supposed that they should have received more, and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it they murmured against the good man of the house. Saying, These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us who have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong ; didst thou not agree with me for a penny ? Take that thine is and go thy way ; I will give unto this last even as unto thee. — Matt. xv. i, 14. In the first place, be it noted that the labour here spoken of, vineyard labour, is of a light and agreeable character, a type of what, under the Coming Co- operative Commonwealth, all labour, as far as possible, will be rendered. Secondly, the "penny" of the parable was there and then good wages, enabling the recipient to live in comfort. Thirdly, the morning man, the ninth hour man, and even the eleventh hour man each received the same recompense, because the upright " householder" knew that if their deeds were not equal their needs were. That is to say in the Kingdom of Heaven, i.e., the Communistic Commonwealth, no man shall suffer for lack of opportunity, intelligence, or physical strength. It will not merely be the duty but the pride and plea- sure of the strong to support the weak, doing twice or thrice their own share of the common toil, in order that the least of Christ s brethren may be relieved from burdens to which tticy are unequal. Murmurers at social equality do not relish the doctrine of the universal " penny." The usurer talks of " the reward of abstinence," the clever man of the " rent of ability ; " but the " householder " keeps each THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I39 stiffly to his contract. " Didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? The first shall be last, and the last first." For why ? Did not the Great Lord of the Vineyard Himself come "not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many ?" Went He not about doing good, and healing all that were " oppressed of the devil " ? — the devil of " covetousness " or competition. Ah, well does Dr. CHfford say in the pamphlet to which I have alluded ; — «' Misery gravitates to Him as flowers to the sun. The Pariahs of Society, the ♦ Roughs ' and ' Fallen Women ' come out of their hiding places whenever He draws near. Himself despised and rejected of men, cast out by the leaders of ' Society,' ♦ Theology,' • Ritual,' and * State,' He is the natural friend of social outcasts, the poor, maimed, halt and bUnd. They gather about him as men numb with cold about a glowing fire. He is Himself the good Samaritan. He paints and takes the colours in His picture from His own Soul. He is the 'layman,' with the big heart, who pours ' oil and wine ' into the gaping wounds of the victims oi tyrannical strength, whilst the man « in orders,' the cultured ecclesiastic of the metropolis, gathers up his robes, grips his prayer-book, and hurries breathless to his ritual, his pigmy soul all unstirred by the miseries and woes of the squalid and vulgar traveller, prostrate and bleeding on the road." 140 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. No. XXVI. CHRIST AND THE STATE No citizen has a right to consider himself as belonging to himself but all ought to regard themselves as belonging to the State, inas- much as each is a part of the State ; and care for the part naturally looks to care for the whole. — Aristotle. There was a law that the cadets (at Sparta) should present them- selves naked in public before the Ephors every ten days, and if they were well knit and strong, and looked as if they had been carved and hammered into shape by gymnastics, they were praised ; but if their limbs showed any flabbiness or softness, any swelling or suspicion of adipose matter due to laziness, they were flogged and justiced there and then. — ^Elian. Go, tell at Sparta, thou that passeth by, That here, obedient to her laws, we lie. — SiMONIDES In place of teaching better laws for the government of men by other men as erring, sinful, and selfish as themselves, Christ taught that all "juch laws and government are unnecessary to any people who believe that there is something more sacred, higher, and holier than private rights, and are willing by faith to renounce all human statutory advantages in order to acquire divine truth. — Arics, the Libyan. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King comcth unto thee: He is just, and having salvation ; lowly and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass. — Zechariah, ix., 9. What was Christ's attitude towards the State ? Had He any sense of patriotism ? Thinkers, and able thinkers too, like Lecky and Mill, while readily conceding the incalculable beneficence of His Word in the domain of morals and (by implication) economics, complain THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. X4X that He ignores the " civic virtues." " It is in the Koran a:id not in the New Testament," says Mill, " that we read the maxim, * A ruler who appoints any man to an office when there is in his dominions another man better qualified for it, sins against God and against the State."' True, but Christ did not so much as recognise any necessity for the existence of the State. To Him the State was in its very essence evil — an institution in all its aims in necessary antagonism to the Kingdom of God, which He came to proclaim. For what was, what practically is the State ? Organised Mammon- worship, and nothing else. Its one precept is — TJiou shalt steal ; whereas, that of the Kingdom is — Tliou shalt not be stolen from. Personal ambition, warlike enterprise, and commercial competition are the "civic virtues" which the State applauds and rewards, and the religion of Christ condemns and prohibits in toto. Church and State knew well enough what they were about when, in the " place of a skull," they nailed the sublime Communist- Anarchist of Galilee, the World- Revolutionist, to a Government cross with a Govern- ment spear in His side. They had the impious *' agitator " promptly " removed " by putting in motion the State machinery of " law and order." A perfectly correct instinct told them that the gentle Nazarene was an infinitely greater menace to their " rights of property " than a thousand " robbers " of the type of Barabbas. Barabbas, in his own way, was doubtless a redresser of social inequalities and wrongs, and in a measure to be commended ; but he was a clumsy operator who could be dealt with at any^time. But with ♦' the King that came " : He that was "just and having salvation ; lowly and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt, the foal of an ass," it was a very different matter. He was truly a danger to "Society," for who ever heard of a Kiug coming in such a guise ? Had He come along the streets of Jerusalem in a magnificent State carriage, with a superbly-mounted cavalcade of household troops, 142 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. showering honours and offices on the " Classes," and teaching the "Masses" to keep their distance from his august person, what plaudits would have burst from the throats of landlord, capitalist, and ecclesiastic ! But SLJust and lowly King, bringing salvation to the care-worn " Masses," nay Himself one of the " rabble," was there ever anything known so outrageous ? Away with him ! Away with him ! or he will " take away our place and nation," we, the " Classes," being the nation, to be sure ! Not merely was Christ a lowly King. Being also^W, He was a levelling King, who dissolved the entire " machine " of State Government — princes, nobles, judges, scribes, and all. " The princes of the Gentiles bear dominion over them, and their great ones exercise authority tipon them, hit among you it shall not be so ; he that would be greatest among you let hint be the least, let him be the servant of all." Not birth, not wealth, not even intellect, but self- sacrificing service was to bear rule in the Kingdom — the first last and the last first. And be it noted : My service is perfect freedom. Politics imply compulsion — policemen, soldiers, magistrates, and jailers — but for three hundred years after the Crucifixion Christians lived in the Empire of the Caesars without being of it. Their organiza- tion was purely voluntary — " free " — but so strong that ten State persecutions of unparalleled atrocity but added to its invincibihty. Would that it had but main- tained that attitude and kept rigidly outside all political influences 1 A few more persecutions and the State must have succumbed to the Kingdom of God and disappeared altogether, or have been transformed into something utterly different from aught we know or have ever read of Statecraft. I am not always able to agree with the late Ernest Renan in his view of Christ's teachings, but it seems to me the following is highly suggestive, to say the least : — " Even in our days, troubled days, in which Jesus has no more authentic followers than those who seem to THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I43 deny Him, the dreams of an ideal organisation of society, which have so much analogy with the aspiration of the primitive Christian sects, are only in one sense the blossoming of the same idea, one of the branches of that immense tree in which germinates all thought of a future, and of which the ' Kingdom of God ' will be eternally the root and stem. All the social revolutions of humanity will be grafted on this phrase. But tainted by a coarse materialism, and aspiring to the impossible, that is to say, to found universal happiness upon political and economical measures, the ' Socialist ' attempts of our time will remain unfruitful, until they take as their rule the true Spirit of Jesus ; I mean absolute idealism — the principle that in order to possess the world we must renounce it. ** The phrase * Kingdom of God,' on the other hand, expresses also very happily the want which the soul experiences of a supplementary destiny, of a compensa- tion for the present life. Those who do not accept the definition of man as a compound of two substances, and who regard the Deistical dogma of the immortality of the soul as in contradiction with physiology, love to fall back upon the hope of a final reparation, which under an unknown form shall satisfy the wants of the heart of man. " Who knows if the highest term of progress, after millions of ages, may not evoke the absolute conscience of the universe, and in this conscience the awakening of all that has lived ? A sleep of a million of years is not longer than the sleep of an hour. St. Paul, on this hypothesis, was right in saying in ictu oculi. It is certain that moral and virtuous humianity will have its reward ; that one day the ideas of the poor, but honest man will judge the world, and that on that day the ideal figure of Jesus will be the confusion of the frivolous man who has not believed in virtue, and of the egotist who has not been able to attain it. The favourite phrase of Jesus continues, therefore, full of an eternal beauty. A sort of grandiose divinity seems in this to have guided the incomparable Master, and to have 144 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. held Htm in a vague sublimity, embracing at the same time various orders of truths." The dead heresiarch is right. The Spirit of Jesus is needed to put a soul into materialistic Socialism, without which it can aspire to nothing more than human beaverism. The children o( the Kingdom, as in Apostolic days, must not merely have all things in common ; they must also be of one heart and one soul ; so that not one of them shall say that aught of the things he possesses is his own. And when none shall lack aught, then again will men take knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus, and God will give them favour with the people and multiply converts indefinitely. The question remains — What attitude should the Christian Socialists of to-day assume towards the State ? Should they abstain or intervene in politics ? Christ clearly regarded the governing class of His day as utterly reprobate limbs of perdition. He called his own Monarch, Herod, by the worst name in the Jewish vocabulary — " that jackal." He paid the Imperial Taxes under protest, and warned His disciples to look for nothing but persecution at the hands of the rulers of the earth. But the position is somewhat different now. We have at last, thanks to the slowly permeating Spirit of Christ, got a potential, if not an actual, democracy to which to appeal, and we know that the "common people" ever "heard Him gladly." In these cir- cumstances it seems to me a present duty to cast down Mammon by capturing his citadel, Parliament, as speedily as possible, and erecting on its ruins the true City of God. Thy Kingdom Come ! THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. 145 No. XXVII. SUMMATION. I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the vine ; ye are the branches ; he that abideth in Me, and I inhim, the same bringeth forth much fruit ; for without Me ye can do nothing. Henceforth I call you not servants ; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doetli ; but I have called you friends ; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you. — St. John, xv., i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 15 I would fain, O Divine Son of Mary, have said something great ol Thee. — Justin Martyr. Alas, how hard is it to say aught that is not utterly unworthy of the Blessed Nazarene! In reading the four canonical biographies of Him — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — that have come down to us, one feels, notwithstanding the supreme beauty, simplicity, and candour of the narrations, that the narrators had before them a much greater task than they were competent adequately to perform. Not one of the disciples whom He instructed with such tender solicitude seems to have had anything like a correct appreciation of His aims until after His death and resurrection. Then, indeed, the light dawned upon them and the 146 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. eyes of their understandings were gradually opened. But even then it was left to St. Paul, who had no personal acquaintance with Jesus, to make Him known to the world at large. Now St. Paul was a heroic, strenuous soul of the highest order, to whose learning and devotion to the Master, Christendom may almost be said to owe its organized existence ; but it is almost impossible to read his authentic letters and believe that even he at all adequately comprehended the spirit and teaching of Him who spoke the Sermon on the Mount. Indeed, but for the discourses, or actual words of Christ recorded in the four Gospels (which may very reason- ably be supposed to have been taken down and circulated in His lifetime), we should to-day have a very poor conception indeed of what manner of man the Messiah really was. But these discourses are so wonderful as to constitute a greater marvel in the domain of ethics than do the "signs" or "miracles" in that of physics. And both fit into each other so completely that every attempt to accept the one and explain away the other must ever be a failure. They stand or fall together. Christ recognised the duality of man's nature, and ministered to his sick body as well as to his sick soul. Yet was, and is, this Sublime Beneficence who "went about doing good " and nothing but good, opening the eyes of the physically and mentally blind, " despised and rejected of men." " He came unto His own and His own received Him not. But to as many as re- ceived Him, to them gave He power to become the Sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Whence this most extraordinary of human paradoxes? How came it to pass that the rulers of the earth had nothing better than a cross whereon to die to offer to Him who said, " Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ; for I am meek and lowly of heart. Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shaU THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I47 be filled. I am the bread of life : he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst. I am the resurrection and the life ? " The Church condemned the Christ for blasphemy ; the State for sedition. Of the two powers, the Church, as usual, was the more flagitious ; for it is certain the pagan Pontius Pilatus strove hard to set Jesus free, and would probably have done so in the teeth of the priests, but for the fact that he had not at the time sufficient troops in Jerusalem to enable him to quell the serious riot with which he was threatened by the turbulent Jews. Pilate "could hnd no fault in Him," and what is not a little singular is the fact that the Emperor Domitian, some sixty years later, arrived, by implication, at the same conclusion. Domitian was the brother of that Titus, who A.D. 70, razed Jerusalem to the ground, and assuredly no more suspicious and bloody-minded tyrant ever sat on the throne of the Caesars. He had heard that there were certain descendants of King David still in existence, and among them two grand-nephews of Jesus, grandsons of His brother (or half-brother) Jude, living in Syria. The tyrant had ordered that they should all be put to death ; but mere curiosity or some other instinct induced him to send an evocatm to bring the relatives of the Nazarene before him. Domitian first asked them if they were of the Davidic stock. They said they were. He then enquired as to their means of livelihood. " Between us," said they, •* we possess only 9,000 denarii, of which each of us takes half. And that property we possess not in money but in the form of a piece of land of some thirty acres upon which we pay the taxes, and we live by the labour of our hands." They then showed their hard toil-worn hands to the tyrant, who next asked them about Christ's Kingdom and the time and place of His Second Coming. They replied that His Kingdom was a Celestial Kingdom, " not of this world," and that at the end of time He I 148 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. would re-appear to judge the quick and the dead, accord- ing to their works. Regarding them probably'as harmless dreamers, the Emperor dismissed them scatheless. But though neither Pilate nor Domitian could dis- cern any danger to Caesarism in the doctrines of the Messiah, their view was superficial in the extreme. '* Pilate therefore said unto Him, Art thou then a King ? Jesus answered, Thou sayest it. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth ? " He had no conception of a King of Truth, or of a Kingdom of God, and little is he to be blamed when, after nearly two thousand years' proclamation of the imperishable verities of the Christian Faith, we find the rulers of the earth almost as oblivious regarding them as he was incredulous. I have always had a certain latent sympathy for the reprobated Roman who grimly wrote on the Cross of Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, and who, when their chief priests expostulated with him, curtly replied, Qiwd scripsi, scripsi. At no time in the dreary blood-stained annals of man- kind has God left Himself wholly without a witness, but never has there been a witness like unto Him who drank the cup of human sorrow to the very dregs on Calvary. Moses and the Prophets had great work appointed them to do amid surrounding darkness, and they acquitted themselves like saints and heroes. Even now, as has been seen, the Mosaic legislation on the burning questions of land tenure, usury, poverty, etc., would be a godsend to any so-called civilized State of the modern world. That economic dispensation, it is true, was fundamentally individualistic ; but it was fenced about by so many anti-competitive safeguards that its ideal, viz., that every man should sit under his own vine and fig-tree with none to make him afraid, was for centuries practically attained. THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. I49 But when Christ the All- Reformer, the Renovator of the Human Conscience, appeared, " the weightier matters of the Law " were all in abeyance. The spirit had gone out of it. The "pastors and masters" of the nation He found devouring widows' houses and for a pretence making long prayers. He set himself to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, and by breathing on the dry bones He gave a new meaning to the past and opened out vast vistas of hope for the future of all mankind. He abolished all private property, and with it the State. He abolished all distinctions of race, rank, sex, and intellect. He made the first last and the last first, acknowledging only devoted service as true greatness ; the only law, the Law of Love. In His sweeping condemnation of egoism in every form it seems dcJubtful if He did not even lay icono- clastic hands on marriage and the family, as they existed and exist. " In the resurrection they neither marry, nor give in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven." "Woman" (to His mother) "what have I to do with thee? Whosoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven the same is My brother and sister and mother." He may have foreseen that mere legal matrimony and familism could not survive the communalisation of property, and it may well be so. Marriage, as we know it, is merely one of the many unwholesome fungi that grow out of the reeking, rotting corpus of private property, and it would not be difficult to conceive of a sexual order infinitely more angelic. But until woman is placed economically and politically on a footing of perfect equality with man, it is worse than useless, it is dangerous, to the best interests of mothers and children, publicly to speculate on such a theme. On this and many another difficult problem how sadly do we require " more light, more light ! " This "Gospel of the Poor" is now ended, but the bubject is inexhaustible, and will only cease to interest when the Kingdom of God itself shall have come with 150 THE GOSPEL OF THE POOR. power on earth. But assuredly the Pale Galilean will conquer in the end, and " make all things new." The Spirit of Truth shall lead us unto all truth. Hath Ht not said, " Lo, I am with you alway even unto thh END OF THE WORLD 1 " APPENDIX I. "IS CHRISTIANITY PLAYED OUT?" THE EDITOR OF " THE DAILY CHRONICLE." Sir, — I have not yet had the pleasure of reading Mr. Roben Buchanan's " Wandering Jew," and must, therefore, meanwhile content myself with his own statement of its import in Monday s Daily Chronicle. That statement is characterised by great vigour of expression and a candour altogether admirable ; but though the figure of our knight- errant poet, mounted on his prancing war-horse, and slashing down with tiis good Andrea Ferrara foolhardy critics right and left, is most impressive, it must yet, I tliink, be confessed that he is not — well, to put it mildly — a conliniioiis reasoner, and that his meaning in consequence is somewhat difhcult to grasp. Almost in the same breath he " approbates and reprobates "—being a true Scot, he wil] understand the phrase — in a most astonishing manner. Christ, it seems, was morally perfect, or almost so, but intel- lectually a most deplorable failure ; nay, " the very genius of failure," Wherein has this disastrous failure consisted ? In Christ s in- ability " to realise the necessities, the conditions, and the laws of average human nature." How came the Son of Man, Son of God, the Divine Man, to err so egregiously ? Because " He judged men far too gently, and He was far too sanguine about human perfectibility — that is all! " And being thus unwarrantably sanguine about the perfectibility of our frail human nature, what did the Wonderful, the Counsellor do ? .Truly is it the une.xpected that happens. " He affirmed that Heaven was here impossible because man was im- 152 APPENDIX. perfect " ! " He forgot that the Divine Kingdom, if it is to exist at all, must begin where God first localised it — on this planet.' " He recommends a policy of complete quiescence and stagna- tion." " He turned from this world as from something in its very nature base and detestable. ' Nov/, if this be true — and it is the very kernel of Mr. Buchanan's contention, so far as I can master it — Christianity is not merely played out ; it was never, if I may so phrase it, played in. It has, from first to last, in its veiy essence, and excluding Churchianiiy in all its feculent forms, for all practical purposes been a delusion and a snare to mankind. But before, under Mr. Buchanan's light and leading, we adopt this momentous conclusion, it may be well to in- quire what version of the New Testament he has been in the habit of consulting. Certainly no one on which I have ever been able to lay my hands. earth as it is done in heaven. It was just ' on this planet," ) re and now, that the kingdom was to "begin," and, so far was He fr(>. ^des- pairing of human nature that He laid the injunction on His followers, Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Nay, to those who were near Him shortly before His death He said : The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do. Even on the cross He found nothing that was irremediably depraved in His very executioners — Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. " He recommended a policy of complete quiescence and stagna- tion " ! When ? Where ? Had this indictment been brought against Buddhism, for example, it would have been intelligible. Buddhism sacrifices so much to mere contemplation, that it may be justly charged with much of the " stagnation " with which the East is un- happily afflicted. But surely action is the very watchword of genuine Christianity. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. And we know what was the quality of His works — works of tenderest mercy and love which touch Mr. Buchanan as they have touched the best hearts and the sanest intellects of all ages. Nay, he makes a sort of enforced enigmatical admission, if not confession, of faith which may be held to stultify nearly "all that he asserts regarding '•the very genius of failure." Of course I don't seek to attach any precise significance to his words, for as the Emperor was supra gram- viaticain, so is our poet superior to logic ; but they are curious, all APPENDIX. 153 the same, and I therefore reproduce them : "Well, the dream of Jesus was of God [a God of Love], and so is ours. That it will be realised somehow and somewhere is my living faith. Nothing beautiful or true can perish, and this world would be a charnel- touse if eternal death were possible." " Somehow and somewhere," then, the dream of Jesus Christ and of Robert Buchanan is to be realised ; but Jesus, it seems, knew not the modus operandi, at any rate " on this planet," and Robert's own hints in the direction of realisation are, alas ! of the vaguest or even non-existent order, affording no basis for profitable consideration. Of far more consequence is it to be told why " Christ's message to humanity has been spoken in vain." It was, we learn, " because the nebulae of His love never cohered to an orb of rational polity." In other words, Mr. Buchanan has either never heard of the Com- munistic Commonwealth, the foundations of which Christ laid in the very heart of the cruel, concupiscent empire of the Caesars, or he disapproves of that polity. If he disapproves of Christian com- munism (the polity in question), by all means let him say so. It is nothing more than "Sovereigns and Statesmen," and the great ones of the earth have at all times affirmed, at least in practice, But there is, at all events, nothing in the slightest degree nebulous about the communism which Christ and His followers preached and practised. Karl Marx was an utter pagan, but there is not an essential proposition in " Das Kapital " that Jesus of Nazareth did not inculcate. Is it a question of rent ? You are as much entitled to immunity from it as the birds of the air or the grass of the fields. Is it a question of usury or interest ? Lend hoping for nothing again. Is it a question oi profit or inequitable exchange ? Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you. And this very " rational," nay divine, " polity" was pursued by the early Christians with such success that it brought down on them ten Imperial persecutions of unparalled atrocity. Why ? Because Christian communism — " the Communion of the Saints " — threatened ''private property," the very foundation-stone of the Roman State, the British State, and every other in the so-called civilised world of to-day. A late Right Rev. Father in God, it will be remembered was severely taken to task for announcing that the principles of the Sermon on the Mount were incompatible with the very existence of the SUte ; but he was quite right. The State is organised for 154 Appendix. the express purpose of promoting and protecting private property, whereas the Church (if we but had one) would recognise common property alone. The atheist Emperor Constantine, perhaps the champion criminal of mankind, compared with whom Mr. Buchanan's " sullen " Im- perial French "assassin" was a mere pigmy in wickedness, as clearly apprehended the internecine character of the struggle as the Anglican prelate. Th-^ " world" — his world — was threatened with imminent ruin from the Christian imperium in imperio. Fire and sword had done their worst, and signally failed. What to do ? Turn Christian ! This the Imperial miscreant and his shameless crew pretended to do, and from that day to this the " clergy of all denominations" have served Mammon most faithfully and the God ofeconomic freedom very fitfully, or not at all. But all the same, I for one feel perfectly confident that genuine Christianity is not only not played out, but that, appearances not- withstanding, it is about to enter on a more determined conflict with the forces of social evil than it has ever yet waged. There are many thousands of the best intellects, and the stoutest hearts in Christendom, some of them even within the Churches, who have never bowed the knee to Baal, and who are ready to spend and to be spent to the uttermost, in a united fraternal effort to establish the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and to demonstrate that the author and finisher of their faith, the Blessed Nazarene, was no "dreamer," but economically as spiritually the Way, the Truth, and the Life. — I am, etc., J. MORRISON DAVIDSON. Democratic Club, Essex Street, Jan. 17th, 1S93. THE EDITOR OF "THE D.A.ILY CHRONICLE." Sir. — I sincerely rejoice that you have seen your way to allow this profoundly interesting question to be further discussed in your columns. It is such a comfort to get away from the dreary St. Stephen's play-actors and their doings for the briefest season. Not one of your correspondents, nor one of the preachers whose sermons were reported in Monday's paper, has dared to face the real issue. To me at least that issue is as clear as a sunbeam. Christ, whatever else He may have been, was beyond all question an Anarchist -Com- munist, if there ever was one. It is true He sanctioned, though APPENDIX. 155 gradgingly, the payment of tribute to Caesar, but that was only part of His marvellous, all-embracing philosophy of life. One may wel pay taxes to the State, if it is one's duty when one's coat is requis- tioned to give one's vest also. In the ancient world, among masters and slaves alike, the lex talionis universally obtained — " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Crassus acted on it, so did Spartacus. But that rule of conduct Christ exactly reversed. He announced that evil was not to be overcome by evil, but by good, and that good in concrete form. Mr. Buchanan's desiderated "orb of rational polity" wiXi the "commune pure and simple." The "world" which Christ came to combat by word and deed was the institution of private property, with all its monstrous, but- tressing paraphernalia of "sovereigns and statesmen," lords and commons, armies and navies, priests and parsons, judges and policemen, prisons and workhouses, banks, insurance offices, stock exchanges, and Liberator Societies. He dissolved the whole fabric of the " society " which we are all vainly struggling to keep from falling to pieces about our ears. The Princes of the Gentiles hear dominion over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them, but among you [Christians] it shall not be so. He that ivould be greatest among you, let him be the least. Let him be the servant 0/ all. The test of admission to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth was, Sell all you have and give to the poor, and join this communistic society which I have founded, where the distinction of meum andtuu7n no longer exists. That was the leaven that was to leaven the whole lump of suffering humanity. It has, alas ! not done so ; but surely the " failure " is not Christ's but ours. I can in some measure understand the all but "uncon- ceivable ignorance " of men like Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Foote, of the National Secular Society (whose out of date occupation I haa hoped was by this time gone), but the attitude of "Christian" bishops, with their public palaces, pitroaage, and big incomes, and even of prosperous Dissenting Nonconformist stipendiaries of the altar, beggars me entirely. In the name of the vagrant Nazarene, who had not where to lay his head, I say to all such — By the Shades beneath us, and by the Gods above. Add not unto your cruel hate your yet more cruel love. The Gospel of Him who dared to say. He that hath seen Me hath seen tke Father, was to be without money and without price, and lo ! ^ 156 APPENDIX. bas been converted by the " classes " into the subject matter of one pf the genteel professions ! It is all very sad, Mr. Editor. " The prophets prophesy falsely ; by them the priests bear rule, and my people love to have it so." Anyhow, Sir, you have done the world an inestimable service by opening the columns of The Daily Chronicle to the many earnest souls who have written to you, and you may depend that, though the fullness of time is not yet, God will arise, ani His enemies shall be scattered. — I am, &c. J- ^- ^' Jan. 24th, 1893. THE EDITOR OF "THE DAILY CHRONICLE." Sir,— I had not intended to write a word more in this unexampled controversy, but to leave it to my grand sahreur compatriot, Mr. Buchanan, to sum up the situation. Some friends, however, think Ihat it would be well that I should say a few words in reply to Mr. G. W. Foote's quasi-personal, "secularist" — papal rescript, in Saturday's issue, and with your permission I shall briefly do so. He does not like my reiteration of the fact that, so far at least aa this world is concerned, communism pure and simple is tha Christianity of Christ. He cannot deny it, but he holds up his hands in astonishment that I should claim as upholders of that "orb of rational polity" so much desiderated by Mr. Buchanan, St. Simon, Proudhon, Rodbertus, Lassalle and Marx, of whom he dentures to say, "and there was 7iot a Christian among them!" That was obviously not my point, which was that if Christ were not "intellectually" competent to think out an effecti%-e scheme for the emancipation of suffering humanity, neither were those acknowledged brain-giants who painfully expressed His all-embrac- ing dicta in terms of modern industriaHsm. But to Mr. Foote it is given to know who are Christians and who are not ; from me that knowledge is withheld. I am content to accept the authority that " those who not having the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, are a law unto themselves." Nay, I go to a yet higher authority, and say, "It is not they that call me Lord, Lord, that shall be saved, but those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven." Indeed, I should greatly hesitate to say that the president of the National Secular Society himself was not naturaliley Clmstianus APPENDIX. 157 Mr. Foote is good enough to instruct me regarding the Essenes, who, he admonishes me, " were a numerous communistic society before the formation of any Christian Church ; in fact, before the apostolate of Christ.' If Mr. Foote cares to turn to my little book The Old Order and the New," he will find a pretty full account of (he Essenes, but they were never, as he says, a "numerous society," Philo reckons them at 4,000, and their ante-dating Christ's apostolate, though it may be inferred, cannot be proved. Anyhow, so far as I am concerned, the point is of no consequence whatever, for my Christianity is at least as comprehensive as that of St. Augustine, who held that "that which is called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist from the plant- ing of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already subsisted, began to be called Christianity." On one point I am entirely at one with Mr. Foote — the utter utility of other.worldliness. We are as much in eternity now as we ever have been or ever shall be. The Kingdom of Heaven is withia us here and now, or nowhere, and the " selfishness of salvation " in another world, apart from the most determined effort to abolish the environment which produces so much needless sorrow and suffering on earth, is to me anathema. My sole prayer in this momentous issue is that of the "Third Voice in the night" in Tennyson's " Queen Mary." "Third Voice: What am i ? One who cries continually with sweat and tears to the Lord God that it would please Him out of His infinite love to break down ingship and queenship, all priesthood and prelacy ; to cancel and abolish all bonds of human allegiance, all the magistracy, all the nobles, and all the wealthy, and to send us again, according to his promise, the one King, the Christ, and all things jn common, as in the days of the first Church, when Christ Jesus was King."— I am, &c. J. M, D. Jan. 30th, 1893. PS —One word regarding my alleged "anonymous defamation " of the late Mr. Charles Bradlaugh. I have never written a word anonymously for the last quarter of a century, when I could avoid it, and I have never written a line during that long stretch of journalistic experience to which I would not willingly subscribe my name at this moment. All who know me are aware that this is so. APPENDIX II. "TIRED OF LIFE." THE EDITOR OF " THE DAILY CHRONICLE." Sir, — "To be or not to be, that is the question," of the houi it would seem. Master Ernest Clark, aged twenty-three, carpet- designer in particular and aesthete in general, has " suicided " because, as he tells us, he " resolved long ago, that life is a series ol shams." "Shams" ! A series of grim tragedies, rather, I should say, in which Ernest like the rest of us was called upon to play a man's part, but conspicuously did not. " The ugliness and monotony of life crowded beauty out," and so Ernest thought to mend matters by putting a leaden bullet in its place, much to the satisfaction appar- ently of William Archer, " dramatic critic," and "lethal chamber " advocate. Said William, having critically examined Ernest's letter to The Daily Chronicle announcing his abrupt exit from amongst us, hastens to pronounce it " simple and manly." I wonder if he ever heard of the Parisian who was found one morning dangling from a tree with this terse explanation pinned to the breast of his coat — " Born a man, but died a grocer." Here was not merely simplicity and manliness for you, but a certain measure of grim epigrammatic humour into the bargain ; a sort of grave and gay life — Iliad in a nutshell. The grocer had doubtless like most of us. sufiered from "lack of advancement," had, peradventure, more creditors than customers, but he did not question the reality of the manhood to which he aspired, though the stubborn grocery environment unfor- tunately rendered it unattainable. He was not a sceptic he was only a " failure " ; and there are, alas ! in this world of competition many such. APPENDIX. 159 But our dramatic critic's hypochondriac young hero was " not built that way." Ernest was not a "failure" so far, but nothing was good enough for his morbid self-love. He declined to follow the advice of two of the woi'ld's greatest intellectual benefactors — Voltaire and Carlyle— and betake himself to "hard work," because that, forsooth, was an " anaesthetic " which might take in two such old fogeys as the sages of Forney and Chelsea, but not hivi, the knowing one that he was ! The " Socialists " likewise were naught. " They look forward to society with brains and love, but there will always be the animal in and out of us to fight with," and our virtuous "transcendental" Ernest must needs decline the unholy combat. The little valorous Jew, St. Paul, we know, "fought with wild beasts at Ephesus," but his " ideals," if he had any, were of the earth, earthy, mayhap. As for "religions" they failed to demonstrate to Krnest's mature intelligence the immortality of the soul, and were therefore of no account. Woman also was discovered to be a fraudulent siren, malevolently contrived " to keep man here," but Ernest being more than man saw through the snare and incontinently took himself off, " the grief of my darling, the most sacred thing life has given me." notwithstanding. Such I maintain, is a perfectly fair analysis of what Mr. Archer is pleased to call a " simple, manly letter," on the strength of which, and for the behoof of such sickly, maudlin cranks, he would put the community to theexpenseof erecting convenient " lethal chambers ' with adjoining crematoria ! Indeed, of Ernest's letter and William's, William's seems to me to' carry off the palm for sheer contemptible /wrf^sw/esentimentalism sceptical cant, and irresponsible moral frivolity. If dramatic criticism has the effect of reducing the mind of a presumably sane man to such palpable chaos, the art ought, for the good of mankind, to be banished from the fdce of the earth, drama, theatre, and all To tell the truth when I read Mr. Archer's letter my first impression was that it was some ghastly joke he was playing off on the much- enduring British public, and it was not till he imparted the fact that he could not transcribe a few lines on suicide from Dryden — for the most part an exceedingly artificial and even mechanical, poet, by the way— without shedding tears of self-pity worthy of a boarding school "Miss " that it dawned on me that he might be in earnest after all- Exception is taken by some to the stereotyped " Crowner's 'quest " verdict of " temporary insanity " pronounced on Ernest Clark ; but, though inexuct, it was at least humane, and, in sucb l60 APPENDIX. cases, humanity s every way better than logic. The verdict of reason would have been something like this — " Committed suicide in consequence of confirmed mental disease, the offspring of abound- ing conceit, intense egoism, and 'a little learning.'" It may seem harsh to write thus ; but, so far as was disclosed by the evidence, the youth had positively no " fardels" whatever to bear except such as were coined in the mint of his own capricious imagination. A few touches of real hardship, such as thousands on thousands in the East-end of London and elsewhere stoically endure, week in' and week out, would have done him a world of good by teaching him to sympathise with the untold woes of the struggling " masses,* who have no time to brood over the trumpery " aesthetic " miseries which loomed so large in his distorted vision. Mr. Archer is at a loss to discover the " sin " of suicide, or where it is condemned in the Scriptures. But the truth is suicide may be a " sin" or a "saving grace "according as the motive is selfish or unselfish. Take, for example, the case of not a few captive victims of Austrian and Russian imperial despotism — heroic Poles, Italians, Russians — who even in our own day have dashed out their brains against their dungeon walls, not from any craven dread of torture, but from fear lest, under its influence, they might, in some moment of delirium, reveal the names of comrades still at large, and so involuntarily sacrifice " the cause " of the oppressed. He would be a stern moralist indeed who would- condemn, nay, who would not heartily applaud, suicide under such untoward circu mstances. I would even, in the face of such a real tragedy, permit Mr. Archer, if he cared, to " take out the plug," and weep to his heart's content. But your " aesthetic " suicides of the Canterbury and Liverpool- street Station pattern have neither part nor lot in such afifairs of high emprise. They are base, cowardly deserters from the battle, who throw down their arms in face of the common enemy,, and take refuge in ignominous flight. This, the Christian view ol the selfish " Tired of Life" suicide, gives mortal offence, I observe to Mr. Harold Frederic, who, in support of the "dramatic critic's " epistolary antics, makes a long excursus into pagan theories of self-destruction. He evidently thinks these were of an enlightened order, almost up to Mr. Archer's grave" penny-in-the-slot " sugges- tion. To any one, however, really conversant with antiquity, it will at once be evident that he is a mere special pleader, whose large statements must be taken with many grains of salt. But even APPENDIX. Z6Z were it otherwise, "the Greek philosophy and graces, whose submerging under the acrid flood of theocratic Semitism " Mr. Frederic so keenly deplores, had brought the empire of the Cajsars before Christ's advent to such a hopeless pass of cruelty and lust that even wise men might be excused for having recourse to Hamlet's "bare bodkin." On that hard pagan world disgust, And secret loathing fell ; Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell. In his cool hall with haggared eyes, The Roman n oble lay ; He drove abroad in furious guise Along the Appian way. He made a feast, drank fierce and fast. And crowned his hair with flowers- No easier, nor no quicker pass'd The impracticable hours. But, thank God, bad as our condition is to-day, we are a con- si'ierable way off the impenetrable gloom that enveloped the Gra;co- Roman world. We know the root of this suicidal manii, and are confident that it can and will be extirpated, if not by us, then in the name of the Blessed Nazarene, by those more fortunate "grandsons and great-grandsons" of ours, whom Mr. Archer so liberally dowers with parochial "lethal chambers" and crematoria. Deliberate suicide is simply the ultimate expression of mori- bund individualism — of the competitive system of production and distribution. Within a comparatively brief period ten men of good culture, with whom I was more or less intimately acquainted have committed suicide. None of them "wrote to the newspapers" about the manner or reason of their going and only one of them engaged the attention of a coroner's jury ; but all of them succumbed directly or indirectly to the fierce strain put upon them by the cruel Moloch of competition. " Disgust and secret loathing " fell upon them they hardly knew why ; but alas ! they fell. They were wearied with competition which means war, and they were unable to embrace co-operation which means /^rt<r^. Six of them were professed Christians ; but not one of the six — and therein assuredly they were not singular — could be made to comprehend Christ's cardinal mission on earth, or their end would have been otherwise. That mission was to dethrone the brute god I 1 62 APPENDIX. of this world, "Mammon," otherwise to uproot the baleful institution of "private property" the modern synonym of Mammon. There- fore it was that He said, "Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." He sought to eradicate self, or "covetousness," from the human heart, and with it "private property," which is merely its organised expression. All Collectivists, whether they know it or not, are His followers, and are busy laying the foundations of the Kingdom of God on earth, of which He was the harbinger. In this sacred work the despondent find a new happiness, all petty differences of creed, and even method, are forgotten, and a true all embracing Human Church is being slowly evolved — a beneficent church which will make Mr. Archer's suicidal clients' "lethal chambers" and penny-in-the-slot reforms look very ridiculous objects indeed. Let me put a new, a better, and a more wholesome song into his mouth than any he seems to be in the habit of hearing in the unreal realms of theatre-land I will not cease from mental strife. Nor let the sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land. I am, &c., J. MORRISON DAVIDSON. Democratic Club, Essex-street, Aug. 22nd, 1893. To The Disinherited Landless Helots OF Town and Country AT Home and Abroad This Small but Precious Compendium OF Imperishable Truths on The Land Problem IS With the Deepest Sympathy Inscribed BY J. M. D. PRECURSORS OF HENRY GEORGE BY MORRISON DAVIDSON. 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Reply to the Synod The Only Means Reason, Faith, and Prayer The Relations of the Sexes Popular Stories and Legends. First Series. Containing "Where Love Ls ; " "If You Neglect the Fire;" "How Much Land Does a Man Need ? " " Ivan the Fool" Popular Stories and Legends. Second Series. Contain- ing "What Men Live By;" "The Godson;" "The Two Pilgrims;" How the Little Devil Earned the Crust of Bread;" "Ilias" 6d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 6d. 6d. 6d. id.; cloth, 3d. 3d. Id. 2d. Id. Id. Id. Id. Id. 4d. 4d. 4d. F. R. HENDERSON, 26 Paterkoster Square, London, E.G. drown 8vo, pp. xvi. + 494, Cloth Gilt, Bevelled Sides, with Portrait of the Author, 6s. net ; also a Cheaper Edition, in Four Parts, each Is. net THE ANNALS OF TOIL BEING OLabour Ibistor^ ©utlines, IRoman auD :Britisb IN FOUR PARTS, BY J. MORRISON DAVIDSON (0/ the Middle Templt), Barrister-at-Law, AUTHOR OF " The Old Order and the New," " The New Book of Kings," " The Gospel of the Poor," " Let There be Light," etc. PART I. — The Lot of the Ancient Labourer — Celtic Britain — The Domesday Book, etc. — Mediaeval " Classes" and " Masses." PART IL — The Peasants' Revolt— Cade's Rebellion— Protestantism and Pauperism — Commonwealth, Cromwell and Collectivism. PART in. — Eve of the Capitalist Regime (1660-1760) — The Coming of the Capitalists — Cliartists and Chartism. PART IV. — Trade-Unionism and Co-operation — Neo-Socialist "Origins" — Socialists and Socialisms — Realities, Probabilities, and Possibilities. PRESS NOTICES. "An earnest, entertaining, and eminently weighty compilation by a thoughtful Scotsman." — Outlook. " Two things strike the reviewer — the enormous amount of historical information lodged in the mind of John Morrison Davidson, and the entire single-hearted devotion of the same Morrison Davidson to the Democratic Cause." — The New Age. " Mr. Davidson is an iconoclast, if ever one were. Every national idol we have he knocks down from its pedestal. . . . ' The Annals of Toil ' contains much interesting information of a curious out-of-the-way kind. Its author has evidently devoted both time and thought to his work ; unfortunately, however, he has allowed his sympathy for the Poor and hatred of the Rich to lead him astray." — Pall Mall Gazette. F. R. HENDERSON, 26 Patirnoster Square, London, E.G. ANNALS OF TOIL.— PRESS NOTICES— Coniimud. " Mr. Davidson's book fairly teems with facts which will be of immense use to all who have to write or speak on industrial questions." — Notiifi^ham Daily Express. " The work is written with the vigour and acumen which are characteristic of Mr. David- son's discussion of social, political, and industrial subjects." — Dumfries Standard. " Whilst Mr. Davidson is caustic to excess in his comments, he has obviously been a care- ful and painstaking student and searcher for the facts which he may at times see in a rather exaggerated light. The author gives us a vast quantity of information as to the habits and conditions of labourers from early times, which is culled from the greatest authorities. We would advise the student to take advantage of Mr. Davidson's wide reading." — Bradford Observer. "Mr. Davidson is an out-and-out Democrat and Republican. An index might have made some of the material he has collected from a wide course of reading of some use. Without an index it is of little or no use, except to those who are fired by the unswerving democratic purpose which has actuated its author." — Scotsman. " This is one of those curious books which press history into the ser\'ice of a revolutionary movement, and transplant to the remote past all the furious passions of to-day." — Guardian. "The 'Annals of Toil' is undoubtedly a book which will be very widely read. The chapters are all written in that style which indelibly identifies them with the author." — Western Daily Mercury. "This volume shows the same care, industry, charm of style, and felicity of treatment which Morrison Davidson brings to bear on all his literary work. As a storehouse of facts, and an argument for Democracy, it will be welcomed by all interested in the Condition of the People Question." — Reynolds's Newspaper. "Much valuable data for the use of students, speakers, and writers on the Labour Problem is contained in the book, and the information is both concisely and conveniently ar- ranged. The general reader, too, will probably find in these ' Labour Outlines ' much that will interest him, and maybe instruct." — Sheffield Independent. "We do not quarrel with Mr. Davidson's facts so much as with his utter lack of the historic sense and his vulgar invective, which will prevent them from influencing any really intelligent Workman. Such a book as this makes one despair of solving the Social Problem." — The Methodist Times. "Apart altogether from the economic preaching that runs through them, these terrible ' Annals of Toil ' are of the first importance to the student of Historj'. . . . Set down in manner as vivid and graphic as that of a skilled romancer." — Mornino Leader. " No one knows the History of Labour better than Morrison Davidson, and no one can tell the Story of Labour in a more attractive way. The chapters treating of Modern Labour Movements are full of that fine blend of good sense and keenly intelligent criticism which is characteristic of the author. The book contains as frontispiece a capital portrait of the veteran." — Dundee A aver User. " Mr. Davidson wages fierce war with Mr. J. R. Green, the historian. . . . Shakespeare is denounced as ' a venal scribe ' because he did not sufficiently recognise the wisdom and virtue of Wat Tyler. Cromwell, too, has a bad time of it at Mr. Davidson's hands. In fact, every- body who ever succeeded in doing anything except getting himself hanged or knocked on the bead, or politically extinguished, was a more or less untrustworthy person." — Morning Post. •' Looking back on the pages of history, Mr. Davidson chiefly sees the toiling people and them crucified. But he has always been an Idealist, able to draw on the bank ol faith, know- ing that the things that are seen are temporal, and that many a disaster rnust happen before Jerusalem is builded. Mr. Davidson never minces his words, and occasionally he goes too far. But there is such faith, such hopeful idealism, such firm adherence to principles not lightly adopted, such occasional flashes of insight, such divine sympathy with all who suffer, that we overlook faults, and gladly welcome such a work as an eloquent, if not in all respects convincing, statement of a side which has had but few champions among the elegant writers of history for the genteel cKisses of Society.''— Late William Clarke in Daily Chronicle. " Mr. Davidson writes with a wealth of invective that is apt to react on his own cause, but at the same time with force and, above all, with knowledge." — Star. " The ' Annals of Toil ' is the spasmodic work of a clever and well-read man. In fact, Mr. Davidson so raves, recites, and maddens through History and Economics that, though he appears to be often foaming at the mouth, he may be just as likely as not laughing in his sleeve." — Glasgow Herald. F. R. HENDERSON, 26 PATERNOSTER Square, London, E.C. Crown 8vo, pp. x. +171, Cloth Gilt, 2s, net ; Cheap Edition, is. net. Let There Be Light ! New^ Politics for the People BY J. MORRISON DAVIDSON (0/ the Middle Temple), BARRISTER-AT-LAW, Author of " The Old Order and the New" " The New Book of Kings," " The Gospel of the Poor" " The Annats of Toil," etc., etc. SHORT LIST OF CONTENTS: Communion of Saints. Christian Profession and Practice. Religion of Collectivism. Non-Conformist Conscience. Labour Churches. Costs of Cant. Labourism v. Liberalism. National Labour Parliament. Politics Without Politicians. Initiative and Referendum. What is Anarchy ? Anarchy and Outrage. Give the Woman a Latch-key ! Rights of Natural Children. Communism and the Family. The "New Woman." "Triumphant Democracy." The Poor Man's Bank. Inferno of War. Pauper Suffrage. "Tender Mercies of the Wicked." Royal Christening. The Daily Telegraph says : " Mr. Morrison Davidson is one of those exasperating authors who are the despair of reviewers. His style is a pure example of English, and yet his arguments are such as would set at least a dozen groups of advanced theorists at variance. His latest production is * Let There be Light ! ' and it means that the theories he deduces from the text ought to be submitted to the ordeal of everyday life ; and if the latter be unequal to the trial, so much the worse for it. Mr. Davidson writes so well that it is always a pleasure to disagree with him." Leo Tolstoy says: "The whole book is penetrated by a true Christian spirit, which invites to action, and not to submission to, or adaptation of, the present state of things." F. R. HENDERSON, 26 Paternoster Square, London, E.G. By J. MORRISON DAVIDSON (Of the Middle Temple )^ BARRISTER-AT-LAW, Author of ^^ Annals of Toil" "Let There be Light" " Politics for the People" "The Gospel of tlie Poor" "The Old Order and the New" etc. Price, 6d. net ; Clotli, Is 6d. net. THE BOOK OF LORDS PRESS OPINIONS. "The little book makes out its case. It should be circulated by the hundred thousand throughout the United Kingdom to stir the people to a stern deternunation to put an end to an unmitigated curse." — Norlhainpshire Guardian ' "The 'New Book of Kings' and the 'Book of Lords.' Oh ! that the children in the schools of Great Britain and Ireland could be favoured with copies of each of these valuable books." — Irish World. " I have just been reading Mr. Morrison Davidson's two writings, the 'New Book of Kings' and the 'Book of Lortls.' I close them botli with a shudder. They contain stern and awful truths. With pitiless logic, with a grandly-simple eloquence, with a straightforward earnestness he tells his tale. From Defoe to Junius, and from Junius till now, Britain has had no such able pamphleteer." — Greenock Herald. 135th THOUSAND. Prices — Paper, Is. net ; Cloth, 2s. net. The New Book of Kings PRESS OPINIONS. " There are many valuable truths in the ' New Book of Kings,' justly and forcibly expressed. The remarks on the existing monarchy should be laid to heart by all thoughtful and candid readers." — Algernon C. Swinburne. " It really ought to be circulated as a tract by hundreds of thousands. If this were done, it would have a tremendous political effect." — Henry George. " I doubt whether Mr. George's ' Progress and Poverty' has made a deeper impression than the ' New Book of Kinos' by Mr. Morrison Davidson, a well- known controversialist and original thinker." — London, Cor. Brooklyn Eagle. " If Mr. Davidson had not fortified all his assertions by unqui-stionable historical authority, one would be very much inclined to set down his book as the nightmare of a man with a very powerful and a very morbid imagina- tion." — T. P. O'Connor, in the Freeman^ s Journal. " Mr. Davidson handles the Kings and Queens as a skilful surgeon would describe a skeleton to a class of students. There is an immense mischief- making power in this little paper-covered publication." — Philadelphia Times. F. R. HENDERSON, 26 Paternoster Square, London, E.C. C L. O T H, 1 6. NET. The Village for the Villager^ OR, THE VILLAGERS' MAGNA CHARTA: An Exposition of the Parish Councils Act. By J. MORRISON DAVIDSON (Of tJie Middle Temple), Barrister-at-Law, Author of " The Annai.s of Toil," " The Old Order and the New," " The Book OF Lords," "Let There be Light," etc; " We hope all our readers and all the enfranchised ' Sons of the Soil ' will provide themselves with copies of this masterly exposition by Mr. Morrison Davidson," — Robert Blatchford (" Nanqnum") in Clarion. " As the product of a man who is at once a skilled lawyer, an agitator, and a practical politician, the book is unique." — AloTuing Leader. g @. 6ci. NET. Scotia Rediviva 1[3ome IRule tor Scotland, WITH LIVES OF SIR WILLAM WALLACE, GEOEGE BUCHANAN, FLETCHER OF SALTOUN, and THOMAS SPENCE. BY d. EVlOReiSON DAVIDSON. "A charncteristically vigorous and outspoken assa'dt on the present legis- lative relations between Scotland and England."— A^orM British Daily Mail. "An eloquent plea for Home Rule for Scotland, with biographical sketches of four typical Scotsmen — to wit. Sir William Wallace, George Buchanan, Fletcher of Saltoun, and Thomas Spence, the Father of latter-day Land Restorationists. " — Northern Ensign. F. R. HENDERSON, 26 Paternoster Square, London, E.G. n By «J. MORRISON DAVIDSON (Of tha MiddU Temple), BARRISTER-AT-LAW, Author of ' The Annals of Toil," "The Book 0/ Lords " "New Book 0/ Kings," "Lei There be Light," etc. New Edition in Preparation ; Is. net ; Cloth, 28. net. XTbe (3o8pel of the Ipoot Fifth Edition in the Press ; Is. net ; Cloth, 2s. net. 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" If Mr. Davidson had not fortified all his assertions by unquestionable historical AUTHORITY, one would be very much inclined to set down his book as the nightmare of a man with a very powerful and a very morbid imagination." T. P. O'CONNOR. LONDON : FRANCIS RIDDELL HENDERSON, 26, Paternoster Square, E.C. I Is. net. Cloth, 2s. net. SCOTULND FOR THE SCOTS. Scotlaiid Revisited, By MORRISON DAVIDSON. " He has put his finger on the blot, and pointed out {his bagpipe certainly gives no uncertain sound) our national vice of snobbism." — Introduction by R. B. Cunninghame- Graham. " I rejoice in your persisting faith in the cardinal doctrine of self-government, and in the splendid defence of that faith you have supplied. It is a message needed at this hour. ' ' — Rev. John Cliffard, D.D. "All lovers of the land of the thistle and the bluebell will revel in these pages." — Leicester Pioneer. " A real historian of the people." — New Age. " A fine plea for human freedom." — Morning Leader. "Mr. Davidson is a prince of pamphleteers and an irreconcilable foe to class privilege." — Peterhead Sentinel. " Written with all that wealth of Scottish feeling, of knowledge of Scottish history, and that keen touch with everyday wants as well, which makes everything that Mr. Davidson writes deeply interesting." — People's Journal. ^T^^^S «— - LONDON: FRANCIS RIDDELL HENDERSON, 26, Paternoster Square, E.G. ] UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below ■ (VN 3 - 1962. 'iJAN24T96t Form L-9-15to-7,'35 UNIVERSITY of CALIJ^'ORNi AT LOS ANGELES TJRRAPV 3 1158 01271 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 099113 1