THE CHURCHES AND THE WAGE EARNERS CHURCHES AND THE WAGE EARNERS A STUDY OF THE CAUSE AND CURE OF THEIR SEPARATION BY C. BERTRAND THOMPSON NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1909 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published February, 1909 tto M. K. T. PREFACE A KEENLY analytical friend of mine is fond ** of remarking that nearly all vicious reason- ing is due to the attempt to answer two ques- ' tions at once. This error, at least, I have tried to avoid. I have devoted my attention to a specific, clear-cut problem that of the gulf be- tween the masses of the laboring people and the churches of to-day; and I have endeavored to limit myself strictly to this question, in spite of numerous temptations to wander into neigh- boring fields. I mention this in order to forestall a certain class of criticisms aimed at what, to some, may appear to be inadequacies of treatment. I am well aware, for example, that there are many people alienated from the churches besides the workingmen. Professional men, both within and without the churches, stand in a peculiar relation to them which is vastly interesting and significant; but with this I have at present nothing to do. Similarly with the economics of the "social question" and of socialism. Their discussion from a scientific point of view is of vital importance; but it is quite outside the viii PREFACE scope of this study. I am concerned primarily with the relations of the churches to these prob- lems; not with the problems themselves. If it be asked why, in the chapter entitled " Facts," I have made no use of the numerous published statistics of church membership, the answer must be simply that they are not trust- worthy. The Federal Census made several at- tempts, between 1850 and 1890, to enumerate the population of the United States by church connection; but the results were so extremely unreliable that the effort was finally abandoned. The "censuses" published year by year in the denominational and interdenominational jour- nals are quite useless until we know in detail how they were compiled. Tests of church mem- bership are so loose and so variable, and there is such a large subjective element in ministers' estimates, that the margin of error is very great indeed. Further, the motives for evasion and misrepresentation in regard to church affilia- tion are so strong that it is questionable whether accurate statistics on the subject can ever be compiled. That other and perhaps more valid criticisms of this work may be urged I have no doubt. No one can be more painfully aware of its de- ficiencies than myself. I can only plead in PREFACE ix mitigation, first, that, so far as I know, it is the first venture into this particular field; and, sec- ond, it is written in the sincere desire to be helpful to the institution and the class in which I am most deeply interested organized religion on the one hand and toiling humanity on the other. If it succeed in the slightest degree in clearing up their mutual misunderstandings, I shall feel amply repaid. My indebtedness to other writers may be sufficiently obvious from the footnotes and the Bibliography. It remains only to acknowledge my obligations to Professor Francis G. Peabody, of Harvard University, and to my wife, for criticism and assistance at all stages of the work. C. BERTRAND THOMPSON. PEABODY, MASSACHUSETTS, February 2, 1909. CONTENTS PART I: THE ALIENATION OF THE WAGE EARNERS FROM THE CHURCHES: ITS EXTENT AND ITS CAUSES PAGE DEFINITIONS 3 CHAPTER I: FACTS 5 CHAPTER II: CAUSES 13 1. Ascribable to the Wage Earners . . . . 14 2. Workingmen's Complaints against the Churches 24 3. General Criticisms 41 4. Inherent in Modern Conditions .... 46 CHAPTER III: CONCLUSIONS AND QUERIES . . 50 PART II: THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES TOWARD THE WORKINGMEN, AND ITS RESULTS r PREAMBLE . 55 CHAPTER I: EQUALITY . . 57 1. Spiritual 57 2. Social 59 xi xii CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER II: CHARITY 65 1. The Old Way 65 2. The Institutional Church 70 3. The Mission 79 4. The Settlement 82 CHAPTER III: THE SOCIAL QUESTION .... 86 1. The Teaching of Jesus 87 2. The Churches' Present Theory 96 3. The Churches' Present Practice .... 102 CHAPTER IV: GOVERNMENT 114 PART III: CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIALISM THE PROBLEM 125 CHAPTER I: ATHEISTIC SOCIALISM 128 CHAPTER II: "CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM" .... 140 CHAPTER III: INHERENT INCOMPATIBILITIES . . 145 1. Early Christianity and Socialism .... 145 2. Aims 148 3. Methods 151 4. Moral Values 155 CHAPTER IV: ORIGIN AND CORRECTION OF THE ERROR . . 161 CONTENTS xiii PART IV : WHAT TO DO PAGE THE TASK 171 CHAPTER I: THE NATURE OF THE OPPORTUNITY . 173 CHAPTER II: SOCIAL PREACHING 179 CHAPTER III: SOCIAL PRACTICE 190 CHAPTER IV: MODERN METHODS 196 CHAPTER V: THE MODERN MINISTER . . . .212 CONCLUSION 219 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 221 PART I THE ALIENATION OF THE WAGE- EARNERS FROM THE CHURCHES: ITS EXTENT AND ITS CAUSES DEFINITIONS IN any discussion of the subject of the present relations of the workingmen to organized re- ligion it is of the utmost importance to distin- guish clearly between the Church and the churches. The Christian Church is an abstrac-^ tion which stands for a certain fairly definite set of principles; the churches are collections of concrete individuals who profess allegiance to those principles. Men may be entirely out of sympathy with the churches, while believing in the principles of the Church; the principles of the Church may be entirely favorable to the aims and efforts of the workingmen, while the members of the churches are entirely opposed J to them. Failure to recognize this difference is respon- sible for a great deal of current misunderstand- ing. The laborer becomes an opponent of the Church because dissatisfied with the churches; church-members accuse the laborer of base in- gratitude and callousness, in view of all that the Church has done for him in the past and its 3 4 THE CHURCHES good intentions toward him in the present. This discussion will be concerned primarily with the churches. It will have to do with the Church only in so far as its principles may be considered as binding upon and reflected by individual churches and church-members. By "wage earner," "workingman," "labor- er," etc., is meant, wherever used in this work, the person who is employed by another, for wages, to work with his hands. The term thus excludes "brain-workers," "soft-handed" workers, and all salaried, professional, and "in- dependent" business mem f J' Wh^'i Q / CHAPTER I FACTS 'T^HE fact of the alienation of the masses from the churches has been so frequently noted of late years that it has become a commonplace. It is not, to be sure, altogether a recent phe- nomenon. As far back as 1813, Rev. Rector Campbell said : " I know it is the boast of the Church of England to be the poor man's church, but I am afraid it is only our boast." The sep- aration of the "poor man" from the churches was then apparently viewed without any great concern; but now it is the cause of considerable alarm. To-day it is frequently referred to as the churches' crisis, and it is observed, with anxiety and deep foreboding, that the alienation is in- creasing. The decline is felt in all denomina- \ tions. Small congregations and empty churches are noted everywhere. This is the case not only throughout England and America, but on the Continent also. In France "it would be diffi- \ cult to find an assembly of Republicans in which the great majority are not atheists." * Ger- 1 Mority Kaufmann, "Christian Socialism," 146. 5 6 THE CHURCHES AND many, which sets the tone for most of the north- ern nations, is the home of materialism. The southern nations are deeply infected with the infidelity of France. Russia, encased in eccle- siastical form, is also seething with disbelief. This "eclipse of faith," as Kaufmann calls it, is " peculiar to the masses of the workingmen of Europe"; and he might have added, of the whole civilized world. Statistically, the rough statement that "the people are leaving the denominations by the mil- lions" 1 is at least partially confirmed by the in- vestigations reported by Dr. Josiah Strong. 2 After an exhaustive study of a number of selected representative fields in different parts of the United States, Strong concludes that less than 30 per cent, of the population of America are regular attendants, perhaps 20 per cent, are irregular attendants, while fully one-half never attend any church at all, Protestant or Cath- olic. This percentage for attendance seems to be too high. Investigations made by the writer in New England towns, and by a friend in a large part of Boston, would not warrant an estimate of even 15 per cent, of the population as regular attendants. In the United States popular in- 1 Algernon S. Crapsey, "Religion and Politics," 315. 2 Strong, "New Era," 203^. THE WAGE EARNERS 7 terest in church-going seems to be greater in the West than in the East; but Strong's figures are unduly liberal estimates for any part of the country. Statistics also show that church membership is steadily declining in proportion to popula- tion. Dr. Strong says: 1 "If the gain of the Church on the population during the first half of the [nineteenth] century is represented by 80, during the last half it is represented by 20, during the last twenty years it is represented by 4, and during the last ten years it is repre- sented by i." The attitude of the non-attendants is of all grades of opposition, from mere indifference to positive antipathy. Sometimes it is described as "indifference to theology" (this is found within the churches also); more often it takes the more serious form of indifference or even hostility to religion itself. Occasionally there appears a personal distrust of the church or the minister, and even a decided " antipathy to par- sons." 2 As we shall soon have abundant occa- sion to see, the attitude of the majority of class- conscious workingmen is, on the whole, an atti- 1 Cited in Literary Digest, June 13, 1908; cf. Joseph H. Crocker, "The Church of To-day," 56. *Paul Gohre, "Three Months in a Workshop," 175. 8 THE CHURCHES AND tude of active hostility to anything and every- thing connected with the churches. It is a noteworthy fact that the people who are left in the churches are either the well-to-do and wealthy, "the hereditary rich, sheltered classes," or the young people from the shops and the offices, the "soft-handed" workers. The Protestant churches, as a rule, are not made up of the common people, but rather of the em- ployers. 1 There is an apparent exception to this rule in the Negro churches in America, which are made up mainly of workingmen. 2 This is to be explained, probably, on the same ground as the other apparent exception, that of the Catholic churches in Ireland: the fact that the people as a whole are struggling together for justice and freedom. In both cases the an- tagonism of their environment drives them to- gether to the consolations and hopes of religion, and in both cases, also, the usually superior edu- cation of their clergy leads all classes to look naturally to them for leadership. 1 It is just this shifting of the churches "from the plain people to the rich" which "must be looked upon with discomfort and alarm," according to President Roosevelt. There is a danger of religion itself becoming a class matter, thus aggravating the al- ready increasing tendency toward "class" alignment. 2 R. R. Wright, "Social Work and Influence of the Negro Church, 30; Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science," 516. THE WAGE EARNERS 9 The non-church-going class consists mainly of farmers, factory-workers, and, in America, immigrants. Strong's investigations in New England, Pennsylvania, and Ohio show a very small percentage of attendance from farmers. As for the factory-workers, it has been said by a churchman * who spent part of his life among them, that so far as they are concerned the church has been an utter failure. The attitude of some of them toward the churches he de- scribes as "indecent." The extent of the hos- tility of some of them is illustrated by the state- ment of a labor leader: 2 "The American workingman hates the very shadow that the spire of the village church casts across his path- way." In England, Charles Booth, perhaps the most competent observer we could cite, says that the attitude of the workshop is " contempt- uous." In a study of the relations of immigrants to the churches considerable allowance must be made for the strong Protestant prejudices of the investigators. Josiah Strong says 3 that "a majority of immigrants believe either in a per- verted or superstitious form of Christianity or 1 Gohre, /. c. 187. 2 Cited by H. F. Perry, "The Workingman's Alienation from the Church," 4 American Journal of Sociology, 626. 3 L. c. 191. io THE CHURCHES AND in none at all." The figures of Grose * show that 52 per cent, of the immigrants are, when they land, nominally Christian. But residence in America soon begins to tell on their nominal allegiance, and there is everywhere a falling off. The Catholics are losing the Italians, the French, the Germans, the Hungarians, the Bo- hemians, and the Poles. There are over 300 Bohemian freethinking societies in the country. The Irish and the recent flood of immigrants from south-eastern Europe Slovaks, Sloven- ians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Bulgarians, Servians, Montenegrins, Ruthenians, and some of the Lithuanians remain devout Catholics. Time, and the efforts of Protestant "mission- aries," will probably destroy the allegiance of these peoples, with the possible exception of the Irish. This tendency toward defection is not by any means limited to the Christian immigrants. In America and in England the Jews are leaving their ancestral synagogues in great and increas- ing numbers. Women have always preponderated in church congregations, and they are now relied upon as the main support of the average church; but *N. B. Grose, "Aliens or Americans?"; the most elaborate investigation of this subject I have seen. THE WAGE EARNERS 11 there is a falling off even in their attendance now becoming noticeable. "Women are begin- ning to stay away as they take their place in economic life," says Campbell. 1 The churches' V disregard of their economic and social needs is driving many of them, especially in cities, into other movements. Unions and lodges have reached the women with their appeal; and to it the women are responding, to the manifest dis- advantage of the churches. This movement away from the churches is more accentuated in cities than in their suburbs, as might be expected from the usual difference in the nature of their populations, as well as for other reasons. In the cities, the centres of man- ufacture and of commerce, "the overwhelming proportion of workingmen is out of touch with the churches." 2 Their indifference and hos- tility in London, New York, and Chicago, is particularly noticeable. In London only 6 per cent, of the people attend church, while in the suburbs the percentage is 29. In other large cities and their environs the percentages are similar. One who is actively engaged in evangelistic 1 Campbell, "Christianity and the Social Order," 2; of. Math- ews, "The Church and the Changing Order," 201. 2 J. W. Cochran, "The Church and the Working Man," 30 Ann. Am, Ac., 451. 12 THE CHURCHES work may sometimes be led to think that popu- lar attendance is increasing rather than decreas- ing, because he finds his own congregations full. A famous preacher will observe that he meets large congregations wherever he goes. But he is apt to overlook the fact that the large congregation his reputation has drawn means smaller congregations somewhere else; that he is only taking members out of other churches, and is leaving the mass of the people untouched. When a brilliant preacher settles in a parish and " builds it up," he has usually, in the picturesque language of Judson, 1 "only given the ecclesias- tical kaleidoscope a turn, and produced a new arrangement of the same old bits of colored glass." This method is worked frequently and in all places. It may be an advantage to the in- dividual who finds thereby a more congenial church home; but obviously it does not in the least alter the proportions of those "in" and those "out" of the churches. 1 Edward Judson, "The Church in Its Social Aspect," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 430. CHAPTER II CAUSES "IT 7"HEN we turn to seek the causes for this widespread movement we shall find them to be numerous and complex. Some of them seem to be rooted in the very constitution of hu- man nature; some are the results of recent de- velopments in social life. Some causes may be called the "fault" of the workingmen or of the churches; others are no one's fault, but are sim- ply inevitable conditions of development. Fair- bairn's statement * that the causes of alienation are involved in the whole process which has evolved the present social order is in a sense true; but the process referred to is an exceed- ingly complex one, and we shall find it more profitable to seek for more specific reasons. What is needed at present is a comprehensive and detailed study of the reasons, whether ulti- mately valid or not, which are currently assigned for the popular indifference to churches. Espe- cially do we need such a study from the point of 1 Fairbairn, "Religion in History and in Modern Life," 19. 13 14 THE CHURCHES AND view of one who believes that the churches alone are or should be the generators and conservators of that religious spirit without which the high- est civilization cannot persist; and who believes, therefore, that the problem now under discussion is the most important problem that could pos- sibly engage our attention. In view of the facts as they are, the best friend of the churches is not the man who, ostrich-like, compliments himself and his little congregation on "the flourishing state of religion," but is rather the man who, in the spirit of the physician intent upon effecting a cure, ascertains and describes the truth, at whatever risk of misunderstanding and personal inconvenience to himself. I. Ascribable to the Wage-Earners The wage-workers' indifference to the churches is at least partly for the same reason as that of any one else indifference and resistance to the call of the higher life. They have no conscious- ness of guilt or sin, or of special need, and they assume that the churches are only for those who have. Moral flabbiness, weakness, viciousness whether in the cities, where they are the results of overcrowding and bad influences, or in the country, where isolation has brought about de- generation and demoralization are largely re- THE WAGE EARNERS 15 sponsible for the present straits of the churches. The people have no longer any feeling of duty toward organized religion. The churches have no charm for them, and they use their Sundays for rest and recreation. This "total depravity" theory, however, applies to the "classes'* as well as to the "masses"; to the professional and business man as well as to the laboring man; and it therefore does not entirely account for the movement under investigation, which is so dis- tinctively a working-class movement. Another reason, and one of great importance, is the growth of materialism among the masses. "Men have grown hard," said a workingman, 1 "under bitter conditions, and think of God as unjust and unkind, if there be any God." The belief in Providence has disappeared. If there is any purpose in the universe, it is felt to be evil rather than worshipful. Further, the dealings of the average artisan with the forces of nature are such as to drive from his mind any thought of the supernatural. "Force" and "matter" are all that the mechanic needs to answer all the questions he is wise enough to ask; he has no place for the hypothesis of a God. In Germany this tendency has been greatly fostered by the anti-Christian nature of the literature created 1 Perry, 4 Am. Jour. Soc., 625. 16 THE CHURCHES AND within the last forty years to satisfy the popular demand for an education. This literature is sat- urated with the materialism of the third quarter of the nineteenth century. It has spread through all nations. The workman has taken a ma- terialistic, negative attitude toward the soul, toward all things of the spirit, all ideals; conse- quently religion has no content for him. But this factor, again, is not peculiar to the working people; hence is not a sufficient answer to our particular problem. Another reason, and one of such vast po- tency as to demand special study, is the spread of socialism. "Among the more radical social reformers the attitude toward religion is hos- tile." * Says Mr. Charles Stelzle, Secretary of the Presbyterian Department of Labor: "Socialism has become for thousands of men a substitute for the church." The organized opposition to Christianity which is represented by socialism has been too long overlooked and neglected; but the detailed discussion of it must be reserved for another part of this book. 2 Short of socialism, however, there is the whole "labor movement," including trade un- 1 Francis G. Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," '5- 8 See below, Part III. THE WAGE EARNERS 17 ionism and all the numerous movements for the alleviation of the laborers' lot, which do not go the length of social revolution. With the ad- vance of economic and social science, ways and means for the betterment of the position of the working people are becoming more and more clear; " social work" has become practicable and effective, and its urgent appeal is drawing thousands of the best natures into its service. As will appear later, the churches have allowed this work to develop independently of them, and now absorption in it is working deleteriously to the churches' interests. The churches also are or may be centres of social service and agents of social reform; but differences in aim and in method have engendered a certain distrust and hostility between them and the later "secular" forms of service. Thus, the insistence of the churches on the upholding of law and order is distasteful to the more ardent reformers. And for those whose chief aim is the destruction of the existing order of things, which is certainly the aim of the most radical, a negative religion, or the negation of religion, has, as might be ex- pected, superior attractions. Connected in a way with some of these re- form movements are numerous misunderstand- ings of the object and meaning of religion which 18 THE CHURCHES AND are partly responsible for the hostile attitude of the people. Christianity is charged with failure to eliminate poverty religion, it is said, may have been of some use once, but is of none now. 1 The church is looked upon as the bulwark and tool of capitalism, and may be referred to thus: "The church and the brothel, police powers and peace powers; in fact, all those things which we look upon as necessary for capitalistic stability." 2 The workingmen's contact with their employers in competitive and selfish dickerings gives them the impression that the church stands for the principles they there see exemplified. Further, they are inclined to identify religion with " belief in the Bible," and when they have outgrown the antiquated view of the Bible which is taught in most Sunday-schools, parochial schools, and in many common schools (as, for example, in Ger- many), they discard religion at the same time that they are forced to give up their old view of scriptural authority. Then follows a period, common to all half-educated people, when "le- gal proof" of religion is demanded. The falla- cies involved in all these misunderstandings can be easily pointed out; but the fact in which we 1 G6hre, /. c. 164, 173. 8 Chicago Convention Industrial Workmen of the World (a la- bor organization of Socialistic tendencies), 1905. THE WAGE EARNERS 19 are now interested is that the workmen do have them, and that they are contributory to their in- difference and hostility to the churches. Somewhat analogous to these is the peculiar misinterpretation of religious observances for which Veblen is responsible. 1 Ritual, he says, is an exhibition of "vicarious leisure," attesting the greatness of a lord in whose service time and effort may be recklessly wasted. "Conspicuous waste" is shown in gorgeous vestments, churches, and other "devout consumption." "The con- sumption of ceremonial paraphernalia required by any cult, in the way of shrines, temples, churches, vestments, sacrifices, sacraments, holi- day attire, etc., serves no immediate material end. It may be broadly characterized as items of conspicuous waste." Exceptional devoutness i.e., any at all is "in all cases an atavistic trait," allying one with criminals and "sports" and the classes of low intelligence and supersti- tion. "So far as concerns the industrial effi- ciency of the modern community, the character- istic traits of the devout temperament are a hindrance rather than a help." These are not, however, explanations of the obsolescence of re- ligion in industrial communities, for the masses of the people have never been capable of the 1 Thorstein Veblen, "The Theory of the Leisure Class." 20 THE CHURCHES AND degree of sophistication evidenced by these ideas. Another misunderstanding on the part of many of the working people that religion is nothing but a lucrative profession 1 has had a shadow of foundation in the undue emphasis which has frequently been laid upon the financial needs and successes of the church. Methods of public and private appeal have often savored of commercialism in a high degree. The popular jest about sending for the pastor instead of the doctor when the small boy had swallowed the penny, on the ground that "the pastor could get money out anybody," has an element of bitter- ness in it. The crowds which follow "Billy" Sunday do so largely as a tribute to his wonder- ful money-making capacity; and the popular admiration for enormous "Missionary Funds," etc., is well known. But the fact is overlooked that every triumph of this sort brings to religion an ever increasing portion of popular disrespect. One of the chief causes of unfriendliness work- ing in the case of the immigrants is the fact that emigration is frequently due to religious perse- cution or oppression at home. They do not 1 "The English Established Church will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on 1-39 of its income." Karl Marx, "Capital," preface to First Edition. THE WAGE EARNERS 21 move, as did some of the early emigrants to America, in order to establish their own wor- ship where they would be unmolested, but rather to escape altogether from a religion which they identify with State churches. Freedom in Amer- ica includes freedom from the domination of church and priesthood, and this is as eagerly sought as is political freedom. When America is reached, the first reaction is into atheism, complete alienation not only from the churches but from religion itself; later generations may begin to swing back, as is sometimes observed, but they rarely reenter the churches. The vast importance of this fact will be appreciated when it is remembered that nearly one-half of the pop- ulation of the United States is foreign by birth or parentage, and over three-quarters of the population in the large cities. 1 The conse- quences of this are far-reaching. This permea- tion of American life by an anti-church influ- ence has destroyed the power of old American and English habits. By the introduction of Continental ideas of the Sabbath it has helped to reduce church attendance. And especially it has set the example, the fashion, against church- going. It has started the "endless chain" of 'Strong,/, c., 190; William Z. Ripley, "Races in the United States," Ail. Mo., vol. CII, p. 745. 22 THE CHURCHES AND imitation; and in this case imitation has been particularly easy, and therefore popular. For, to return from immigrants to natives, fashion operates in the matter of church-going as in everything else. Notice, for example, the effect on the Italian waiters of Soho, in London, of the worldliness of the society they are thrown in contact with, as reported by Booth. This "high" society does not go to church; the wait- ers must be fashionable. In America "society" does go to church, and the waiters would like to follow; but here another cause intervenes, viz., the fact that "society" makes church-going ex- pensive. There is no doubt that the costliness of "holiday attire" keeps out many working- men and their families. "Working clothes" are not, by general consent, "Sunday clothes." To equip oneself and a family of children in the latter is often a financial impossibility. And the further necessity of keeping up with the better situated members of the church in pew- rents, subscriptions, donations to charity, to bazaars, etc., also militates strongly against the workingman with small wages. This process of exclusion is cumulative; for with each decrease in membership the demands on those who are left become greater with the final result that none but the well-to-do can afford the luxury of religion. THE WAGE EARNERS 23 The causes of separation thus far adduced depravity, indifference, self-interest, misunder- standing, imitation may fairly be charged to the workingmen. Before leaving this part of the subject to consider the charges which are levelled against the churches with more or less justification, it is only fair to add another cause, which is somewhat in extenuation of the work- ingmen's faults and mistakes: the influence of their economic position upon the possibility of their responses to religious appeal. Living on the verge of poverty, with irregu- larity and uncertainty of employment, must be admitted to be not conducive to the best soul life. Grinding anxiety about the mere means of ~ subsistence shuts out concern for spiritual wel- fare. The spirit must wait until the body is fed and clothed. Modern factory conditions are unfavorable to religious life. Long and ex- hausting hours of labor leave no time nor energy for such a nicely balanced view of the whole sit- uation as the preacher would like to see; and the lassitude of the one rest-day out of seven is not promotive of church-going. A tired body means a tired mind; and the average service and sermon are, to say the least, not exactly recreative. The inability to benefit by the churches' ministrations may become chronic. 24 THE CHURCHES AND Women and children whose lives are narrowed and stunted by factory and sweat-shop work are hardly to be blamed if they finally become un- able to see clearly the worth of the church and the value of a religious life, and the beauty of ideals. It is psychologically impossible that they should. And it is not their fault. Dr. Crooker says: "It is a serious question whether our great captains of industry and leaders of society are not the worst desecrators of the Sab- bath that the world has ever seen, though they themselves may regularly occupy a richly cush- ioned pew!" x It is not the Sabbath only which is desecrated : it is the divinity of human souls. 2. Workingmens Complaints against the Churches In the following discussion of those causes of alienation which may be properly charged to the churches there is no intention to offer judg- ment on the sincerity of the churches' work, nor on its theological or theoretical correctness. It may be that many of the charges against the churches are false generalizations from too few particulars, though many of them are admitted by ecclesiastical writers; in regard to others the churches may admit the facts but insist that 1 Crooker, I. c., 31. THE WAGE EARNERS 25 their position is nevertheless the right one. It would, of course, be much more to the taste of all churchmen, including myself, to suppress or repel these allegations. The immense range and ' importance of the churches' benefits to human- ity are incontestable, but their consideration belongs elsewhere. The justification for enu- merating the following charges against the churches is simply that there is at least an ele- ment of truth in all of them, or, at any rate, the belief that they are true is a large contributing factor to the present condition. The churches' answer to these will be considered later in this study. 1 First among these reasons must be placed the exclusiveness of the churches as to-day consti- tuted. Made up as they now are mainly of the well-to-do and the rich, there is in them an indifference and even antipathy to the hand- worker which a most effective bar to his inter- est in them. Private ownership of pews is one means used, intentionally or unintentionally, to exclude the "undesirable." The fear of "swamping" by the influx of foreigners hangs always over the Protestant churches in the Northern States and in the great cities, and any missionary work in their immediate neighbor- 1 See below, Part II. 26 THE CHURCHES AND hood is sure to be frowned upon unless it be di- rected toward the founding of separate churches for them. As one churchman puts it, the defec- tion of the common people is due largely to the "laziness and pride of the old churches." * *)t Underlying this is the insistence on social dis- tinctions which is so objectionable to all people discriminated against. This, as already sug- gested, is fostered by the system of pew rents, by which the wealthier are enabled to have the "chief seats in the synagogue." The poor have also noticed that, although there are many churches in which all social grades mingle, there is a tendency for the rich to appropriate certain churches to themselves and build missions for the " lower classes," and the poor refuse to snap at the bone thrown them. Says Dr. Judson: "The poor think the rich are appropriating all the best things which are supposed to help peo- ple heavenward, as the best preaching, music and architecture." 2 Even the idea of the Fatherhood of God is alleged to appertain to a "regime of status." There is also a notable lack of democracy in the government of churches, which are too often ruled by wealth instead of by numbers. It is not surprising that in view of 'Charles Stelzle, "Christianity's Storm Centre," 15. 8 Judson, 30 "Ann. Am. Ac.," 433. a THE WAGE EARNERS 27 this situation the people are seeking those places in which their social equality is in no danger of not being recognized, such as lodges and sa- loons. The enormous growth of lodges and fraternal orders, as shown statistically, 1 and the immense popularity of saloons, are in striking and significant contrast to the decline and neg- lect of the churches. Closely allied to this undemocracy is the ap- parent "excessive subserviency" of the churches to political power in the older countries and to wealth in the newer. Where the church is established " it is the constant temptation of the king-made bishop to attune his message to the kingly ear." 2 In America, where the churches are free, there is a strong suspicion of an insidi- ous commercial control of the pulpit, evidenced by its failure to rebuke wickedness in high places and by its protection of the "crimi- rialoid," 3 the social brigand who accumulates a fortune by the legal evasion of the law. The church is felt to be " a corporate support of fi- nancial sinners." That there has been some occasion for this belief cannot be denied. If the minister has not openly defended practices 1 Strong, I. c., 128; Crocker, /. c., 36. 2 Crapsey, /. c., 230. 3 Edward A. Ross, "Sin and Society." 28 THE CHURCHES AND which common morality knew to be wrong, he has certainly been silent many times when he was expected to speak. The dependence of the churches upon the financial support of the wealthy has an inevitable tendency in this di- rection. 1 The exceptions to this are, however, so numerous that there is an element of unfair- ness in the allegation. In all ages of the Church's history, before and since Christ, there have never been lacking churchmen whose voices have been heard in scathing denunciation of the wealthy depredator and the oppressor of wid- ows and orphans. Connected with this is a charge, not against the church, but against its members, which carries such weight that Charles Booth is moved to call the objection to church membership based on it an evidence of positive moral qual- ity in the workingmen : 2 the inconsistencies, 1 Cf. this paragraph from the New York Evening Post: "If . . . wants to apply the principles of morals to politics and finance, to speak out boldly, no matter whose feelings are hurt, to attempt the difficult and unpopular task of bringing religion into contact with daily life and thought, he must gather an independent fol- lowing, which has confidence in his purposes and his ideals. So must any minister who wishes to be absolutely unmuzzled. This is one reason why strong men as the churches themselves com- plain refuse the ministry as a career ; and one reason why the churches lack vitality." "Charles Booth, "Life and Labour in London, Part III, Re- ligious Influences," vol. I, pp. 85-90. THE WAGE EARNERS 29 or, as it has been more strongly put, the hypoc- risy, of Christians. The divergence between profession and practice, the incompatibility of pious humility on Sunday with laxity of con- science during the week, is a potent cause of disaffection. "The criminaloid with his loins girt about with religiosity," l stands up on Sun- day in the "well dressed congregation singing: 2 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree; He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away," and the spectacle is not conducive to healing the breach. The churches have, in practice, toler- ated a double standard of morality, "private" and " business." " Probably nothing so degrades the Christian religion in the view of men of the world as the conformity of Christian churches and Christian believers to the doctrine of ethi- cal bimetallism," says Dr. Peabody; 3 and yet this is the doctrine which is quite often exem- plified before the workingmen. They cite the cases of Jim Fisk and of the Tweed Ring, and of others not yet in their graves, and insist that such conduct as theirs is 1 Ross, 1. c., 63. 2 Reginald J. Campbell, I. c., in. 3 Peabody, /. c., 221. 30 THE CHURCHES AND carried on to-day on a far more extensive scale by men who attend divine service with the regu- larity of a devotee. Charity and unselfishness are preached and believed in on Sunday, and are then exhibited in "the cultivation of a com- fortable religious satisfaction" only. The world is divided off into compartments of sacred and secular, and religion, under a variety of ad- verse influences, is compelled to confine itself to the former. The ministers are urged to content themselves with theology, worship, devoutness, piety. It is unfortunately true that, as the re- sult of a process of selection which has been going on now for many years, "One's sense of the proprieties is readily offended by a too de- tailed and intimate a handling of industrial and other purely human questions at the hands of the clergy." * It was said at a convention of American work- men of socialistic affinities in Chicago, that the Christian Church "raises a magnificent ideal in the remote future, to be arrived at some time sooner or later, and in the meantime practises all possible wrong." 2 The exaggeration and injustice of this statement are patent; but if for "Christian Church" we substitute "professed 1 Veblen, /. c., 316. 1 Cochran, 30 Ann, Am. Ac., 453. THE WAGE EARNERS 31 Christians," there is enough truth in it to de- mand the most serious consideration. To many it appears that the churches have too often heeded the call to return to the "simple Gospel," which is understood as another way of telling them to keep their hands off of all living issues. This has been called the "sociological age of the world"; and the neglect of social teaching in favor of a narrow and limited the- ology, or even in favor of a broad and progres- sive one, is one of the chief errors of the churches. In the past they have often failed to adjust themselves to their changing environment, and now that they are old and "set" they are be- coming more and more unable to do so. "The laborers' demands are insistent and immediate; the church institution cannot adjust itself to them so quickly." It is notorious that as a rule the churches do not treat the most important issues as they arise. The "religious paralysis" in America has been attributed largely to "the failure of the church to grasp the moral signifi- cance of the slavery question" and to the effect on the public of the churches' treatment of such men as Thomas Morris, who was denied burial by the Methodist Church, and of such others as Whittier, Emerson, Garrison, Phillips, John Brown, Sumner, and Lincoln, who were all of 32 THE CHURCHES AND them outside, and some of them under the ban, of the orthodox churches. 1 And so to-day the churches' failure ade- quately to combat present striking evils is a bad influence. "The slum is an outstanding indict- ment against the seriousness and sincerity of the churches' message to the age." 2 "Effi- ciency in religious leadership," says Mr. Allen, 3 "means that the working and living conditions be made fit to work in and live in." Judged by this test, the churches have failed, so far as the lower classes of the poor can see. They find that the churches have apparently left the betterment of their conditions to agnostics and atheists; and they conclude that the churches are more interested in talking about the rewards of the hereafter than in the removal of the evils they suffer in this life. The vast amount of philan- thropy and work for social amelioration which is carried on under distinctively Christian aus- pices is quite unknown to the people at large. For some reason there has been, of late years, an apparent aversion to connecting philan- thropy with the religious motive. Even in the case of the institutional church the distinctively 1 Crapsey, I. c., 264. 8 Cochran, /. c., 446. 3 W. H. Allen, "Efficiency in Religious Work," Ann. Am. Ac., Nov., 1907, 113. THE WAGE EARNERS 33 religious element is often subordinated; and where it is insisted upon the results are rather unfortunate, as we shall see later. So this alle- gation, although in the main untrue, stands un- corrected in the public mind. The element of truth in it is this: that the churches, no matter how deeply they may be interested in charity, even on a large scale, have not as a rule attacked the causes of poverty, and have v in fact expressly said that such is not their business. This leads to another consideration which looms very large in the minds of the people of to-day: the attitude of the churches and their ministers toward the "social question," the problem of the right relations of labor and capital, and of the just distribution of this world's goods. This problem is obviously partly economic and partly ethical, and on -\ both counts the position of organized religion is impugned. Ignorance of the question, in- y difference to it, and active opposition to the ameliorative efforts of labor are all charged and believed. To the charge of ignorance of the economics ^ of the question most ministers must plead guilty. Veblen has noticed that "what falls within the range of economics falls below the 34 THE CHURCHES AND proper level of solicitude of the priesthood in its best estate/' 1 Most ecclesiastics, even when dealing directly with the subject, are content to admit, as does Fairbairn, 2 "the author is not a student of economics; in this region he feels rather than sees." But economics is not a sub- ject in which the emotions may be relied upon exclusively; and Fairbairn's book, in its eco- nomic aspects, is a fair sample of what the re- suits might be expected to be. 8 The ignorance of ministers about penology and prison reform, about the conditions of sweat-shop, mine and factory labor, about methods of social reform, and even about the liquor problem, has often been noted. Even in the realm of feeling the ministers have usually failed " to grasp the tragedy of the struggle now going on." Their training and associations make it almost impossible for them to get at the real opinions and feelings of the workingmen. It is alleged, with considerable truth, that the churches entirely misunderstand the nature of the struggle in which the intelligent workingmen and their leaders are engaged. 1 Veblen, I. c., 311. 2 Andrew M. Fairbairn, /. c., vi; cf. Crocker, /. c., 98. 'See especially Lect. VII. Cf. also Campbell, "Christianity and the Social Order," for a treatment of economic questions so naively crude as often to raise a smile. THE WAGE EARNERS 35 Thus one recent writer 1 seems to think that the demand of the workingmen that the pulpit jus- tify itself "from an economic point of view" means that the ministers should "raise the best potatoes," or should "add a pie-counter to the sanctuary." It should not be overlooked, how- ever, that this deplorable condition is as much due to the reticence and secretiveness of the working people, and even the impatience of their leaders, when talking to their pastors, as to the indifference and ignorance of the clergy, who often do not know how to find out the facts, even when they are really interested. There is, however, no possible excuse for that antiquated "the-poor-ye-have-always-with-you " theory, according to which poverty is but one of the inscrutable and inexorable decrees of Provi- dence, with which it would be presumptuous, or even blasphemous, for man to interfere. Still less is there any justification, in this day of gen- eral social aspiration, for such pious cant as this (quoted from a denominational journal) : " It is a comforting thought that, if God has seen fit to keep a majority of His children from privileges which we think essential to happiness, He has made them capable of being happy with the fewer and simpler things which he has allowed 1 Crocker, /. c., 63, 124. 36 THE CHURCHES AND them." The logical application of this idea, reversing the whole trend of progress, would relegate humanity back to the earliest stages of savagery, or better still, to the condition of clams, whose wants are practically nil and who are, therefore, happy in their easy gratification (or at least silent under their disappointment). How much nobler are the stirring words of the "layman," Henry George: 1 "Though it may take the language of prayer, it is blasphemy that attributes to the inscrutable decrees of Provi- dence the suffering and brutishness that come of poverty; that turns with folded hands to the All-Father and lays on Him the responsibility for the want and crime of our great cities. We de- grade the Everlasting. We slander the Just One. A merciful man would have better ordered the world; a just man would crush with his foot such an ulcerous ant-hill! It is not the Almighty but we who are responsible for the vice and misery that fester amid our civilization. The Creator showers upon us His gifts more than enough for all. But like swine scrambling for food, we tread them in the mire tread them in the mire, while we tear and rend each other!" The charge that the indifference of the churches is responsible for their failure to pro- 1 Henry George, "Progress and Poverty" (1905 ed.), 546. THE WAGE EARNERS 37 tect the rights of the masses against encroach- ment, and for their comparative neglect of the doctrine of human brotherhood with all its im- plications, is very common, and is very difficult to answer. "Well, sir," said one man, 1 "I sup- pose the church does not care anything about us poor people, and so we come not to care much for her either the more's the pity!" To cite Christian Socialism as the answer to this is not sufficient, especially in view of the compar- ative insignificance and failure of that move- ment. 2 On the other side stand the records. "I do not see," said Phillips Brooks, "how it will do any good to treat the workingmen as a separate class in this matter (religion) in which their needs and duties are just like other men's." The difficulty lies just in the fact that their needs and duties are wof just like other men's. Says the Congregationalist: "There is too much talk about the church's relation to the labor problem, as though Christianity had a peculiar mission to those who labor without having their money employed in the work they are doing." That, however, is precisely the difference in- volved: the difference between the employment of money and the employment of life. The la- 1 Cited in Kaufmann, /. c., 146. * See below, p. 102. 38 THE CHURCHES AND borer invests all that he has his strength, his health, and his life in his business; and when they give out he cannot clear his records and begin anew (at least not on this earth) merely by filing a petition in bankruptcy. As a promi- nent manufacturer said: 1 "A man may sell cotton at a loss and say, * Never mind; to-mor- row market conditions may change, and my loss may return to me as a profit.' He may sell coal at a loss and look confidently to the future to reimburse him these things are mere ma- terial possessions; but when he sells his labor, that is quite another thing; for his labor is his own life. That is what manufacturers buy and the multitude of workingmen sell parts of the lives of men." "The Archbishop of Canterbury said re- cently that he worked seventeen hours a day and had no time left to form an opinion as to the solution of the problem of the unemployed. To which Mr. Keir Hardie replied that ' a relig- ion which demands seventeen hours a day for or- ganization, and leaves no time for a single thought about starving and despairing men and women and children, has no message for this age.'" 2 1 J. T. Lincoln, "A Manufacturer's Point of View," Atlantic Mo., Vol. XCVIII, p. 288. 2 Cochran, /. c., 446. THE WAGE EARNERS 39 Still more damning in the eyes of the people is the alleged active opposition of the churches to all reforms. In England there is never-end- ing opposition to political, educational, and social reforms, as in the case of the Reform Bill of 1832, the social reforms of Lord Shaftesbury, and the present Education Bill. Even Mr. As- quith's temperance legislation is opposed by the 1,280 clergymen who have savings invested in breweries. In Germany there is still a strong popular antipathy to Luther on account of the part he played in the Peasants' War, which was decidedly reactionary and undemocratic. In America the churches have never taken the same active part in politics as in England and Germany. But in the United States it is gen- erally felt that " in the present democratic revo- lution the churches are not for the most part with the rising people, but are either indifferent or are with the dominant class. The clergy represent privilege." 1 President Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, says that the clergy are opposed to the unions. Organized labor in general feels that there is an alliance between "the rich oppressor" and the church. "The parsons have taken sides with the rich." 2 1 Crapsey, /. c., 283. *G6hre, /. c., 175. 40 THE CHURCHES AND The Church and the State are said to be institu- tions designed for stultifying the people. Says a workingman : 1 "The church has, as an or- ganized body, no sympathy for the masses. It is a sort of fashionable club where the rich are entertained and amused, and where most of the ministers are muzzled by their masters and dare not preach the gospel of the carpenter of Naza- reth." A man whose whole life was ruled by religion, and who was at least not unfriendly to the churches, writes : 2 " He who by fraud and injustice gets him a million dollars will have . . . the best pew in the church and the personal regard of the eloquent clergyman who, in the name of Christ, preaches the gospel of Dives, and tones down into a meaningless flower of Eastern speech the stern metaphor of the camel and the needle's eye." Such opinions, freely expressed, are indicative of the feeling of large masses of people; and although their inequity and fallaciousness are patent to those who know the facts, there is again sufficient truth in them to call for notice. In view of this feeling, one can understand how church-going, in some centres of developed class consciousness, as in Germany, may come 1 Perry, /. c., 626. 2 George, /. c., 458. THE WAGE EARNERS 41 to be looked upon as disloyalty to class; and why the religious workingmen must be secret in their allegiance to the church, as though it were something to be ashamed of. 3. General Criticisms The charges we have been considering so far are radical in their nature, and go to explain specifically the opposition and hostility of the working classes to the churches. We pass now to a class of criticisms the force of which is felt by many inside the churches as well as out, and which, taken alone, could not account for the alienation of the masses, but which add cumu- lative force to their more fundamental objec- tions. The archaism of the forms and services of many churches is distasteful. The services are said to be stale and uninteresting. The average man's great aversion to kneeling down has often been noticed. But worse than this is the obso- lete supernaturalism, express or implicit, in so much preaching. Says Mr. Crapsey: 1 "The great churches base all their teaching upon the miracle. They claim their religion is the one exception in the religious history of the world." But "economic causes work toward a secular- 1 Crapsey, I. c., 287; cf. Campbell, /. c., la. 42 THE CHURCHES AND ization of men's habits of thought." ' The modern farmer is brought up on scientific meth- ods, and the machine operative is a daily wit- ness of the reign of law. In the school, the fam- ily, the lodge and the trades union, archaism and superstition of every sort have vanished. Yet the churches, especially the old school, which still numbers the vast majority among its adherents, stubbornly refuse to rid themselves of the archaic and superstitious elements which they fondly call their "priceless heritage from the glorious past," "an essential link in the chain of historic continuity," etc. The ordinary "dignified" and "reverent" church service, with its outworn implications and its unintelli- gible symbolism, is not only insufferably dull to the average workingman, but is further posi- tively repugnant to the daily habits of his mind, steeped as the latter is in modernity, rationality, and directness. The same considerations apply, with redoubled force, to a well-known variety of preaching, which insists on miracles, special creation, "plenary inspiration," incomprehen- sible and unethical schemes of salvation, etc. the delight of the revivalist, but uninteresting to those who do not care to think about them, and repugnant to those who do. Men cannot 1 Veblen, /. c., 321. THE WAGE EARNERS 43 live in an atmosphere of evolution and personal responsibility six days out of the week, and then on the seventh flourish in a miasma of special creation and vicarious atonement of the Pauline variety. Among intelligent working people the orthodox church-goer is looked upon by his friends outside as either weak-minded or hypocritical. There is about some churches a certain aroma of weakness and failure which is strongly distasteful to the mind of the virile workman, the successful artisan or farmer. There is fre- quently heard in them an appeal to the "femi- nine" rather than the "masculine" conscience; * a concentration on the mote when the beam needs attention. The churches do not often provide a kind of work in which men can en- gage. Their decline is obvious to every one; and this decline is cumulative, for their failure breeds a suspicion that they are not needed. The growth and apparently triumphant prog- ress of materialism, at the same time with the decay of the Protestant churches, carries its clear lesson to the masses. They are also struck with the difference between the churches falling into disrepair and the gaudy theatres and massive business buildings going up all about 1 Ross, /. c., 96. 44 THE CHURCHES AND them. And when it is pointed out to them that worldly success and prosperity are not the churches' "sphere," that they are interested primarily in the saving of souls, the masses point to the increasing disaffection, to the fail- ure of the churches as evangelizing agencies it is notorious that church agencies do not keep pace with the growth of population; and still more searchingly to their failure to make good people of their own members. The quarrels and mutual recriminations of the denomina- tions, and the rivalry, competition, and other evils of division do not help the case with the people. They find failure even in the efforts of the churches to alleviate the distresses of the poor. The attempted combination of ecclesias- tical religion with scientific relief detracts from the success of the churches in both fields; when relief is resorted to as a form of bribery the case is worse; and when competition between churches in the same mission field is begun, and the " atrocious system of dole against dole, treat against treat" 1 is installed, the ruin of the churches in the eyes of self-respecting people is complete. And last but not by any means least in this line of criticism comes the matter of the person- 1 Booth, /. c., ii, 95 and passim. THE WAGE EARNERS 45 ality and ability of ministers. There has been no lack of personal sympathy and desire to do good, "consecration," among them; and that has been pretty generally recognized. But "consecration" is not enough, as experience has frequently and conclusively shown. For good or ill, the prosperity of the churches depends largely upon the personality of their minis- ters. What do we find ? Says Kaufmann : 1 " Through general observation, especially among the country clergy, we should be inclined to say, admitting many exceptions, that the manner and method in dealing with the working classes on the part of the clergymen is very often either that of overbearing dictatorial pomposity, or that of softly-soothing mildness and good- natured imbecility." This estimate of the Eng- lish clergy may be adapted to America by sub- stituting for "dictatorial pomposity" (which American conditions do not favor), simple "in- difference." In the cities also there is abundant inefficiency. Low-priced men are put into the down-town districts to solve the hardest prob- lems with failure as the usual result. Country ministers are put into city churches, with simi- lar outcome. The dulness of the average ser- mon may be partly accounted for by the lack of 1 Kaufmann, /. c., 224. 46 THE CHURCHES AND inspiration in empty benches; but the empty benches may also sometimes be explained by the lack of inspiration in the sermon. 1 4. Inherent in Modern Conditions It was suggested that there are some reasons for the decline of the churches inherent in mod- ern conditions, which cannot properly be charged, as remediable "faults," to either the churches or the people. To these we now turn. The first of these, and one of considerable importance, is the great mobility of the people of to-day. With the improvement of the ma- terial condition comes the desire for a better neighborhood to live in; and with the move- ment from one neighborhood to another there goes a change in the personnel and status of the churches, the "better classes" leaving the churches to the non-church-goers. This move- ment has made enormous differences to the Protestant churches of London and New York. "Within recent years," says Mr. Stelzle, 2 "forty Protestant churches moved out of the district below Twentieth Street in New York City while 300,000 people moved in." In East 1 For a sympathetic but unconsciously amusing discussion of sermons, see paper on that subject by A. C. Benson, in National Rev., Vol. XLVIII, p. 492. * Stelzle, /. c., 17. THE WAGE EARNERS 47 London the increase of the Jewish population has superseded the churches with synagogues. The enormous growth of the cities which has characterized the nineteenth century has far outstripped the supply of churches. And within the cities those sections which need the most churches usually have the fewest. "We plant our churches as a rule not where the largest number of people live, but where the church V will receive the largest financial support." In the meantime this removal of the most en- ergetic elements from the country to the cities has correspondingly weakened the country churches. The country and the small towns are drained of their best native blood, and the places of those who are gone are being taken (if at all) by foreigners, who are neither wanted in the old churches nor would be likely to enter them if they were. In addition to the movement of masses must be considered the habit of movement which in- dividuals have acquired to such a large extent from the growing custom of boarding. Board- ers and renters rarely stay in one place long enough to form permanent church attach- ments, and soon lose any they may have started with. Also in this connection must be noticed the 48 THE CHURCHES AND effect of improved transportation facilities, which make it easier for the farmer and truck-gardener and dairyman to live far out in the country, where there are no churches, and where the dif- ficulties of getting into town on Sundays are usually considered insurmountable. Going fish- ing or berrying is different, for one doesn't have to "get ready" for that. Perhaps the most important general reason for the prevalence and increase of non-attend- ance is simply that the majority of people have already been trained sometimes overtrained in Christian principles, through the public schools and the Sunday-schools and the daily and periodical press and our thoroughly Chris- tianized literature. In America and Europe the atmosphere is saturated with Christianity; the masses of the people could not get away from it if they wanted to. And although there is much left to be improved, their general average of re- ligious and ethical training is already high; and they ask, quite naturally (on the current basis of always getting and never giving), why they should continue to go to church. They send their children to Sunday-school, and value highly its training for them; but for themselves they do not feel the need of further formal in- struction. And as for the "instinct of worship'* THE WAGE EARNERS 49 whatever it is, the masses of the people have it not. Josiah Strong has observed that Sunday- school children rarely become church-goers, and he believes it to be the "fault" of the Sun- day-schools. It is not, however, due to any de- fect in the Sunday-schools; for it is their very efficacy which has made church-going, in the eyes of many, superfluous. Unfortunately, there is no feeling of poignant spiritual need for either moral exhortation or worship on the part of the average workingman. It is exceedingly difficult to persuade him, honest and charitable and con- scientious as he usually is, that he is really suf- fering for want of the constant ministrations of the church. The very success of the churches in Christianizing civilization is the chief obsta- cle in their way to-day. They have done their work so well that to the average superficial observer it would appear that they are no longer needed. CHAPTER III CONCLUSIONS AND QUERIES TV/TR. MOODY once said: "The gulf between the churches and the masses is growing deeper, wider, and darker every hour." Mr. Charles Booth was so thoroughly impressed with the utter hopelessness of the whole situa- tion that he wrote: 1 "Failure of all efforts almost drives one to the conclusion that there must be something actually repellant to the people in the pretensions of religion or in the associations of Christian worship." This is the hopelessly pessimistic conclusion from the facts. On the other hand, it is often said that non- church-goers are not necessarily irreligious; the claim is even urged that "the workingman is naturally religious." 2 He is said to be alien- ated not from religion or from Christianity, but from its professors and from the churches. The religion of the churches, it is alleged, is not the religion of Jesus. " It will be the religion of Je- 1 Booth, /. c., ii, 79; cf. Perry, /. c., 627. a Stelzle, /. c., 40. So THE WAGE EARNERS 51 sus," says Mr. Crapsey, 1 "and not that of the churches that will regenerate the world. The clerical order is losing influence not because the world is growing less religious, but because it is more religious than it was sixty years ago. Re- ligion is not dying out but changing the mode of operation from the churches to the street, the shop, the market, the common council cham- ber." This is the optimistic reaction to the same facts. Dr. Mathews pessimistically admits that there are some individuals not hostile to religion; 2 at the other extreme the evangelist Mr. Stelzle says that the workingmen are responding to the church's appeal; that "the workingmen honor Jesus Christ" 3 in the narrow theological sense which that phrase has for him. On this subject there is an opinion which is worthy of consider- ation: "The Jesus who is applauded by the average workingman is a minimized Jesus Christ, a fictitious person, not the Christ of the Gospels." 4 But more important than this conflict of opin- ions is the fundamental question: Has religion, has Christianity, a real message to the working- 1 Shailer Crapsey, /. c., 140, 281. 8 Shailer Mathews, /. c., 140. 3 Stelzle, /. c., 39. 4 Perry, /. c., 629. 52 THE CHURCHES men of to-day ? Is there that in the working- men which will respond to such a message when properly presented ? Will or can the churches present it to them in such a way that they will respond to it ? These questions will be consid- ered in the final chapters of this book. PART II THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES TOWARD THE WORKINGMEN, AND ITS RESULTS PREAMBLE PART I of this study, which had to do with the extent and the causes of the alienation of the workingmen from the churches, had necessarily to consider the many and various charges against the churches urged by wage earners and their sympathizers in justification of their with- drawal. The more fundamental criticisms there urged were these: I, that the churches fail to insist on spiritual and social equality; 2, that in their anxiety for the future welfare of the workingmen they are oblivious of their more immediate and pressing needs; and 3, that in regard to the " social question," the churches are either ignorant of it, or are indifferent or hostile to the wage earners' movement toward social amelioration. In this Part we will consider the churches' answer, in theory and in practice, to these ob- jections. In reference to each of these points we will consider: I, the teaching of Jesus, which Christian churches may be assumed to accept as authoritative, so far as it can be ascertained; 2, the present theory of the churches, supple- 55 56 THE CHURCHES menting or modifying the teaching of Jesus; 3, a review (which may, for our purposes, be merely a very brief indication) of the activities of the churches, in pursuance or in contradiction of their theories; and 4, a criticism of their practice with reference to (a) its efficiency, and (b) its effect, favorable or unfavorable, on the attitude of the workers, which is of primary im- portance to the question in hand. CHAPTER I EQUALITY I. Spiritual , conviction of Jesus that in the sight of the Father every man's soul is as precious as any man's soul, and that every one is worthy of salvation as a son of God, is obvious on the face of the Gospels. The dictum of Paul that "in Christ" all are one, which has been inter- preted as another expression of this spiritual equality, has been accepted, in theory, through- out the history of the Christian Church, and is to-day insisted on from every pulpit and in every theological work. But through it all the careful observer will see that the theory has been given a peculiar twist; that, in fact, it is taken to mean that all souls are equal in their need of salvation, and not by any means in their actual spiritual value. The whole missionary endeavor of the church is based on the assump- tion of spiritual inequality; the distinction be- tween the saved and the unsaved, the redeemed 57 58 THE CHURCHES AND and the damned, the orthodox and the heretical, the Christian and the heathen in short, a sep- aration of the people into classes, the "sheep" and the "goats." Evangelistic campaigns, the incessant appeals to "join the church," etc., necessarily insist on a difference between those out and those in; and this distinction is accent- uated by the various forms and conditions of admission to the churches. Periods of proba- tion, rites and ceremonies in the nature of an initiation, all emphasize the difference between the church member and the non-church mem- ber. This distinction is inevitable if the churches are to fulfil their mission as saviors of men. If the man out is as good as the man in, organized proselyting enthusiasm is at once paralyzed. But it is a distinction nevertheless, and is un- questionably felt as an invidious one. The appeal of the churchman to the outsider is an appeal to the latter to raise himself to the spir- itual plane of the former. "Spiritual pride" is a universal sin, and is easily recognized, even though it take the form of excessive humility. On matters of equality the workingman of to- day is sensitive. He will not be patronized. He resents any one's assuming a superiority, even the superiority which is necessary to help- THE WAGE EARNERS 59 fulness. And he resents it all the more when this assumed preeminence is exhibited by those who are no whit better in their lives, whose con- sciences are not in the least more tender, than those they are seeking to convert. It is not al- ways clear to the workingman that the church- man's plane is really higher than his own. Even the right of the preacher to speak with authority is vigorously contested by the un- churched. A lady whose father was a Ger- man atheist, and who is now herself the editor of a prominent German periodical published in America, once said: "Why should I go to church, or help support one ? I have never yet heard from a minister anything which could be of more value to me than my own father's training, or which gave evidence that the ministers' claim of authority was well founded." The clergy no longer have the monopoly of learning, of phi- losophy and of ethics, or of experience, or even of religious feeling, which formerly gave them authority. 2. Social That Jesus was a democrat and held a doc- trine of social equality has been frequently as- serted, but it seems to me without sufficient warrant. That he consorted equally freely with 60 THE CHURCHES AND the Pharisees and with the harlots is true; but that was because their need of him was equally urgent. That, on the other hand, he recognized social distinctions is evident from the episodes involving the Samaritans: his original instruc- tions to his disciples, on their missionary tour, to devote their attentions to the Jews exclusively, and his choice of the despised Samaritan in the parable to accentuate the selfishness of the Le- vite. It cannot be shown that Jesus was in any way interested in political equality as we under- stand it, or that even the conception of it en- tered his mind. Paul certainly knew nothing of it; his recognition of slavery and his numerous in- junctions of submission to the constituted author- ities of his day are anything but democratic. The churches of history, however, have rein- terpreted this teaching in terms of the polity current in their own times and countries. In an absolutist society the churches teach the divine right of kings; in a democratic government, democracy. Luther was a monarchist, Calvin a republican. In America, in the aristocratic South of ante-bellum days, the great planters were naturally expected to occupy the best seats in the churches; in democratic New England, Dr. Gordon says: "Social and class distinc- tions in a Congregational church are intolera- THE WAGE EARNERS 61 ble." ' Professor Ely, an American Episcopalian, extends this dictum to all churches; and the Pres- byterians, from Knox to Stelzle have always clamored for "more democracy." Methodism has been democratic since its inception. The churches, they say, should be the social centres of the community, in which all grades and classes meet on an equality. Actual distinc- tions of classes are to be ignored or denied. Occasionally writers are betrayed into slips like these: "The church must not forget her mission to the rich"; 2 "it is the church's duty to reach the very lowest in the city"; 3 but "this is an entirely unintentional intrusion of fact into the theory. Rarely does one find a frank state- ment of the underlying truth, such as this of Mr. Cochran's: 4 "It is by recognizing classes that the church can fuse humanity into a great brotherhood." It is only by recognizing differ- ences of endowment and of culture that the churches of to-day can effectively correlate themselves with the facts, and contribute to the progress of a genuine equality. For it must not be forgotten that the spirit of 1 Cited in E. L. Heermance, "Democracy in the Church," 151. 2 Strong, /. c., 291. (In all these quotations the italics are mine.) 3 Stelzle, I. c., 107. 4 Cochran, /. c., 446. 62 THE CHURCHES AND equality which has been evidenced in the church since its beginning, vague, indefinite, and unacquainted with its own aim, is quite different from the spirit of modern political de- mocracy. At St. Martin's, near Buckingham Palace, "cabinet minister and crossing-sweeper kneel side by side," and there are innumerable cases of free admixture of classes in churches, Catholic and Protestant; but this has never been meant as an inculcation of the doctrine of social equality, nor has it ever been taken as such. That the churches do actually disregard any assumption of social equality is well known and often admitted. It is only natural that associa- tions of people with a certain standard of intel- lectual and financial attainment should gather together other people of the same class, while other congregations with other standards should also have their particular followings. Preach- ing adapted to a middle-class congregation is not suitable, in form or in content, to the poor; the two classes cannot be kept permanently to- gether, as things are, under the same minister. If the minister attempts to meet the "lower" class on their own level, he is disapproved of by the social censors of his church, 1 and often by 1 For an amusing case where the deaconesses disapproved, see Booth, /. c., ii, 75, 78. THE WAGE EARNERS 63 his clerical brethren; if he does not, they leave the church. The moving of city churches "up-town" shows unmistakably that they are class churches. The churches are occupied by the well-to-do denizens of the residence sections, and missions are started down-town for the poor. And then, instead of leaving the poor to run their missions, the wealthy contributors who support them step in and control them, and the churches' actual disregard of democracy becomes once more fully apparent. No matter how necessary, on grounds of efficiency and expediency, this neglect of theo- retical democracy may be, its effect upon the people is bad. For, first, there is the too obvious contrast between the professions and the prac- tices of the churches. Second, no one likes to have his actual social subordination impressed upon him more than is absolutely necessary; it hurts, and it breeds a hatred of the conditions which make it possible. In the third place, the people have a strong and growing feeling in favor of democracy and social equality; they insist that in the long run they are the most ex- pedient and the most efficient; they have, in fact, made a religion of them. And finally, the people object to the churches' theory of equality 6 4 THE CHURCHES because when it is preached at all it is preached as a fact in the face of circumstances which make it seem ironical and cruel, instead of as an ideal as yet far from realization, but to the at- tainment of which all energies should be bent. In short, in the matter of social as of spiritual equality, the churches have occupied an illogical and indefensible position, asserting it to exist where it does not exist, and recognizing its oppo- site at times when and in places where equality should be insisted upon. CHAPTER II CHARITY AS the recognition of spiritual inequality was * * responsible for the churches' great mis- sionary work, and the admission of social ine- quality suggests their present opportunity, so the acknowledgment of another inequality, too patent to be ignored the economic is at the basis of their other great work, charity. In their philanthropic activities, the distinction between rich and poor has had to be admitted; and at this point we enter upon the second part of our subject: The churches' answer to the charge that they have neglected the more immediate wants of the poorer classes. I. The Old Way Charity is so bound up with the teaching of Jesus and with the practice of the churches through all ages that any discussion of Christian theory on the matter would be superfluous. " Charity was one of the earliest, as it was one of the noblest, creations of Christianity," writes Lecky. 1 There may be question as to whether 1 W. E. H. Lecky, "Rationalism in Europe," II, 236. 65 66 THE CHURCHES AND Jesus enjoined charity for the sake of the giver, as has been generally assumed, or for the sake of the recipient, or for both; but there is no ques- tion of the Christian obligatoriness of "caring for the poor." Of late years, in view of the evils of indiscriminate alms-giving, to which we shall soon advert, there has appeared a demand that the churches apply the principles of " scientific charity," or even that they withdraw entirely from the province of material relief and coop- erate with the charity organizations by attend- ing to spiritual needs while the latter attend to the material. 1 This is suggested rather as a modification of their practice of charity than as an abandonment of it. 2 There is certainly no general tendency in the Christian Church at the present time to depart from its custom of ma- terial help to the needy, which has never been broken since the beginning of the church's his- tory. In the Middle Ages, "so far as cases of individual hardship went, the church strove to defend the weak and to diminish the sufferings 1 Edward T. Devine, "Principles of Relief," 323, 329; George B. Mangold, "The Church and Philanthropy," Ann. Am. Ac., Nov., 1907, p. 94. a R. J. Campbell (/. c., 165) says: "Charity is worse than useless; systematically practised it is a demoralizing influence. " So far as I know, this expression is unique, coming from a clergyman. Cf. on the merits of the practice, Lecky, I. c., 236. THE WAGE EARNERS 67 of the poor"; 1 and no one questions that it does the same to-day. "Never was this sense of responsibility for the poor so profoundly felt by t?he Christian church as at the present time." 2 But the efficiency and wisdom of the churches' charity work are being very seriously ques- tioned. Philanthropic activities carried on in a haphazard way are not always beneficent. Perhaps as much harm as good has been done by indiscriminate giving. The thrifty have been taxed to support the lazy in vice and thriftless- ness, perhaps more often than the worthy have been put in the way of their own economic sal- vation. The administration of charity is beset with difficulties which the churches are seldom in position to overcome. Churches in America and in England have passed through some disheartening but instruc- tive experiences in this connection. 3 Their efforts at the betterment of conditions have sometimes, in their ignorance of the working of economic forces, resulted only in making them worse. Free shelters are provided in London for the homeless; as a result tramps are at- tracted to the city in hordes, swelling the great 1 Alfred Marshall, "Principles of Economics" (4th ed.), 28. 3 Peabody, /. c., 232. 3 See Devine, /. c., 325 ff.; Booth, /. c., passim. 68 THE CHURCHES AND "reserve army" of unemployed unskilled labor and reducing wages throughout the city. " Church charities help low prices of goods by subsidizing underpaid workers," * thus con- tributing directly to the maintenance of the sweating and other parasitic industries. In- sufficient wages of women and children, and even of men, are made up by help from the churches, and unscrupulous "contractors" and task-masters get the benefit. The churches have not erred on the side of too little attention to the immediate material needs of the poor; they have given not wisely but too well. Their zeal has been far in excess of their knowledge. And they have sometimes shown a lamentable lack of appreciation of the help they could get from cooperation with trained charity workers. They seem still to have that unwar- ranted suspicion of modern methods which was voiced by Boyle O'Reilly in those famous lines: "Organized charity scrimped and iced In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ." 2 1 Sidney and Beatrice Webb, "Industrial Democracy," 755, note. 8 John Boyle O'Reilly, " In Bohemia." That he really knew bet- ter, cf. this: "Benevolence befits the wisest mind; But he who has not studied to be kind, Who grants for asking, gives without a rule, Hurts whom he helps, and proves himself a fool." Wheat Grains. THE WAGE EARNERS 69 Even the Salvation Army, which is in a situation peculiarly favorable to a clear view of the work- ing of individual relief, is accused of inefficiency and of failure to cooperate with charity organ- izations. 1 The bad influence of this exhibition of ineffi- ciency on the people, who find their lodges and unions, "secular" agencies, superior in their handling of what the churches used to claim as their specialty, is further aggravated by the spectacle of relief used as a means of maintain- ing church attendance or membership a spe- cies of religious bribery, as Booth calls it. Free breakfasts are provided on Sunday mornings for men who are expected in return therefor to attend divine service immediately afterward. There is a medical mission in London where, while the patients are waiting to see the doctor, a bright gospel service is held, and the hearers are directed to the Great Physician. No prayer, no pills. In congested districts, where the com- petition between churches becomes intense, con- tests of charity are sometimes set up, each church going to and beyond the limits of its re- sources with inducements such as free meals and lodging, free coal and blankets, free con- 1 C. C. Carstens, "The Salvation Army A Criticism," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 553. 70 THE CHURCHES AND certs for adults and free toys for children. A more efficacious breeder of scoffing could not well be devised. 2. The Institutional Church The kind of relief thus far considered is usu- ally administered by tender-hearted individuals, or by committees of a few women, with an occa- sional man for emergencies. But with the enor- mous growth of charitable work which has ac- companied the growing competition of the churches with each other and with the forces of alienation, the work has had to be organized, institutionalized; and now we find in the great cities three highly developed forms of church relief organization: the institutional church, the mission, and the religious (and secular) settlement. The institutional church is the outgrowth of the movement of city population noted above. When the old members move away from the down-town church, and hordes of strangers, usually foreigners, move in, the church finds that its old methods cease to attract, and it must find new ones or close its doors. It becomes " institutional. " Its theory is quite simple. It finds that it must direct its appeal further than to the "religious instincts" of the people THE WAGE EARNERS 71 with whom it has to deal; it must cater to their social and material demands, which constitute so much larger a portion of their lives. 1 It must show the community that it is interested in the whole man. It must meet the competition of the cheap theatre, the pool-room, and the saloon. It tries to provide a place of innocent pastime and social intercourse for workingmen and women and children. It makes itself further useful and attractive by the addition of classes of all sorts, industrial and literary. Gymna- sium and physical culture, together with nurses and physicians, free clinics and dispensaries, attend to health. Finally, for those in need of immediate relief, it provides free employment bureaus, free legal advice, pawn shops, "per- petual rumage sales," provisions and coal at cost, etc. The down-town city church must be insti- tutional: for only the institutional church, with its club and other social features, and its edu- cational and recreative and relief activities, can reach the neighboring population. The churches must take note of the gradual change in the family system going on in parts of the city where everyone "rooms," and they must meet 1 Cf. Crapsey, /. c., 296: "We are trying in a pitiful way to get back into real life through what we call the institutional church." 72 THE CHURCHES AND it by changing methods adapted to families to those adapted to individuals. The principle of the institutional church has usually met with commendation, but occasion- ally it is objected to. Ardent evangelists hint that it is offered as a substitute for spiritual en- thusiasm. Organization is alleged to be easier than inspiration. The unquestioned expen- siveness of the work also brings criticism upon it although Mr. Stelzle shows how an institu- tional church can be run on $100 a year. And it is seriously urged by practically everyone who has studied their working that these churches cannot take the place of evangelization; that in them the distinctively personal religious motif is apt to be lost sight of. This objection, how- ever, is really based upon a misapprehension, due to the meagreness of visible results. It overlooks "the difference between an inspira- tional and an institutional centre: (i) large con- gregations once or twice a week; (2) the same people in small groups many times during a week." * The latter system reaches just as many people as the former, but of course in a less conspicuous way. In the best institutional churches each worker, teacher, and director is , "The Church in Its Social Aspect," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 436. THE WAGE EARNERS 73 chosen not only for his ability in his special de- partment, but also for his religious persuasive- ness, and at every step he is expected to keep the ultimate religious aim in view. This insures the continuous bringing to bear of religious influ- ences in a pervasive way, which cannot help but get results which are more certain and lasting than any which follow the electric touch of the transient evangelist. The subject of the organization, methods, range of activities, and distribution of institu- tional churches 1 is interesting and important, but its treatment would require a volume in it- self. Millions of dollars and thousands of lives are poured into this work. There is scarcely a slum district to be found in England or America, or in the large cities of France and Germany, where the institutional church is not. Certainly no one who knows anything of the subject can question the greatness of the effort the churches are making to help thej 1 There is as yet no adequate and comprehensive treatment of this subject. The best sources within my knowledge are: for England: Booth, "Life and Labor in London," Part III, 7 vols.; for America: Judson, "The Institutional Church," Judson, "The Church in Its Social Aspect," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 436; Wm. J. Kerby, "Social Work in the Catholic Church, ibid., 477; Hodges and Reichert, "The Administration of an Institutional Church"; "Annual Reports" and other publications of St. Bartholo- mew's, St. George's, and Judson Memorial, New York, and of Morgan Memorial, Boston. 74 THE CHURCHES AND poorer classes through this channel. We pass to a consideration of its results. The material helpfulness of these activities is obvious. They reach and relieve minor cases wkh a directness and an efficiency which "or- ganized charity" cannot equal; and in larger matters their tendency is more and more to apply the canons of scientific relief. And, on the whole, their spiritual efficacy must also be admitted, though it is somewhat harder to as- certain. The influence of these churches is probably larger than appears. The people as a rule transfer to their homes the lessons learned in them. Personal hygiene, sanitation, im- provements in cooking and housekeeping, are unconsciously absorbed and applied, to say nothing of lessons in courtesy, patience, and kindliness. Booth notes that conditions in East London, where institutional churches abound, have vastly improved in the last twenty or thirty years. He attributes this, however, to the school training and to the devoted lives of some of the clergy, rather than to the direct influence of the institutional churches. The best results are reached from work among the children. Boys' clubs and Sunday-schools help street children in every way, physically, mentally, and morally. Boys' Brigades are sometimes successful in THE WAGE EARNERS 75 social work. These activities are often instru- mental in breaking up the demoralizing "gangs" into which street children gather. Work in- tended to reach and reform the more depraved classes of adults is less successful. The attempts to improve the character of the common lodging houses in London are said to be a complete fail- ure. In Boston and New York the immediate neighborhoods of the churches are sometimes cleared of vicious resorts, but the inmates are, as a rule, only driven to other parts of the city. As to the effect on the churches themselves, it is everywhere evident that institutional work raises their spiritual tone. Their methods, de- manding the voluntary cooperation of large numbers of workers, get old and young inter- ested in philanthropy in a practical way, with the best of effects on the characters of those who engage in the work. But as to the response of the people sought, there is not so much certainty. Dr. Strong cites statistics to show that institutional methods in- crease church membership; * but where mem- bership carries with it certain extra privileges, and reductions from regular prices for provi- sions, tickets, etc., the nature and value of such increase are questionable. Boys' and men's 1 Strong, /. c., 245. 76 THE CHURCHES AND clubs sometimes bring good results, as do also Mothers' Meetings; the social opportunities offered are sometimes "a good bait." Occasion- ally those who avail themselves of these advan- tages feel that they ought, out of gratitude, if for no other reason, to "join" the church. Work on the little children is extremely effective every- where in securing attendance, at least while they are still children. The attendance at in- stitutional Sunday-schools is remarkable; even the indifferent send their children to them. The kindergartens also are effective in securing children from the tenements. The eagerness of all classes of people to send their children to Sunday-schools and church kindergartens is their unconscious but great tribute to the value of religious instruction at some period in life. But Charles Booth's investigations in London throw the emphasis on the other side of the story. He reports that in one particularly bad section rough lives are controlled, restrained, and blessed by the care of the Catholic Church, but are rarely improved morally or materially. The religious influence on boys in the Church Army Home is practically nil. The Strand is over- visited and over-relieved, but spiritually un- touched. He concludes that on the whole the influence of the Gospel is over those who work, THE WAGE EARNERS 77 and only to a very small extent over those for whom they work. He reports even a half-hearted response to the churches' offers of material and social help. He tells of great neighborhood parties, where 300 people would be invited by streets; 80 would come, and out of these 80 one would go to church. Even a soiree dansante, limited exclusively to communicants, was un- successful. The attractions of warmth, light, and music, which would draw a man into a sa- loon any time, fail to get him into church. It is harder to get workingmen to attend a free lec- ture in a church than in a town hall. Church clubs for workingmen are sometimes success- \ ful; but they must be strictly secular; and the ; decided tendency is for the church to become \ an adjunct to the club, sometimes the "par- son" being ruled out altogether. Strong's statistics to the effect that institu- tionalization helps church attendance are not borne out by the testimony of active workers. Thus Dr. Judson, 1 one of the ablest institu- tional leaders in New York, says: "I am in- clined to think that institutionalism is a handi- cap to church progress." One important rea- son for this is that people do not care to attend the church where charity is held out to them; 1 Judson, 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 438, 440. 78 THE CHURCHES AND it is likely to be a constant reminder of scenes of suffering and humiliation. As a rule, institu- tional churches which carry on an immense and important work have very small Sunday con- gregations. If those whom they help affiliate themselves with any church, they do it else- where. On the whole, one must conclude that al- though the institutional churches have magnifi- cently exonerated organized Christianity from the charge of failure to attend to the immediate needs of the poor, they have not, on the other hand, succeeded thereby in changing the atti- tude of the people toward the churches. The laborer accepts the churches' benefits with more or less gratitude; but he has not granted any larger share of respect to their faith or their worship. He is as indifferent as ever. A visitor in London was told "not to worry: if the peo- ple wished to go to church they would do so; if they did not, they would stay away." Other visitors reported to Booth : " Give a man his pot and pipe and he will be best pleased." "They perhaps prefer the church to the Hall of Science, but what they really want is to be left alone." Certainly this desire to be left alone has not been much altered, in London or elsewhere, by the institutional church. One is almost forced THE WAGE EARNERS 79 to agree with Booth, as one looks over the whole field, that the old system of personal relations between the pastor and his people was more effective, so far as church attendance is con- cerned, than the new elaborate machinery of institutionalism. 3. The Mission The distinction between the mission and the institutional church is usually difficult to draw, and sometimes does not exist at all in any re- spect except administration. A mission is usu- ally an adjunct to a "regular" church, main- tained in the slum end of town by the wealthy people at the other end, and governed by the latter. Its work ordinarily includes some or all of the activities of the institutional churches, and, in addition, a more aggressive campaign of "visiting," the whole work being also suffused with a greater glow of evangelical fervor. It is, perhaps, the special emphasis on evangelization which really distinguishes the mission from the institutional church. The impulse for the move- ment came from Lord Shaftesbury, who was Pres- ident of the great Casters Mission in London until his death. Rescue work for men and women, special missions for all classes, including chil- dren and cripples, lodging house and kitchen 8o THE CHURCHES AND missions, and special evangelistic services of all kinds, are indications of the range of their activi- ties over and beyond the usual institutional work. As for results, our evidence again comes mainly from England. Booth reports that in the case of one typical great mission an indi- vidual is now and then won to a better life, but in the main its efforts are wasted, or worse than wasted. Not that the salvation of a single indi- vidual is an insignificant matter, but that it does not seem proportional to the effort expended. In the opinion of an old lady district visitor their influence in low streets, where the most strenu- ous efforts have been made, is very small. The indifference to lodging house and kitchen mis- sions is marked; their chief value is to those who do the work. The most substantial result of the activity of the missions, according to Booth, is in the better appearance of the chil- dren in their districts. Their open-air services are not successful. They are specifically charged by Stelzle with failure to adjust them- selves to their surroundings, and with neglect of the immediate interests of their members. Their efforts are misdirected. The efficiency of the Salvation Army, which is practically a series of missions, has been seri- ously questioned, especially on the ground of THE WAGE EARNERS 81 disproportionateness of results to efforts and expenditure. It is also believed that the Salva- tion Army, even more than other missions, has unduly neglected the sociological possibilities of its work; and also that it is recklessly regardless of the canons of scientific charity. On the other I hand, the Salvation Army is, from the points of view of honesty, of tenacity of purpose, and of large-scale results, unquestionably the best administered and most successful missionary enterprise of which we have knowledge. The failure of the missions to draw the masses into direct affiliation with them is practically complete. They have not made the slightest dent in the hard shell of popular indifference. The people prefer the churches to the missions, and if they go anywhere at all they go to the churches. Absence of democracy in the management is one reason for this failure. People do not favor the absentee landlord system extended to their spiritual homes. It is also possible that the practice, sometimes resorted to, of converting drinking and dancing saloons into missions and retaining their old names, "Paddy's Goose," "The Mahogany Bar," etc., is not conducive to the highest respect for the church. It does not degrade religion to popularize it; but it is a sen- 82 THE CHURCHES AND ous mistake to associate it too intimately with those things to which the best instincts of hu- manity, even in its lower manifestations, have an invincible antipathy. 4. The Settlement The settlements stand in a class by them- selves; for, with a few exceptions, it is their consistent policy, as in Mansfield House, Toyn- bee Hall, and others in London, and the innu- merable settlements in America, to avoid any distinctively "religious" activity, in the usual formal sense of the term. Their spirit is the same as that of the best in organized religion, but their methods are so different that they have preferred not to acknowledge any affiliation. This policy has been hotly contested. It is said that the settlements should not ignore the religious problem, "for there is no morality apart from religion." * And so it is insisted that every settlement should be a "Christian" settlement; or, at least, that there should be some settlements specifically "religious" in their nature. " One of the greatest problems of the Christian settlement," says Mr. Evans, "is to find out how genuine Christianity can be 1 Thomas S. Evans, "The Christian Settlement," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 484. THE WAGE EARNERS 83 effectively introduced into the individual and social life of a community blindly prejudiced against everything that bears the name of Christian." A Christian settlement should not attempt to be denominational. It is not a prop- aganda station. It should win the people to Christianity and then let them choose their own form of worship and church connection. In this way the settlements would be contributing some- thing toward the support and upbuilding of the churches from which they have drawn so much of their inspiration: they would be helping "religion." But, on the other hand, it has been well pointed out l that a discussion of the relations of the settlements to religion depends upon the definition of religion. A settlement like Toyn- bee Hall is assuredly not irreligious, though it abstains from definite religious teaching. So- cial settlements among the immigrants in Amer- ica have been well called "essentially religious in their nature." 2 Lyman Abbott says: 3 "The religion of the Middle Ages was piety without humanity; it built cathedrals and burnt here- 1 Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch, "The Settlement's Relation to Religion," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 490. a John R. Commons, "Races and Immigrants in America," 219. 3 Lyman Abbott, "The Outcast," Outlook, Vol. LXXXIX, p. 616. 84 THE CHURCHES AND tics. The religion of the twentieth century is humanity without piety; it maintains great charities, but is not remarkable for its church- going. The latter is the more Christly religion of the two." Religion within these latter years has been given a broader definition, and is made to include "any group action which commands the best and the most of us." 1 By this defini- tion settlement work, which commands the un- selfish devotion of valuable lives organized and cooperating for the uplift of humanity, is most certainly religious. According to Stein 2 the function of religion in the future will be the perfection of the Man-type. It is in this work that the settlements are now engaged. This new definition, which is at present much more likely to win the approval of the sociologist than of the theologian, is, nevertheless, the con- ception which has the future before it. Its career of conquest is already begun : settlement work- ers, no matter from what church or creed they come, become speedily socialized. The efficiency of the "secular" settlements is enormous in comparison with the failure of the 1 This definition gives a basis to Mr. Crapsey's contention (/. c., 305), that the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States is a statement of religious principles. 3 Ludwig Stein, "Die Soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosophic," 673- THE WAGE EARNERS 85 "religious" agencies we have been considering; and this fact cannot fail to have left its impress upon the popular mind. The new kind of reli- gion "works," while the old, in some particulars at least, does not; and the people have made their choice pragmatically, as they usually do. It is observed even that when a religious settle- ment, such as Oxford House, attempts to en- force "religion" in its clubs, the effort fails. It almost appears that the masses of the people have no use whatever for "religion" as the term has been until now generally understood. CHAPTER III THE SOCIAL QUESTION T17HEN the workingmen are asked why, in the face of such efforts in their behalf as we have been surveying, they are still antago- nistic to the churches, their reply is likely to be to the effect that these efforts, though com- mendable in their intention, fail to get at the root of the difficulty. They may, at the best, reach and relieve some of the aspects of pov- erty, but they do not touch poverty itself. The churches work on individual cases, and the basis of their ethics is individualistic; but, say the people, the disease is a social disease, and ethics should be primarily social. Christianity was rejected by Mazzini and by Frederic Har- rison on account of its selfish individualism. This is "the sociological age of the world"; 1 and the questions in which people are inter- ested are no longer theological, but sociological. The "social movement" is the people's move- ment; it is their religion; its problems are ulti- ; mately religious problems, and many men are 1 Strong, /. c. t 130. 86 THE WAGE EARNERS 87 glad to recognize their religious aspects. In fact, "there is so much religion in the labor movement that some day it will become a ques- tion whether the church will capture the labor movement or the labor movement capture the church." 1 It appears rather to be a question whether the church will capture the people, the majority of whom are laborers, and regain its hold in the world, or whether it will allow them to organize their own social religion in their own way. For as religion in the past grew out of social ideals, so it may again in the future. Hence it becomes of the utmost importance for the churches to determine their right rela- tions to the social question, and, when found, to maintain them. What should be their attitude toward social reform and politics ? What is their present practice ? These questions we will consider now; the subject of social revolu- tion will be dealt with in Part III. I. The Teaching of Jesus In seeking to ascertain the attitude of Jesus toward the social question one must bear in mind that the problem was never presented to him in the sense in which we understand it. The labor problem of to-day is largely ethical 1 Stelzle, /. c., 29. 88 THE CHURCHES AND and religious, and to that extent it may fall within the purview of Jesus's teaching; but it is also an economic problem, the factors of which are a very recent development in history. It began with the "industrial revolution," the sudden wide application of steam power to in- dustry, and the rise of the factory system; and as to this phase of it, Jesus could have had noth- ing to say. There is too much of a tendency among writ- ers on this subject to-day to rely upon half-true generalizations. Thus, any such general state- ment as that "the Bible upholds the dignity of labor," l is not only unhelpful but is also to a degree untrue; for it depends upon which part of the Bible is in mind. The Bible begins with the proposition that labor was inflicted upon mankind as a punishment and a curse. Simi- larly, the statement so often made that the He- brew religion was primarily social 2 is also partly untrue, because one-sided. The Mosaic legis- lation was, of course, as legislation for a com- munity, social. 3 "The Bible is the most democratic book in the world;" 4 true enough, 1 Cochran, /. c. t 441. * J. A. Leighton, "Jesus Christ and the Civilization of To-day," 56; Walter Rauschenbusch, " Christianity and the Social Crisis," 8. 3 Fairbairn, /. c., 124. * Stein, /. c., 674. THE WAGE EARNERS 89 if one is careful about his "texts." It has also been made to support the divine right of kings and the institution of human slavery. It is true that there is a social aspect of Hebrew prophecy, 1 and, perhaps, a subordination of individual to social elements in Hebrew songs; 2 but it would not be at all difficult to show that Old Testa- ment ethics, like any ethics, was and must be both social and individual: individual in its aim, social in its results. Hence, to prove that Jesus was the successor of the prophets is not necessarily to demonstrate that his ethics was purely social. An exclusive stress laid upon either the social or the individual phases of Jesus's teaching is sure to be misleading, for the gospel contains both. Half of Jesus's preaching is a social mes- sage it may even be granted, temporarily, that the Second Commandment was intended as a practical working principle to control the organ- ization of human society but the First Com- mandment still remains on the books, and that half of the gospel deals with the personal rela- tions of individuals with their God. Christian- ity defined religion in terms of social service, as well as in terms of personal holiness; but it did 1 Ross, /. c., 60. 2 Richard T. Ely, "Social Aspects of Christianity," 151. 9 o THE CHURCHES AND not mean to distract attention entirely from the \ necessity of personal holiness. Service and self- sacrifice are primary qualities in Jesus's eth- ics, 1 and they are both necessarily social vir- tues; but it must not be overlooked that they are also virtues which must necessarily be prac- tised by individuals, and to which individuals must be converted before society can be bene- fited by them. Social service, in short, is not the whole of Christian righteousness, though it is a very necessary and a hitherto unduly neglected part of it. There is a similar one-sidedness about the current estimates of Jesus's attitude toward the rich and the poor. The prophets were cham- pions of the poor. 2 Jesus had natural affinities to the lowly. 8 "The poor were the people with whom Jesus most clearly identified himself." * Property was of little value in his eyes. 5 These statements are all true, so far as they go; the sympathy of Jesus for the unfortunate can- not be exaggerated. As Dr. Peabody says: " Jesus bears the burden of the poor always on his heart." But when Nitti writes that "for 1 Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Christian Character," 199. 2 Rauschenbusch, /. c., n. 3 Ibid., 82; Adolf Harnack, "What is Christianity?" 100. 4 Washington Gladden, "The New Idolatry," 128. 5 Crapsey, I. c., 46. THE WAGE EARNERS 91 Jesus poverty was an indispensable condition for gaining admission to the kingdom of Heaven," * and when Rauschenbusch adds to this that Jesus was opposed to wealth on social grounds, they are manifestly going beyond what the records warrant. The story of the "rich young man," which is fairly representative of the teachings of Jesus on this subject, shows that when the acquisition or possession of great wealth became a hindrance to the highest per- sonal and social development of the individual, Jesus opposed it, not as wealth, but as a hin- drance. 2 ^ Did Jesus possess the "revolutionary con- sciousness" claimed for him by recent writers, following in the track of Renan and the social- ists ? 3 According to Nitti, 4 "we are bound to admit that Christianity was a vast economic revolution more than anything else." Crapsey says that the attitude of Jesus toward the State was hostile. 5 Herron writes: 6 "The Beatitudes are the most revolutionary political principles ever stated." On the other hand, many author- 1 F. S. Nitti, "Catholic Socialism" (Eng. Tr., 1895), 58. 2 Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," 210. 8 Cf. below, p. 106. * Nitti, /. c., 64, citing Ernest Renan, "Marc Aurele," 598. 5 Crapsey, /. c., 42, 48. 8 George D. Herron, "The Christian Society," 53. 92 THE CHURCHES AND ities assert that Jesus was not a revolutionist. 1 Again we find part truth and part error, a mis- take of emphasis. Jesus led no revolt against the constituted authorities of his time; but he did give utterance to principles which, if con- sistently practised, could not but revolutionize society in some of its aspects, then as now. "Jesus is not a social demagogue, he is a spir- itual seer." 2 He devotes himself not to the alteration of environments but to the amend- ment of personalities. That this process should work out eventually to the reformation of soci- eties is not primary but incidental to Jesus's purpose. That Jesus was not an economist, that he laid down no programme, there has been so far no one hardy enough to deny. Even those who in- sist that the spirit of economic reform is to be found in his teaching, make no claim to discov- ering its method there. "Jesus had no eco- nomic theories, no interest in industrialism," says Campbell, 3 " he laid down no directions for the administration of the ideal state, or the guidance of the individual in his social relation- ships: his idea was supernatural revolution, not 1 Harnack, /. c., 102; George B. Stevens, "New Testament Theology," 117; Leighton, /. c. t 106. 2 Peabody, /. c., 208. 3 Campbell, /. c., 86, 176. THE WAGE EARNERS 93 social evolution." Jesus was not concerned with political or economic organization; whether he intended even to found a church is question- able, and to me the evidence against seems to preponderate. 1 That he is not responsible for the modern conception of church organization must certainly be admitted by every one. That Jesus was not primarily interested even in the ethical aspects of economic questions has been strongly maintained. "The teaching of Jesus is not a doctrine of economic justice and equitable distribution," says Peabody; 2 "it ex- pands into the greater problem of spiritual re- generation and preparedness." Jesus regards "not comfort but character as the object of economic change." It is not the Christian dis- tribution, but the Christian getting of gains, which is important. The gospel is not con- cerned with material wants. 3 Jesus was inter- ested more in the duties than in the rights of men; his teaching is based on their fundamental needs, 4 which are spiritual. This view, held by able men and on good grounds, also seems to me to err from one-sided emphasis; it overlooks 1 Stevens, /. c., 135; Weiss, "Lehre Jesu," 156; Wendt, "Lehre Jesu," 180. 2 Peabody, /. c., 215, 313, 223. 3 Harnack, I. c., passim. 4 Shatter Mathews, "Social Teaching of Jesus," 177, 181. 94 THE CHURCHES AND a fact suggested by the last sentence: that man's material needs are in a sense as fundamental as his spiritual. We are not concerned with the needs of disembodied spirits. Nor must it be ignored that the distribution of wealth among the factors involved in its production is a hu- man activity, as well as the acquisition of riches; and the principles of ethics and of Christianity must, to be consistent, be applied as well to one as to the other. Jesus was not interested in the mechanism of distribution; he could have known nothing of it as it exists to- day; but that does not exempt it from the ap- plication of the test of his spirit. It has been said that J-esus's social teaching is implicit in his account of the kingdom of God. 1 Perhaps no conception in the entire range of our sacred literature has suffered such violence of contrary and irreconcilable inter- pretation as this idea of "the Kingdom of God." It has been described as a social ideal, a model on whose lines society should be organized. On the other hand, it is said to be a purely spirit- ual ideal, a metaphorical name for all those who are members of God's family. By way of compromise, it is suggested that there is a social motif in it, but that Jesus aims beyond this *D. S. Cairns, "Christianity and the Modern World," 186. THE WAGE EARNERS 95 social aspect, and its outcome is a mystical union of the members of the Kingdom in the Body of Christ, the Church. There are scores of variations on these three themes. The resolution of this discord would seem to be a matter for the exegetes. The Gospels are not at all clear, definite, or consistent on the subject; and there has developed recently a tendency to read almost any ideal into the con- cept. Scholars, however, are coming more and more to the opinion that its meaning varied from time to time in Jesus's mind; at one time it was an external kingdom, to be realized in the near or remote future, in heaven or on earth; at another time, it was the collective name for those who recognized their spiritual kinship; in other words, it was sometimes po- litical and sometimes spiritual, sometimes tem- poral and sometimes eternal, in its significance. On the whole, the idea is altogether too vague for us to draw any definite conclusions from it. The residuum of this brief discussion may be stated thus : The teachings of Jesus are both in- dividualistic and social; individualistic in so far as they are concerned with the relations of each soul to its Father; social in so far as they deal with the relations of souls with each other. His sympathies were with the poor, and he had y 96 THE CHURCHES AND > no prejudice against wealth merely as wealth. He was not a reformer or a revolutionist of the external type; he had no economic or political programme; he was interested primarily in in- ternal, spiritual reformation. 2. The Churches 9 Present Theory The churches to-day are, theoretically, in substantial accord with this position, although they have not until recently been much inter- ested in the social side of Jesus's teaching. So- cial religion is in reality a new experience, as "social ethics" is a new science. The churches' hymns, dating from the older days, are pre- dominantly individual. The progress of the new social feeling has not been easy or unchallenged. For instance, a re- cent writer has felt moved to enter a protest in favor of a reinstatement of emphasis on spir- itual individuality, 1 alleging that a life of serv- ice would solve all problems, and that a true life for the individual, conscientiously lived, is itself truly social. Society, he urges with con- siderable force, would necessarily be uplifted through the elevation of the individual. The more modern attitude, however, and the one 1 Leighton, "Jesus Christ and the Civilization of To-day"; cf. also Crooker, "The Church of To-day." THE WAGE EARNERS 97 which is slowly but surely occupying the whole field, is that the church should work through , the individual not alone as an individual, but / as a cell in the social organism. But it is still \ generally insisted that, though the reformation of society is the ultimate goal, regeneration of the individual must come first, for two reasons: I, society is made up of individuals; 2, the in- fluence of the church, by which the reformation should be achieved, is dependent upon the per- fection of its individual members. But among the more radical there is a strong and growing feeling of the inadequacy of this programme. The "simple gospel" is not suffi- cient. Love of one's enemies, "resist not evil," may be good individualistic ethics, but they have no place in the modern world. An indi- vidualistic religion is not adequate to to-day's needs. The churches are in error in looking to the sinner rather than to the "sinned against"; it must be recognized that the sinner is to , some extent a product of circumstances. The churches do well to insist that a Christian must be a philanthropist; but they should not glory in their charitable institutions and endeavors so long as they leave the causes of destitution and suffering untouched. Nor, it is insisted, can the churches hope to elevate modern society merely 98 THE CHURCHES AND through the elevation of individuals. Social evils demand social treatment. The real meaning of the current insistence upon the essentially social nature of Christian ethics is found in this remark: "We should be interested both in the improvement of environ- ment and the strengthening of character." l When Professor Ely says that Christianity is pri- marily concerned with this world and its social relations, and Mr. Stelzle proposes that the church must handle clearly the social problems of to-day, and the theologically minded Dr. Mathews writes that the church should teach the intimate relationship of God to social facts and forces, they all mean that the old exclusive emphasis on the training of the individual char- acter, the cultivation of holiness, must be sup- plemented by attention to the environment in which that character must be developed, and that such attention must be accompanied by all reasonable efforts, individual and collective, to make the environment more favorable to both material and spiritual improvement than it now is. That the church should demand justice in the wage-scale and righteousness in politics, as well as personal purity, is an illustration of the 1 Judson, "The Church in Its Social Aspect," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 447- THE WAGE EARNERS 99 new attitude. Mr. Crapsey says: 1 "The re- ligion of the state has to do with the salvation of the community, hence is greater than the re- ligion of the churches, which has to do with the salvation of the individual"; and the churches now propose to meet the criticism by assuming the salvation of the community. And so it is felt more and more that the churches should be organized on such a plan as to give their ministers opportunity for social study and social work; they should be the cen- tres of social activities; it is their duty to know in detail the social structure of their neighbor- hoods; even the Sunday-schools should eacly have a specific social function. Not that the churches are bound to advocate I any particular social theory. As religious \\ organizations, they have nothing to do with economic programmes. It must be clearly un- derstood that the church endorses only so much of the present social system as is in accordance with Christian principles, and that it con- demns all that is contrary thereto. It is not concerned with the method of economic re- form. It cannot advocate any specific "rem- edy" except under abnormal conditions where the need is clear and urgent, and the operation 1 Crapsey, /. c,, 307, note. ioo THE CHURCHES AND and efficacy of the proposed remedy beyond dispute.plt is possible, however, to consider the existence of any evil conditions eo ipso an urgent demand for their removal; in that case the churches would find themselves obligated to take a hand in all promising reforms. This is the attitude of "Christian socialism" 1 in its best estate; but most churchmen would not go so far. They would be content to have the churches cooperate with other active agencies by the formation of an ethically trained public opinion. In the meantime they must inculcate a greater respect for law and order than has distinguished some reform movements of late years. They must also on occasion emphasize their traditional method of social regeneration through the individual, especially where an evil can be traced to its source in individual wrong-doing. The best principle to govern the churches' treatment of proposed reforms would seem to be to apply to them first the ethical tests at their ^v disposal, in the pulpit and in the press, and thus train the people to apply such ethical tests for themselves. In cases where the need for specific measures is pressing and their justifica- tion evident, the churches might reasonably be 1 Kaufmann, "Christian Socialism," 18. ^ t *VVV N ' / " i C VJ\A / "- i NVsX.^, \jvy^- XxN^v'V'X X* js\ Vv THE WAGE EARNERS 101 expected to take an active and energetic and, if necessary, a leading part in securing their adop- tion. Though the churches should not attempt to make themselves the chief beneficiaries of re- form, it would only be the part of a wise expe- diency for them to recognize their own vital in- terest in the solution of the social question. Social amelioration and spiritual opportunity go together. Comfortable homes, shorter hours of labor, physical and social well-being, mean will- ing ears and open hearts, a fruitful field for the church-worker. In these days the full church is more than likely to accompany the full din- ner-pail. Moreover, social betterment is bound to come anyway; and the churches would bet- ter be found on the side of the common people, its main beneficiaries, when the victories arrive, rather than opposed to them: not merely for the sake of full churches, but to save the face of organized religion. The hope of society is generally felt to lie in greater respect for the common good, in regard for the commonwealth. This hope has an ethical quality which should appeal to the churches, if they are properly constituted; the success or failure of its appeal is being applied by the most inexorable observers as a test of the 102 THE CHURCHES AND present worthiness of the churches. There is an insistent demand for a religion which should find its best expression not in individual salva- tion or worship, "in postures and impostures," but in an enthusiasm for humanity. 1 Humanity in the mass is looking to the churches to-day to I see if that religion is to be found in them; and \ it is a critical and challenging and undeceivable ' humanity which is conducting the examination. 3. The Churches' Present Practice A broad review of the history of the social activities of the churches would show that in general they have done just about what they understood to be their duty, in each age. 2 Dif- ferences in accomplishment are due to differ- ences in conception of duty at different periods. When the churches thought they ought to re- lieve the poor, they have done so; when they understood that they must direct the policies of nations, they did so; to-day they are carrying on many reform movements 3 of greater or less importance, but of the kind their teachings approve. Get them to understand what they 1 John Stuart Mackenzie, "Social Philosophy," 81. 2 For history of social activities, see Rauschenbusch, "Chris- tianity and the Social Crisis." 3 For convenient presentation of data, see W. F. Crafts, "Prac- tical Christian Sociology," especially the appendices. THE WAGE EARNERS 103 ought to do, and in the long run they will be found doing it. There is no point in their social history at which the churches can be honestly charged with inconsistency of practice and the- ory (except in the matter of equality), still less with wilful neglect. The trouble has always come, not from any failure in the performance of their duty as they understood it, but in their misunderstanding of their duty, viewed in the light of the most advanced conceptions current in each period. The churches have always been slow in "finding" themselves in their continually changing environments. Thus when it is charged that the churches have neglected to insist on their social teaching, the objector means that they have not caught up with the broad conception of their social duty now held by a few leaders. This is com- paratively innocuous. But when it is added that the churches have stood in active or latent opposition to needed reforms, 1 this is a direct allegation of unpardonable misunderstanding of duty in a matter of vital interest to the people. That the charge is true cannot well be denied. In England the opposition of the churches to political reform in the '30*8 cost them the alle- giance of millions. When sanitary factory leg- 1 Lecky, /. c., II, 128. \ 104 THE CHURCHES AND islation was being agitated, it was opposed by the "theologians attributing the workingmen's ill-health to the Act of God." 1 The prohibition of women's working in the mines was brought about by philanthropists on moral grounds, but not by the churches on religious grounds. And to-day it is fairly true that the churches' voices have not been heard very plainly for reforms that threaten profits, no matter how obvious the humanity and justice of the proposed reform may be. The wariness with which the churches handle the evils of child-labor, the sweat-shops, corporational and political "graft," and even (in some cases) of intemperance, has been too often observed by those who are not the churches' friends, and not often enough by those who are. In fact, there are but two movements on which the churches in general have taken a de- cided stand, temperance and Sunday (miscalled Sabbath) observance. They have too often dis- torted the former by intemperance and exag- geration. They have not shown zeal enough in the provision of adequate substitutes for the saloon, which has been hitherto the one means of exhilarating sociability the workingmen's means and opportunities permit. The working- men are also prone to observe that the over-con- 1 Webb, "Industrial Democracy," 356. THE WAGE EARNERS 105 sumption of alcohol (their pet fault) is the only over-consumption which receives the extended attention of the pulpit. The reckless and inso- lent flaunting of ill-gotten gains in the eyes of the hungry masses which characterizes an in- creasing number of notorious metropolitan social functions does not appear to have aroused any great enthusiasm of clerical opposition, as yet. As to Sunday observance, the people feel that if the churches would devote as much energy toward securing shorter hours and more half- holidays during the week, as well as one rest- day in seven for those the nature of whose work permits of no universal intermission on one day, as they do to restricting, in accordance with obsolescent puritanical notions, the choice of his recreation on Sunday, they would be showing at once a sounder view of the case and a friend- lier attitude toward the toilers. The clergy must ' sooner or later recognize that to provide the means for a Sunday afternoon outing to a work- ingman and his family is an "act of mercy." Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for the workingman. For underlying the churches' failure in their \ economic and social relations with the laborers 1 is their ignorance of social and economic laws. , Their charities fail to work any permanent / io6 THE CHURCHES AND good, because they attack only the symptoms and results and not the causes of social disease. "The church's social work," says one of its representatives, 1 "is directed more toward effects than toward causes; toward personal action on the individual rather than on social forces; toward the spiritual more than the tem- poral. The church is quick and tender in car- ing for the aged poor, yet she is not conspicuous in demanding old-age pensions, etc." It is ex- actly in this inconspicuousness that the com- plaint of the people lies. "A hundred ways of service, visitation, and relief, the advocacy of temperance and recreation, the provision of the social settlement and of the institutional church, illustrate the expansion of the work of religion into the sphere of the social movement. Yet these Christian activities, beautiful and fruitful as they are, and testifying as they do to the vi- tality of the Christian religion, cannot be re- garded as presenting in themselves a solution of the modern social question." 2 It is very encouraging to note that "the past decade has witnessed a really remarkable arousal of the Christian conscience in behalf of 1 Kerby, "The Social Work of the Catholic Ckurch in Ameri- ca," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 475. 2 Peabody, /. c., 29. THE WAGE EARNERS 107 the toiler," * at any rate among a few in the churches' vanguard of thinkers. This interest in the workingmen's movement is due largely to the impetus given it by Maurice and Kingsley in England, renewed a few years ago in America by the work of Professors Ely and Peabody. 2 The case of Hugh Price Hughes, and of the re- cent Pan-Anglican Conference, is an example of the growing interest of the English churches in the social question; and American churches are becoming more sympathetic and intelligent in regard to it. In Germany the Evangelical Social Congress has been organized among the churches for the express purpose of connecting them more intimately with the social movement. Ideas originating in the ranks of labor are being voiced, more or less unconsciously, but none the less significantly, from almost all pulpits. The churches are beginning to realize that society must be saved, even if only for the sake of the individuals who compose society. But, unfortunately, the churches are almost irreparably belated in their interest in the prob- lem; they have waited so long that the work- ingmen have long since concluded that they 1 Cochran, /. c., 454. 2 Cf. the number of recent English works on this subject given in the Bibliography at the end of this volume, with the list given by Peabody, "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," 67, note. \\\ 108 THE CHURCHES AND could not be depended upon, and that they were in fact opposed to the whole movement. Take the labor unions, for example. They are in general, or were until very recently, convinced that the churches are hostile to them. They have heard their methods consistently criticised from the pulpit; but seldom have they heard their aims or ideals encouraged. The fact that one of their favorite and most indispensable methods, that of mutual insurance, was first proposed by a leading Baptist clergyman in 1819 does not help the matter, for the church ignored it. The hostile criticisms of another clergyman, in 1824, received far more attention and support. Within recent years the Presbyterian and Protestant Episcopal churches in America have taken official notice of the trades unions, after the latter had been in prominent existence for more than a century. The Presbyterian Church has established a " Department of Church and Labor" for the special purpose of the study of the social question. 1 The department at pres- ent seems to consist of a superintendent, a com- petent thinker and an energetic and successful 1 Stelzle, "The Presbyterian Department of Church and La- bor," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 458; also Stelzle, "Christianity's Storm Centre." THE WAGE EARNERS 109 worker, who travels and lectures and visits labor unions and church conferences: a sort of "travelling chair of Christian sociology," as he calls himself. He has established a system of exchange of "fraternal delegates" between some churches and unions, and the result in every case is a much more cordial feeling between them. 1 Some unions have even created the office of "chaplain," to provide a specific func- tion for the visiting minister. This exchange system has been formally endorsed by the American Federation of Labor. The depart- ment was also largely instrumental in securing the observance of "Labor Sunday," which is helping to win again to the churches the atten- tion of the workingmen. 2 The Methodist Quadrennial Conference of 1908 has taken specific action in regard to the most pressing social problems of to-day by the adoption of a platform which places that church easily in the forefront of the socio-religious 1 Outlook, June 6, 1908, "The Presbyterian Assembly." 2 The Methodist Preachers' Meeting and the Baptist Conference of Boston recently took steps in the same direction (Mass. Labor Bulletin, No. 55, p. 209), and it is probable that the example of the Presbyterian Church will be widely imitated. At the Baptist Convention of 1908 a Commission was appointed, including Shailer Mathews and C. R. Henderson, to study and report to the denomination as to what the churches are doing along lines of social service (Outlook, June 13, 1908). no THE CHURCHES AND ovement. The statement reads as follows: The Methodist Episcopal Church stands: "For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life. "For the principle of conciliation and arbi- tration in industrial dissensions. " For the protection of the worker from dan- gerous machinery, occupational diseases, inju- ries, and mortality. " For the abolition of child labor. "For such regulation of the conditions of labor for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community. "For the suppression of the 'sweating system.' " For the gradual and reasonable reduction of the hours of labor to the lowest practical point, with work for all; and for that degree of leisure for all which is the condition of the highest human life. "For a release from employment one day in seven. " For a living wage in every industry. " For the highest wage that each industry can afford, and for most equitable division of the prod- ucts of industry that can ultimately be devised. " For the recognition of the Golden Rule, and the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy for all social ills." THE WAGE EARNERS in This comprehensive and unequivocal declara- tion of Christian principles is a model of frank- ness and dignity which cannot be too highly commended. It has been adopted, with some additions (of questionable value), by the Fed- eral Council of Churches at its meeting in De- cember, 1908, at Philadelphia. 1 When all the \ churches shall have become permeated with the spirit exemplified in this platform, and the masses of the people shall have become aware of the fact, there will be no problem of the/ alienation of the masses. These recent developments are encouraging; but one must be on his guard not to be misled by such statements as that "the workingmen are responding to the churches' appeal," and that "prominent labor leaders are members of the church," into the erroneous idea that the breach between the churches and the wage earners is near healing. The abyss of prejudice and mutual misunderstanding between them is beginning to be filled. They are becoming bet- ter acquainted with each other, and their mutual respect is beginning to grow. But a gap which has been decades broadening and deepening cannot be filled in a few months or years. 1 Outlook, Dec. 19, 1908, p. 849, "The Social Conscience of the Churches." ii2 THE CHURCHES AND Occasionally the church has had to do with arbitration in labor disputes, but in so small a way that its effect on the attitude of the public has been insignificant. In general, it remains true that "in the conflict between capital and labor neither the capitalist nor the laborer has any use for the minister." 1 Sometimes a min- ister may be found on the Australian wage boards. 2 The Standing Commission of Capital and Labor of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which was appointed to act as a board of arbi- tration when invited to do so, was not once called on during 1901-1904, a period particu- larly marked by great strikes and lockouts. A clerical arbitration board once appealed to in Chicago charged such exorbitant fees for its services that both sides were disgusted, and that ended the possibilities of its usefulness in that city. Such experiments cannot be expected to be successful until the average minister's knowl- edge of economics and sociology is far wider | than it is now. The problem of the immigrant is assigned by the Presbyterian Church to its Department of Church and Labor, thus recognizing its social bearings; but, as a rule, the churches' mission- 1 Crapsey, /. c., 277. 3 Webb, "Industrial Democracy" (2 ed.), xxxviii. THE WAGE EARNERS 113 ary work among the immigrants, which is ex- tensive and highly organized, 1 follows along the old individualistic and evangelistic lines. The aim seems to be to stem the tide of alienation, where possible; and, failing that, to convert the Catholics into Protestants which helps the Protestant annual statistics of membership and does not materially injure the Catholics'. No very impressive success is reported. The Cath- olics hold the immigrants to some extent. The best work among them seems to be done by the institutional churches, which teach them Eng- lish, find them employment, act as a general in- formation bureau, etc. 1 For details and statistics, see Grose, "Aliens or Americans?" CHAPTER IV GOVERNMENT "ITTE cannot close this part of our study with- out a consideration of the churches' atti- tude toward politics and the state. In the interpretation of Jesus's teaching on this as on all other subjects there is the widest variety of opinion. Through all periods of history there have been some who have found the details of governmental organization laid down in the gospels, patent to all except (of course) those who are wilfully blind. Thus, within recent years it has been said that a gingerly treatment of Jesus's political principles is a sign of the degradation of the pulpit. 1 The Sermon on the Mount is the letter, the statute-book, of the Christian constitution of society. If so, govern- ment should be the primary interest of the preacher of Christianity; his aim must be to mould the constitution of society into conform- ity with the political ideas of Jesus. It is tolerably certain, however, that Jesus was not interested in politics in any more than 1 Herron, "The Christian Society." 114 THE WAGE EARNERS 115 an indirect way. His political theories, if he had any, should be found illustrated in his idea of the Kingdom of God; but, as we have seen, this idea is so obscure and uncertain that it is not much help. Scholars are generally agreed that the conception of the Kingdom of God was even less political than economic; l that Jesus did not have in mind primarily a political resto- ration. "The Gospel is not a bill of rights, for the mission of Christ had no political charac- ter," says Nitti. 2 Jesus was rarely brought into direct contact with the government of his period, and when he was, his attitude was merely one of enforced submission to it. It does not appear that he had any of Paul's manifest respect for the state; his ideal of service was, in fact, a rever- sal of the current state-craft; but there is no evidence that he took a direct part in altering it. He appears to have sharply distinguished be- tween the functions of religion and those of the state. The latter was merely one of the external data with which the religious man must reckon, as he reckoned with the forces of nature, but which, under the then conditions, was as remote from his control as the tides or the lightning. 1 H. H. Wendt, "Teaching of Jesus," 364. 'Nitti, "Catholic Socialism," 58. u6 THE CHURCHES AND But the recent extension of the definition of religion has forced it to include politics also. Politics is group action devoted to the further- ance of well-being through the forms and activi- ties of organized government. Political and re- ligious thought are, therefore, but forms of each other. All questions of state are questions of religion. "While religion is more than politics, politics is religion. A church might better omit to apply the principles of Christ to everything else than to politics." 1 Others not so radical agree that politics is or should be a moral mat- ter, and is, therefore, legitimately for the church to handle. The state is, by its nature, grounded in religion. 2 It is the expression of the solidarity of humanity, a solidarity based on cooperation and brotherhood, and demanding the religious concept of the Fatherhood of God as its neces- sary foundation. 3 Thus, by merely broadening the traditional conception of religion, govern- ment is seen to be part of it. The democratization of government, by en- larging the sphere of the people's moral activi- ties, has, at the same time, widened the sphere 1 Crapsey, /. c., 300. 2 Franz von Baader, "Ueber die Zeitschrift Avenir" (Werke, VI, 31), 4i. 3 Ludwig Stein, "Die Soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosophic," 661. THE WAGE EARNERS 117 of the preacher, bringing within his jurisdiction the matters of government in which he and his people are necessarily involved. And further, inasmuch as legislation is one of the most effec- tive means of securing certain reforms, the churches may, on occasion, have to champion legislation. They have the same right to influ- ence the making and the enforcement of the law that any other bodies subject to it have, and, when necessary, they should cooperate with organized political influences in that behalf. While it is somewhat of an exaggeration to say that "whatever government the ministers want the ministers can have," * still it is partly true. The ministers stand in a position where clearness and definiteness in their attitude on political questions must be extremely influential; and this possible influence for good should not be wasted. The policy of restricting their interest in city government to such matters as closing \ saloons on Sunday is distinctly evil, while we are I still subject to the ravages of civic corruption. In the opinion of many, it is the religious duty of the churches to take an active part in politics and government. 2 On the other hand, it is urged 1 Crapsey, /. c., 276. 2 Crapsey, /. c.; Rauschenbusch, I. c.\ J. R. Commons, "Social Reform and the Church." ii8 THE CHURCHES AND that reforms are not a matter for the church, but for church members ; that the church should not become a power in politics, though the church member should. The church is not con- cerned with legislation. The science or art of politics is quite outside its jurisdiction. It is likely to do more harm than good by meddling in government, and it is wiser to leave politics alone. l The tendency of advancing civilization is toward the complete separation of church and state; history has decided against their union. 2 As usual, there is justification in both views, and the truth seems to lie between them. In our contemplation of the numerous evils which have been associated with the activities of the church in the affairs of government, we are very prone to overlook or forget the enormous power for good the church has thus been enabled to be. In the past "every new religion has either cre- ated a new type of society, or transformed the old." The Christian Church first transformed the religion and life of Roman society, and was then itself converted by the governmental tra- ditions of that society into a hierarchical repre- sentative republic, and thus became responsible, in an indirect way, for the modern democratic 1 Shailer Mathews, "The Church and the Changing Order." 2 Lecky, /. c. THE WAGE EARNERS 119 conception of government. The hierarchical overshadowed the democratic elements in the Middle Ages, and the rulers, outside the towns, utilized the theocratic caste so as, on the whole, to retard the growth of strength among the lower orders of the people. But in the inter- minable struggles of those days the Papacy was often on the side of the people against the kings; and with its fall the idea of the divine right of kings rose unrestricted to its culmination in Northern Europe. The Reformation, notwith- standing this effect, was, on the whole, demo- cratic; for although its theology was thoroughly autocratic, it reintroduced in its organization the republicanism of the early Christian churches. 1 Democracy in America owes much to the direct participation of the Reformation churches in politics; as much credit is due to the congre- gational form of church government as to the town meeting; and yet it is in America that the motto: "Religion and politics have nothing to do with each other," is most fully enforced. The degradation of "practical politics" is partly responsible for this; but, on the other hand, the aloofness of the churches is also partly respon- 1 See Fairbairn, Heermance, Crapsey, Rauschenbusch (works already cited), and especially Emile de Laveleye, "De Pavenir des peuples catholiques," i6ff. 120 THE CHURCHES AND sible for the degradation of politics. Here the churches have utterly failed to connect the gos- pel with the government; here, by a public opinion made up mainly of indifference on the part of the "decent" public, and moulded largely by the venal newspapers of corrupt "bosses," the ministers are most completely shut out from civic influence and political activ- ity. In London, where at times home politics and religion have been freely "mixed," it has been for the good of* both. In Jersey City, New Jersey, under Mayor Fagan, and in Toledo, Ohio, under "Golden Rule" Jones, religion and politics were "mixed" to their great and mu- tual advantage. The prejudice against "mix- ing" them seems to be a survival from the days when the secular arm could be and was used by the church for purposes of persuasion; but that day has long since gone. If one looks now for the effects of the application of Christianity to legislation, when he finds them at all he will find them to be good. The whole matter resolves itself into one of far-sighted expediency. The churches should take a direct hand in politics when the moral issue is clear and where there ought to be no doubt on which side the churches stand. Mn 'this case nothing but good can result, both to **> y vv W| fcA THE WAGE EARNERS 121 the government and the churches. On the other hand, when the moral issue is not clear, or where the difference is one of policy and the right is fairly distributed, the churches as relig- ious agencies can add nothing to the discussion, and can succeed only in alienating from them- selves those with whom they disagree. In such matters, where it is not a clear choice between right and wrong, it is wiser in most cases for the ministers to refrain from attempting to mould public opinion from the pulpit, no matter how expert they may be on the social or economic expediencies involved. It is not necessary, ordi- narily, and it may injure their influence in other matters. They must remember that, after all, their primary concern is not government but righteousness; and that "there is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct}/ out of leaden instincts." 1 Such alchemy musty' be spiritual, if it exists at all. To summarize this part of our study: we have found that the churches have not been guilty of a divergence between their preaching and their practice, except in the matter of spiritual and social equality, in which case their theory was 1 Herbert Spencer, "The Coming Slavery," Pop. Sci. Mo., April, 1884. 122 THE CHURCHES AND so entirely out of harmony with the facts that variance was inevitable. In economic relations, the churches have believed in helping the poor individually, but not collectively; so we find charity conducted on an enormous scale, but seldom are the chuches seen attempting to go to- the root of the matter in social and economic conditions. This performance of their duty as the churches see it has failed to touch the masses fundamentally, however, for two rea- sons: first, it has often been marked by ineffi- ciency and misdirection; second, k is felt that the churches' theory is wrong that conditions ought to be ameliorated collectively; that the churches should attack poverty and other ma- terial evils in their causes and not only in their results. And finally, the churches' old-time beneficent activity in politics has been allowed to lapse, with the result that needed reforms have felt seriously the lack of their support; and further, the degradation of politics as it is practised is charged partly, if not mainly, to the churches having withdrawn from it and turned it over to the realm of the "secular." PART III CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIALISM THE PROBLEM WE turn now to the relations of organized Christianity to socialism, a point which we have postponed for separate discussion on account, first, of its intrinsic importance, and, second, be- cause there is at present an urgent need of a; direct and plain discussion of a subject on which there is so much loose thinking and writing. The burden of much of the socio-ecclesiastical agitation of the day is that Christianity and so- cialism are identical; or that their aims, or, at any rate, their spirit, are the same. It is, there- fore, insisted that Christian ministers should sup- port the socialist movement, or, at least, should be in sympathy with it. Whereas the truth is that Christianity and socialism are diametrically opposite in method, aims, and spirit; that the Christian minister not only cannot support it consistently, but cannot even be in sympathy with it, and must oppose its extension for the same reason that he opposes the spread of pure materialism, or anything else which is entirely incompatible with the fundamental theses of 126 THE CHURCHES AND his religion. The plausible claims of socialism to the support of Christianity are based on a simple logical inversion, which will be discussed later. The false position here under examination is squarely stated in the Rev. R. J. Campbell's book, "Christianity and the Social Order." "The words of Jesus," he says, "may fairly be regarded as the spiritual presentation of the aims of modern socialism. Socialism is far nearer to original Christianity than the Chris- tianity of the churches. The objective of so- cialism is that with which Christianity began its history. Socialism is actually a swing back to the Gospel of the Kingdom of God; the tra- ditional theology of the churches is a departure from it." 1 The common objective of Chris- tianity and of socialism is the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. As it has been put by a German scholar, Oscar Holtzmann, 3 "there can be no manner of doubt that the fun- damental ideals of socialism are to be referred back to Jesus"; also by the Italian Nitti:* "the Christian ideal is in no way opposed to the socialistic ideal." 1 Campbell, /. c., 279, 19, 147, 173. * Cited in Peabody, /. c., 287. Nitti, "Catholic Socialism," 20. THE WAGE EARNERS 127 There are two facts which, in the absence of adequate explanation, raise a prima facie case against these claims: first, the most represent- ative socialists are alienated from the churches and hostile to them and to Christianity; second, the churches are, with scarcely an exception, opposed to socialism. This mutual antago- nism may be due to mere misunderstanding, or it may be due to inherent incompatibility. But let us first consider the facts. CHAPTER I ATHEISTIC SOCIALISM COCIALISM is more than indifferent to spir- ^ itual religion; it has become a distinct sub- stitute for it. Its organizations usually meet on Sunday, that being the only day of leisure its adherents usually have. It has regularly organ- ized Sunday-schools, in which the children are instructed, by the most approved methods of lesson leaves and catechism, in the fundamental principles of the economic creed. Evenings at the socialist clubs have taken the place of the old church meetings. It is said in the factories in Germany: "What Jesus Christ has been in the past, Bebel and Liebknecht will be in the future." 1 Says Le Rossignol: 2 "In these days, when we have a psychology without a soul, let it not be thought strange that we have a religion without a god. Like most religions, socialism has its prophet and its book. The 1 Gohre, /. c., 112. 2 James E. Le Rossignol, "Orthodox Socialism," 5; cf. Nitti, /. c., 22; also Yves Guyot, "La come"die socialiste," for humorous account of socialist parties, "Pope," etc. Guyot himself displays all the graces ( ?) of theological controversy. 128 THE WAGE EARNERS 129 prophet is Karl Marx; the book is 'Capital.' Like all religions it has its creed, which the orthodox hold with the utmost dogmatism and intolerance." This attitude can have but one meaning: "The acceptance of social revolution as a religion is a practical indictment of the re- ligious teaching of the Christian church." 1 A man can have but one religion at a time. Although socialist programmes usually insist that " Religion is a private matter," 2 their most representative leaders have not hesitated to give frequent public utterance to their views on the subject. These expressions, in the absence of refutation by leaders at least as authoritative, must be taken as representative of the attitude of the party, "99 per cent, of which," says Morris Hilquit, 3 "is agnostic." Although Karl Marx, in his "Capital," is rather guarded in his expressions on religion, it is evident he regarded it as an illusion, growing 1 Peabody, I. c., 298. 3 That socialists themselves admit this expression to be an eva- sion is evidenced by the discussion at the Convention of the Amer- ican Socialist Party at Chicago, in 1908, at which the expression was rejected from the Platform. A delegate said (Chicago Daily So- cialist, May 16, 1908): "Religion is a sociological question, an an- thropological question, a question of chronology, of economics, of theosophy. There are few forms of modern thought that do not directly affect the question of religion, and when you say that it is merely a question of the private conscience, you fly in the face of the science and learning of your day." 3 Chicago Daily Socialist, May 16, 1908. i 3 o THE CHURCHES AND out of humanity's failure to comprehend rela- tions which are socially irrational and therefore logically incomprehensible. He says: 1 "The religious reflex of the real world can, in any case, only then finally vanish when the practical relations of every-day life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow-men and to Nature." August Bebel insists that there is no use in hav- ing any religion at all. "The revolution," he says, 2 "differs from its predecessors in this, that it does not seek for new forms of religion; it denies religion altogether." It has no need for any of the ceremonies and symbols of relig- ious organization. Mr. E. Belfort Bax, prob- ably the most brilliant of the thorough-going English socialists, says, 3 "the Positivist seeks to retain the forms after the beliefs of which they are the expression have lost all meaning for him. The socialist whose social creed is his only religion requires no travesty of Christian rites to aid him in keeping his ideal before him." In the socialist mind, "Science analyzes God like any other natural phenomenon," according 1 Marx, "Capital" (Eng. Tr., Humboldt Pub. Co.), 33. 8 Cited in Peabody, /. c., 16. 3 Bax, "The Religion of Socialism," 52. THE WAGE EARNERS 131 to Yves Guyot, 1 a representative of the radical French school. "God is simply a psychological phenomenon. Instead of God having created man, it is man who has created God. Religion is insanity." The atheism of socialism was rec- ognized even by the "Christian Socialist," Pas- tor Todt, who thought that, with that exception, it was in conformity with the Gospel. 2 It is taken for granted by Bebel, although he main- tains that it is not the product of socialism, but of the entire thought of the nineteenth century. 3 "The socialist ideal will cease to have for its object God and another world, and be brought back to its original sphere of social life and this world." 4 There is a necessary conflict between civilization based on law and that based on religion. 5 The religion of Jesus, according to more mod- erate socialists, has been completely perverted from its original intention, and the church, in- stead of being the poor man's institution, has become the exclusive property and support of 1 Guyot, "Etudes sur les doctrines sociales du christianisme" (3d ed., 1892), xliii, 12, 20. This book displays throughout the most intense and partisan bitterness toward religion. * Peabody, /. c., 61; F. Mehring, "Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie," 2ter Auf., 2ter T., 2ter Abt., 131. 3 Cited in Kaufmann, /. c., 194; cf., on circumstances which inevitably gave socialism an atheistic turn, Mehring, /. c., 128. * Bax, /. c., 36. 6 Guyot, I, c,, v. i 3 2 THE CHURCHES AND capitalism. Thus De Laveleye says: 1 "By a complete misapplication of its ideas, the religion of Christ, transformed into a temporal and sacer- dotal institution, has been called in, as the ally of caste, despotism, and the ancient regime, to sanction all social inequalities." But this charitable attitude does not long per- sist. This "misapplication" is soon identified with original Christianity, and then "social de- mocracy turns against Christ and the church because it sees in them only a means of provid- ing a religious foundation for the existing eco- nomic order," as Naumann puts it. 2 Our quotations in the last paragraph have come from "Christian" socialists men who are much better Christians than socialists. More genuinely socialist characterizations are these: "Christianity and capitalism; the two curses of our time." " The cross, once the symbol of civi- lization, is now the symbol of slavery." 3 Bax writes : 4 " The theology they (the socialists) detest is so closely entwined with the current mode of production that the two must stand or fall together." Or, more fully, "The religious aspect of capitalistic civilization is dogmatic 1 De Laveleye, "L'avenir religieux des peuples civilise's," 25. 2 Cited in Peabody, /. c., 17. 3 Cited in Kaufmann, /. c., 3. 4 Bax, /. c. t 81, 77. THE WAGE EARNERS 133 Protestantism. The Reformation which began among the middle classes has continued, gener- ally speaking, to coincide with them. The pre- dominantly commercial states of Christendom are the predominantly Protestant ones, while even in Catholic countries the main strength of the Protestant minority lies in the trading classes. The religious creed of the capitalist bourgeoisie is dogma, minus sacerdotalism. The religious creed of the land-owning aristoc- racy is sacerdotalism, with a nominal adhesion to dogma. The watchword of the one is, an in- fallible church; the standard of the other, an in- fallible Bible. The Romish or High-Anglican squire represents incarnate land, on its religious side; the Baptist haberdasher, incarnate capi- talism." This is not intended for mere face- tiousness, but for serious reasoning which is our justification for quoting it at length. " Chris- tianity is the religion of private property and of the respectable classes," says Liebknecht. 1 "Christianity as seen in this country," says Hyndman, an Englishman, 2 "is merely the chloroform agency of the confiscating classes. Consequently the workmen are daily turning more and more against its professors." "In 1 Cited in Peabody, /. c., 19. 1 Letter in Kaufmann, /. c., 223. 134 THE CHURCHES AND Protestantism," says Bax, 1 "the supremacy of individualism in religion, its antagonism to the old social religions, reaches its highest point of development. Protestantism is the middle class version of Christianity; Puritanism, the insular commentary on this version. The working classes see plainly enough that Christianity, in all its forms, belongs to the world of the past and the present, but not to the world of the future which signifies their emancipation." This opposition to the principles of Chris- tianity is carried further into a desire to sup- press every manifestation of them, and is ex- pressed in terms which savor of blind hatred and utter scorn. Benoit Malon, one of the leaders of French socialism, writes: 2 "To sup- press religion which promises an illusory hap- piness is to establish the claims of real happiness, for to demonstrate the non-existence of these illusions tends toward suppressing a state of things which requires illusions for maintaining its own existence." Says Engels: 3 "The first word of religion is a lie." Marx is reported 4 as saying: "The idea of God must be destroyed; it is the keystone of a perverted civilization. 1 Bax, /. c., 28, 56, 99. 2 In "Nouveau parti," Vol. I, p. 34. 8 Cited in Peabody, /. c., 16. 4 In Pall Mall Magazine, Vol. V, p. 680, note. THE WAGE EARNERS 135 The true root of liberty, of equality, of culture, is atheism." "It is useless blinking the fact," says Bax, 1 "that the Christian doctrine is more revolting to the highest moral sense of to-day than the Saturnalia of the cult of Proserpina could have been to the conscience of the early Christians." " Religion is a staple ingredient of bourgeois family life in this country (England). It con- stitutes the chief amusement of the women of the family. In contemporary British social life the church or chapel is the rendezvous or general club for both sexes; a marriage bureau ; a fash- ionable lounge." 2 A tone like this must be en- couraging to those who would identify socialism and Christianity. "A child or person intellec- tually incapable, either naturally or through ig- norance, or both, comes under the influence of the Salvation Army or the worst kind of Catholic priest, it matters not which, is terrified by threats of the wrath of God into ' conversion/ becomes the slave of General Booth or the ' Church/ is warped morally and mentally for life, and in the worst case possibly driven to religious mania." 3 This inevitably suggests the possibility of com- bining Christian and socialist Sunday-schools. Socialism "utterly despises the 'other world* 1 Ibid. * Bax, /. c., 140. 3 Ibid. 114. 136 THE CHURCHES AND with all is stage properties that is, the present objects of religion." * The churches' attitude toward the world is fundamentally wrong and has led inexorably to their failure. Thus Her- ron, 2 an American : " The collective attitude of the Church toward God and his world is pre- cisely the attitude of the Pharisees and Saddu- cees that wrought the destruction of the Jewish church and nation in the day of its visitation." "The success of Christianity as a moral force," adds Bax, s "has been solely upon isolated indi- viduals. In its effect upon society at large it has signally and necessarily failed." That the socialists are always unfair to the social efforts of clergymen is notorious. In Ger- many the ministers are referred to as the "spiritual police," the "black dragoons," etc., and everything they propose or advocate is sus- pected and affirmed to be in the interests of the capitalistic class. One of the main reasons for the weakness of Stacker's influence is simply the fact that he is a Protestant clergyman. In France the feeling is the same now as when, during the great Revolution, a thoughtful pro- posal of the Abbe Sieyes was defeated merely because it emanated from a priest. In England 1 Bax, /. c. t 52. Herron, "The Christian Society," 62. 3 Bax, /. c., 98. THE WAGE EARNERS 137 and in America the clergy have been the subject of constant villification at the hands of socialists until recently. Now, in view of the possibility of enlisting some of the clergy in active propaganda work, the official tone of socialism is somewhat moderating. It is being said, for example, that the past utterances of the revolutionary party do not im- ply any disrespect for Christianity, but only for "churchianity." The workingmen, it is said, have great reverence for Christ, even though sometimes combined with disrespect for the churches. "One thing alone is left them re- spect and reverence for Jesus Christ." John Spargo, perhaps the leading American socialist, gave utterance to this new attitude at the " Sag- amore Conference" in 1908. The opposition of socialists, he said, is not to Christianity, but to the churches' infidelity to the teachings of Christ. "The churches now are swinging back to relig- ion and away from theology. They are com- ing to attach far more importance to man's deeds than to his beliefs." But it is extremely difficult for a socialist to maintain this concil- iatory strain very long. Mr. Spargo continued: "Yet it is still true that, among the prominent 'Christians' in every city, will be found many of the worst exploiters of labor, owners of man- 138 THE CHURCHES AND killing tenements, corrupters of legislatures, and leaders of political machines that traffic in votes and draw tributes from gambling hells and brothels." Jesus, say these harmonizers, would have been a socialist if he were living to-day. 1 And herein lies a key to an understanding of this situation, in so far as the attempt at "harmony" is sin- cere. The socialists have a reverence for the Christ who would have been a socialist if living to-day; but that is not the Christ of history, and most socialists know it, and are consequently utterly devoid of the respect with which they are fondly credited by enthusiastic evangelists and unobservant men of the study. That there are individual socialists who are religious is, of course, indisputable; but the attitude of the movement as a whole is unquestionably anti- religious. Robert Hunter said recently : 2 " There is a church in this country which is going more and more to attack socialism along this line (the religious), and I do not want to have to discuss it." The reason for this diffidence is not far to seek. The whole socialist attitude is admirably summed up in these words quoted by Kauf- 1 Cited in Peabody, /. c., 65. 1 Chicago Daily Socialist, May 16, 1908. THE WAGE EARNERS 139 mann * from an anonymous pamphlet: "I can- not agree with you in the view you take that Christianity and socialism are the same thing. Christianity and socialism are opposed to each other as fire and water. The so-called good kernel in Christianity, which you, not I, dis- cover in it, is not Christian, but merely human, and the peculiarity of Christianity, the bulk of its dogmas and doctrines, is inimical to hu- manity.** 1 Kaufmann, /. c., 160. CHAPTER II "CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM" A S for the attitude of the churches toward so- 4 * cialism, its unfriendliness, proclaimed from the housetops by the out-and-out socialists, is admitted even by the "Christian socialists." In France and in Belgium the Catholic social movement is the bitter enemy of socialism. "The great contest of the end of the century," said the secretary of a Belgian Catholic workers' congress, "will be between Catholicism and so- cialism." Pope Leo XIII, in his famous Encyc- lical, has committed the Catholic Church against it. In England the High-Anglicans have had little to do with socialism, and the free churches even less. In America few churches have as yet awakened to the fact of its existence. Prominent ministers can be found in every city, S.T.B.'s and D.D/s, who have not the faint- est idea what socialism really is. "In every country," according to Mr. Campbell, 1 "it is the same story: the churches are one thing, the 1 Campbell, /. c. t 19. 140 socialist movement is another; despite individ- ual instances of clerical socialism, official Chris- tianity is not only quite distinct from socialism; the two are antagonistic." The "individual instances" to which Mr. Campbell refers are probably those like Maurice and Kingsley, Von Ketteler, Huber, and the rest, who originated the "Christian socialist" movement. For our purposes it is not neces- sary to go into the history of this interesting de- velopment; l but one aspect of it is of great sig- nificance to us: the hostility between it and real socialism. In Germany and in France "Christian socialism" was met by the fanatical hatred of the materialistic socialists. It works against the undisguised contempt of the Social Democracy and the Socialist Party. Its incep- tion was accompanied by the rise of a radical development of anarchical socialism. In Eng- land and America also it has been opposed by the genuine socialists. There are two reasons for this. In the first place, "Christian socialism" is not socialism at all, but merely a system of voluntary coopera- tion, with or without clerical supervision. The 1 The best work on this subject is still Kaufmann, "Christian Socialism." See also Nitti, "Catholic Socialism"; Ely, "French and German Socialism," 245; Peabody, /. c., 21; Arthur V. Woodworth, " Christian Socialism in England." 142 THE CHURCHES AND Catholic "Christian socialists" in Germany, France and Belgium propose to improve in- dustrial conditions by placing them under the direct management of the church. Protestant "Christian socialism" proposes merely the more consistent application of Christian ethics to the conduct of business. In neither case is there a very definite economic program. There are wide varieties of opinion among "Christian socialists" as to what they really expect to do, and their utterances on the subject are extremely vague. The only real economist they have ever claimed is Adolph Wagner, of the University of Berlin; and his affiliation with them is ex- tremely tenuous. The nearest approach to an economic princi- ple behind the English school of Maurice and Kingsley is the conviction of the unchristian character of the prevailing economic system. It deplores the evil results of competition, and would improve the present system by legal re- striction and regulation, or by the introduction of wider cooperation, but would not abolish it. The movement in England did, in fact, finally go off into cooperation of the Rochdale kind. 1 Kaufmann says that in Germany the "Chris- tian Social Party" would better have been 1 Vansittart Neale, in Ely, "French and German Socialism," 252. THE WAGE EARNERS 143 called "The Defenders of Society on Church and State Principles." According to Mehring, the historian of the German Social Democracy, Christian socialism was bound to fail because it aimed, not at a normal evolution in the modern capitalistic process, but rather at a reversion to a feudal-patriarchal system. All this, of course, has nothing to do with "or- thodox" socialism. The cardinal tenets of sci- entific socialism are these: 1 public ownership and control of the means of production, and common control of distribution, submission to both of which must be compulsory. Here is a very definite and tangible program, backed up by an extremely ingenious economic analysis which has been worked out by some of the keen- est thinkers the world has produced. 2 "The system of doctrines worked out by Marx," said a professor at the University of Chicago, 3 "is characterized by a certain boldness of concep- tion and a great logical consistency." It is 1 The chief source is, of course, Karl Marx, "Capital." A good study based on this is J. E. Le Rossignol, "Orthodox Socialism." The best presentation, for Americans, from a socialist, is John Spargo, "Socialism"; from an "orthodox" economist, R. T. Ely, "Socialism and Social Reform." 'Ely, "F. and G. Socialism," chapters on Rodbertus, Marx, Lassalle. 3 Veblen, "The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx, "Quar. Jour. EC., Vol. XX, p. 575. Mr Veblen is now (1909) at Leland Stan- ford University. 144 THE CHURCHES quite a different thing, indeed, from the tenta- tiveness and vagueness of "Christian socialism." The second, and fundamental, reason for the hostility between Christian and orthodox social- ism is simply the fact that the former, in its best estate, is religious and the latter is not. Chris- tian "socialism" insists on the infusion of a new spiritual influence; it relies on self-effacement and self-denial rather than on self-assertion and self-seeking. It insists, especially on the Conti- nent, in maintaining a connection between in- dustry and the church. And the wiser "Chris- tian socialists," like Perin, 1 know that there can be no lasting union of the materialistic economic program of Marx and his followers with the spiritual influence of Jesus. "Those doctrines which pretend to free mankind from the service of God (du joug divin) lead it to slavery and misery." 2 'Charles H. X. PeYin, "Doctrines conomiques depuis un siecle," especially chapter xii. Cf. also Pe"rin, "Les lois de la socie"t6 chre"tienne, I, 458, sqq. 8 Pe"rin, "Doctrines e"conomiques," 208. CHAPTER III INHERENT INCOMPATIBILITIES "fTTE find in the failure of " Christian social- ism" a hint as to the source of the mutual antagonism between the churches and the socialists. There is a fundamental difference between Christianity as taught by Christ and orthodox socialism. We will now proceed to a study of this difference. I. Early Christianity and Socialism IN the first place, was Jesus a socialist? Renan said that "in one view Jesus was an an- archist." 1 Later he adds, Jesus's conception of the world was " socialist with a Galilean col- oring." Unless it was the Galilean coloring which converted his anarchism into socialism, both these statements cannot possibly be true. To find any economics at all, to say nothing of socialist economics, in the teaching of Jesus, we should have to revise radically the current definition of the term. Naumann says : 2 " Je- 1 Cited in Peabody, /. c., 58. * Ibid., 62. 145 i 4 6 THE CHURCHES AND sus was, on moral grounds, a radical enemy of capital." If the accuracy of this view were granted which it cannot be by any sound exe- gesis 1 that fact alone would not prove him a socialist in the scientific sense, although it would accord well with the popular socialist concep- tion of socialism. Nor is Luke necessarily "frankly socialistic" 2 in his way of presenting Jesus's words: "Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled; Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God." Socialism is not enmity to the rich and sympathy for the poor; it is a scheme of production and distri- bution. Jesus was not a socialist; and the state- ment of Bax, that the "introspective and sub- jective teaching of Jesus and of Christianity is anti-socialistic" 8 is far nearer the truth than the rash claims so often put forth by ardent propagandists and zealous harmonizers. As Professor Peabody puts it: 4 "the supreme con- cern of Jesus was not the reorganization of human society, but the disclosure to the human soul of its relation to God. Instead of regener- ation by organization, Jesus offers regeneration by inspiration." It is said, however, that the churches should 1 Ante, p. 66. * Campbell, /. c., 77. * Bax, /. c., 96. * Peabody, /. c. t 77, 90. THE WAGE EARNERS 147 favor the tendency to communism, because communism was the early Christian policy. 1 It is the consensus of opinion, however, of con- servatives and radicals alike, that communism has no justification in the Scriptures; 2 that community of life but not of goods was the pre- cept and practice in the early church. It is certain that there was none of the modern eco- nomic theory behind its communism, as even Mr. Campbell admits. 8 Communism under religious auspices has been tried in every century, including the nine- teenth, and has failed utterly as a solution of the social question. 4 And the real socialists are the first to insist that religious communism has nothing in common with their economic pro- posals; 5 so that the theory and practice of the churches on this point have nothing to do with our present subject. 1 Rauschenbusch, /. c., 388. 3 Peabody, I. c., 23, and Bibliography, 26, note. 3 Campbell, /. c., 113, 176; Crapsey, /. c., 129. 4 For sympathetic study, see William A. Hinds, "American Communities"; John H. Noyes, "History of American Social- isms"; Charles Nordhoff, "Communistic Societies of the United States." 8 Karl Kautsky, "Die Vorlaiifer des Neueren Sozialismus"; Karl Hugo, Anhang zu "Die Vorlaiifer, etc." 148 THE CHURCHES AND 2. Aims "The aims of socialism," says Mr. Camp- bell, 1 "are Christian because they insist on the desirability of getting together instead of keeping apart, on mutual helpfulness instead of mutual hindrance." This is excellent Chris- tianity, but very poor socialism. Christianity has always opposed separative forces, and that is just one of the reasons why socialism cannot tolerate it. "The first lesson in the catechism of industrial revolution is a lesson in class ha- tred." 2 "The twin passions of love and hate supply the motive power" 3 in |the socialist re- ligion. An essential feature of the socialist phi- losophy of history is the inevitable antagonism between the capitalistic and the laboring classes, a gulf which nothing can bridge, and which can be closed only by a cataclysmic revolution. "Along with the constantly diminishing num- ber of the magnates of capital," writes the high- priest Marx, "who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this, too, 1 Campbell, I. c., 151. 2 Peabody, /. c., 306. 8 Le Rossignol, " Orthodox Socialism," 6. THE WAGE EARNERS 149 grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with and under it. Central- ization of the means of production and social- ization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist in- tegument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." l Occasionally a radical socialist, representing but a small minority of the party, but in per- fectly good standing with it, will give voice to a faith in physical force which verges on terroris- tic anarchism. Thus Mr. Hyndman writes: 2 "Chemistry has placed at the disposal of the desperate and needy cheap and powerful explo- sives, the full effects of which are as yet unknown. Every day adds new discoveries in this field; the dynamite of ideas is accompanied in the background by the dynamite of physical force. These modern explosives may easily prove to 'Marx, "Capital," 487. 1 Henry M. Hyndman, "The Historical Basis of Socialism in England," 443. ISO THE CHURCHES AND capitalism what gunpowder was to feudalism." This is "getting together" with a vengeance! The aim of Christianity is essentially different from that of socialism. The former is idealistic; the latter materialistic. " Seek ye first his king- dom and his righteousness," the cardinal prin- ciple of Christianity, is contemptuously referred to by Bax l as "the dreamy introspection of a Syrian mystic." The socialist aims at material- istic satisfaction, the Christian at spiritual per- fection. It is not true, as so often asserted by socialists, that Christianity is exclusively a re- ligion of individual salvation and of the other world. It is a religion intended for us who happen to live in this world, and it recognizes that a "salvation by character" must neces- sarily be, from one point of view, social. But the essential point is that Christianity proposes a salvation, an ideal end, and not a mere redis- tribution of goods or of opportunity for com- mercial or industrial advancement. Socialism may ultimately become a question of the equi- table distribution of ideal goods, the means of higher culture as the results of a better civiliza- tion; but that is only an incident, a remote hope. The ends immediately proposed by socialism are very far indeed from being idealistic: at 1 Bax, /. c., 175. THE WAGE EARNERS 151 present it is admittedly a "stomach question." The immediate aim of socialism is economic; that of religion is spiritual. 3. Methods There is also a fundamental difference of method. Socialism proposes an external revo- lution in the form of society and the mechanism of industry; Christianity proposes an internal reformation and the reform of society by or- ganic evolution. In the Christian view the essential thing for a good government is the worth of the individuals administering it; so- cialism says that the essential thing for the indi- vidual is the nature of his government. Mr. Campbell says: 1 "Jesus denied that there could be such a thing as an individualist right- eousness, a righteousness entirely between man and God, and not between man and man." This is true so far as it goes, but it is only half true, and is not squarely to the point. "The social teaching of Jesus is this: that the social order is not a product of mechanism but of per- sonality, and that personality fulfils itself only in the social order." 2 This is the doctrine which the thorough-going socialist attacks. Bax says that the Christian doctrine that all 1 Campbell, /. c., 123. a Peabody, I, c., 102. 152 THE CHURCHES AND change must come from the individual, that re- form must come from within, is " in striking de- fiance of the teaching of history." l The answer to this comes from history and common sense. Society and institutions are made up of indi- viduals; and although it is unquestionable that the form of society reacts upon the character of individuals, no change ever has or ever can come to the former except as the result of changes in the latter. The essence of "Christian socialism" is summed up in the proposition of Baader 2 that, if you want to abolish misery among the poor, you must first destroy sin in yourself and then in others. Social wrongs are due ultimately to sin to selfishness and improvidence. Professor Ross even makes the social effect of conduct the only test of its "sinfulness." But the real so- cialist can admit none of this. The evils of society are the product of blind economic forces. His philosophy is entirely different from that of the Christian. The socialist is a fatalist to whom history is but the mechanical unfolding of a cosmic process in which human will, hu- man consciousness, human ideals, are but the 1 Bax, I. c., 130. 1 Baader, "Ueber die Zeitschrift Avenir und Ihre Principien," Werke, VI, 31. (L' Avenir was the organ of Lamennais, the great French "Christian socialist.") THE WAGE EARNERS 153 resultants of economic and social forces, and in which consequently there can be no such thing as sin, in any real sense. There can be no sin in the absence of freedom of the will; and the will which is merely the creature of circum- stances is not free. "In the materialistic (Marxian) conception," says Veblen, 1 "man's spiritual life whatever man thinks is a reflex of what he is in the material respect." And Marx himself says: 2 "The ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought." Man's aspirations, his morality, his religion, are all the outcome of his environment which is, therefore, his master. But the idealist knows that man can and should be the master of his environment, "the captain of his fate." " Facts" are not as stubborn as they seem. "Ideas can be quite as stubborn as any particular facts, can outlast them, and, in the end, abolish them." 3 One-sided emphasis on either is a mistake; but it is better to err on the spiritual- istic than on the materialistic side. The world of Jesus is one in which "inequal- ity is an essential aspect of human life." * As 1 Veblen, Quar. Jour. EC., Vol. XX, p. 580. *Marx, "Capital," xvii. 1 Josiah Royce, "The World and the Individual," I, 287. ? Peabody, /. c., 290. 154 THE CHURCHES AND we have already seen, spiritual and material in- equality are the very foundations of the churches' missionary, charitable, and social work. In a wise view, the churches take equality for an ideal; but to ignore the present state of ine- quality would be not only foolish but cruel. Socialism also aims at an equality of some kind, although its precise nature would be very diffi- cult to disentangle from the mass of conflicting proposals on the subject. There is, however, an essential difference between it and the kind of equality Christianity holds in view, and con- sequently a difference in the methods by which they are to be attained. The socialist aims at an average level; the Christian tries to raise all to the top. The socialist would elevate the "masses," and, if necessary, to that end would depress the "classes"; Christianity would raise all together to ideals higher than the present highest actuality. It must be remembered that Christianity as such has nothing to do with details of social method. Jesus did not propose a particular economic scheme, but a way of life which should be lived under any system. He did, to be sure, propose a system of moral principles which might be applied as a test to any scheme, social, economic, or religious; and any scheme which THE WAGE EARNERS 155 meets the requirements of this test might, in a sense, be called Christian. As we shall see, socialism does not and cannot meet these re- quirements. It makes no pretense of doing so. The social democracy is an entirely new con- ception of life. "Socialism," says Bax, 1 "is essentially neither religious nor irreligious, in- asmuch as it reaffirms the unity of human life." Christianity affirms this unity also, but Christianity is essentially religious. Christian- ity insists that the spirit in the machinery of production and distribution shall be the spirit of brotherhood; but it has nothing to say about the construction of the machinery. It says: get the power, and you can make almost any kind of a machine work. Socialism, on the other hand, is concerned mainly with a special design of machine. It says: make your ma- chine right, and the power will take care of it- self. But physics, as well as religion, is against the socialist. 4. Moral There are also fundamental differences be- tween the ethics of Christianity and of social- ism. The Christian type of social union is "a true brotherhood founded on devotion and self- 1 Bax, /. c., 48, 53. 156 THE CHURCHES AND sacrifice." l It is only on such a basis as this that civilized society, with its ever-growing so- ciality and interdependence, can exist at all. Now self-denial is essentially a religious quality. It must find its basis, if anywhere, in an ideal, superhuman 2 system, such a system as the socialist philosophy must deny. One of the in- herent self-contradictions in socialism, which could not but be fatal to its workability, is its dependence (as a system of production) upon an unselfish idealistic devotion to secure purely selfish and materialistic ends. It demands per- fect cooperation from consummate egoists. It would be absurd and unjust to deny that there are many thoughtful enthusiasts now working for socialism who are not only not in it for per- sonal gain, but, in fact, suffer loss, and even martyrdom, in behalf of their cause. But, on the other hand, any one who has ever attended a socialist meeting must have been struck with the crass selfishness of the majority of the so- cialists present, and their bitter hatred of capital, apparently based mainly on their lack of it. When the American Federation of Labor passed resolutions 3 endorsing the Presbyterian 1 Kaufmann, /. c., 35. * Benjamin Kidd, " Social Evolution," for elaboration of this idea. 3 Stelzle, 30 "Ann. Am. Ac." 460. THE WAGE EARNERS 157 Department of Church and Labor, it was on the ground of its "insuring a better understanding on the part of the church and the clergy of the aims and objects of the labor union movement in America." They saw a chance to get some- thing, for which it never occurred to them that they owed anything in return. The Federation of Labor is not a socialist body, nor does it go as far as the socialists in its self-assertiveness. Social revolution insists on rights, and would abolish duties. As claimed by one of its advo- cates, Oscar Wilde: 1 "The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that social- ism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condi- tion of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody." Perin 2 describes socialism as "a utilitarian arrogance which brings into play every kind of selfishness and makes liberty as maleficent as despotism." Socialism, in fact, proposes a new transvalua- tion of all moral values. "All the virtues in the Christian armory," says Mr. Campbell, 3 "are more likely to prove a hindrance than a help to 1 Wilde, "The Soul of Man under Socialism," Fortnightly Rev., Vol. LV, p. 292. 'Perin, "Doctrines economiques," 207. 1 Campbell, /. c., 208. 158 THE CHURCHES AND getting the wage earner into the ranks of the employers"; and as socialism aims to make every one the employer of every one else, the sooner such virtues are cast aside as obsolete the better. Honesty loses its meaning in the hands of even a "Christian socialist": for what must one think of Mr. Campbell's ingenious scheme of buying out all private businesses in order to avoid the appearance of confiscation, and then depriving the money paid for them of all ex- change value ? * In the socialist philosophy, according to Guyot, 2 theft becomes a positive virtue. Of course, this is perfectly logical in a system which denies the right of private prop- erty, though it may permit it as a favor. Per- haps it is right to "expropriate the expropria- tors"; but if the first expropriation was wrong, it is difficult to see how the proposed one can be any better. Bax says of Christianity: 3 "in its praise of industry and thrift it is decidedly anti-social- istic." Industry and thrift tend toward the amelioration of one's lot under the present sys- tem, and thus to make one less discontented with this system; therefore, by socialist logic, 1 Ibid., 192, 219. 8 Guyot, "La com&lie socialiste," 72 (V appropriation so- cidle). * Bax, /. c., 94. THE WAGE EARNERS 159 " for a town or country laborer to practise thrift would be absolutely immoral." 1 Similarly with charity. "Charity is worse than useless; systematically practised it is a demoralizing in- fluence." 2 Rescue work is also futile. The humanitarian work of the churches, since it attacks symptoms and not causes, is an entire waste of energy. Altruism only aggravates social distress. 3 The only possible ground for these conclusions must be some such theory as that, if you cannot cure a disease outright, it is an injury to attempt to alleviate the suffering. Patience is, of course, a bourgeois virtue in- vented to keep the proletariat from getting in a hurry to walk into their inheritance. "So long as Christianity ruled the minds of men the idea of revolution was rejected as a sinful revolt against divinely constituted authority," accord- ing to Kautsky. A religion of suffering, humil- ity, and resignation is opposed to class pride and class antagonism, and consequently can find no sympathizers among those to whom humility and resignation are vices, and suffering a crime for which the rich must be made to pay the penalty. "The morose priggishness involved in the 1 \VUde, /. c., 29. 2 Campbell, /. c., 165, 268, 166. 3 Wilde, /. c. 160 THE CHURCHES reverential attitude of mind which is de rigueur with Protestantism" l also comes in for a share of attention. "The notion of reverence," says Bax, " like that of personal religion, is the crea- tion of that middle class order which took its first rise in the sixteenth, and has culminated in the world of the nineteenth century." In the opinion of many socialists, the institu- tion of the family is incompatible with indus- trial democracy, so it would have to go also. The family took its origin together with private property and is bound up with that institution. Woman cannot enjoy that economic freedom which is every one's birthright in the socialist state so long as she is hampered by marriage. Personal purity is a strictly individualistic mat- ter, and therefore non-moral. 2 These conceptions are not merely the vagaries of revolutionary minds. They are logical de- ductions from a definite philosophy of history and of life. They are the inevitable accompani- ments of an ethic of egoism, just as the princi- ples of Christianity are the natural outcome of an ethic of idealism. 1 Bax, 1. c., 177, 31. 'August Bebel, "Woman"; William Morris, "News from No- where"; Bax, "Outspoken Essays," etc.; H. G. Walls, "Socialism and the Family." CHAPTER IV ORIGIN AND CORRECTION OF THE ERROR is it that in view of all these consider- ations it is still possible for thoughtful men to make the mistake of supposing that the teaching of Jesus is not incompatible with so- cialism ? It is probably because, while there is no point of contact between Christianity and socialism on religion, it is felt there may be in matters of social interest. Socialism exempli- fies, in its best advocates, a burning aspiration for social justice, for the immediate amelioration of the lot of suffering humanity. "Socialism appeals to justice, and this moral basis of its de- mands is the common platform upon which Christian and un-Christian socialism meet." * But there is recently manifest a tendency to push this community of interest further than the facts warrant. Justice is admitted to be a vir- tue by both Christianity and socialism; so it is also by anarchism, and Buddhism, and Moham- medanism; but that is hardly sufficient ground for the assertion that they, therefore, stand on 1 Kaufmann, /. c., 201. 161 162 THE CHURCHES AND a common platform. The looseness of thought and of statement which has characterized the discussion of this subject, with a few honorable exceptions, reaches its climax in this eloquent passage of Mr. Campbell's: 1 "Anything that tends toward universal brotherhood is Chris- tian; anything that makes for wider life for all instead of for the few only is Christian; any- thing that encourages the highest self-expression of the individual in the service of the common good is Christian; anything that tends toward the destruction of selfishness and the demolition of all barriers of privilege between nation and nation or man and man is Christian." True; but Mr. Campbell means to identify these aspi- rations, which are common to all lovers of mankind, to all thoughtful students of society and of life, exclusively with socialism; and then he concludes that socialism is identical with Christianity! "Harmonization" has performed some wonderful feats in its day; but this seems to be worthy of the crown. It is a very simple trick, this latest move of socialism. It consists in taking whatever good socialism has derived from Christianity and holding it up to the latter as a model and a test. The socialists absorbed their notions of justice 1 Campbell, /. c., 148. THE WAGE EARNERS 163 from the Christian atmosphere in which they were nurtured; and then Christianity is interro- gated, with an injured air, as to why it does not admit its socialism, inasmuch as it teaches the same virtue, justice. This process is hand- somely illustrated in The Christian Socialist, a magazine published in Chicago. It says: * "If you don't want socialism, quit professing to believe in the 'Golden Rule' as a rule of life. If you don't want socialism, do not follow Christ, who said, 'Love one another as I have loved you.' If you don't want socialism, quit repeating the Beatitudes, etc." In other words, the test of real Christianity is its conformity with socialism, because socialism has adopted, as catch-words, some of the mottoes (but none of the spirit) of the religion of Jesus. Another phase of the manoeuvre is admirably exhibited in the quotation just given from Mr. Campbell. Socialism appropriates all the hopes and ideals of all the best thinkers which it can by any possibility fit into, or hang on to, its system; and then reissues them labelled "So- cialistic." I suppose that in one sense anything which has to do with social life is "socialistic." But as was shown above, "Socialism" is the name for a specific programme of economic and 1 The Christian Socialist, March 19, 1908. 164 THE CHURCHES AND social action, with definite and easily recogniz- able features. 1 The substantive "socialism" and the adjective "socialist" should be re- stricted to this definite system. The adjective "socialistic" could then be used, although still too easily misunderstood, to indicate any eco- nomic or social measure, whether "socialist" or not. It would be well if we had another noun, "socialistik," formed on German analogies; 2 to cover all social measures outside of "social- ism." State regulation of corporations would then be "socialistic," but very far indeed from "socialist." In fact, in its tendency to foster and protect, by purifying, private enterprise, it would be the direct antithesis of "socialism," which would abolish private enterprise entirely. Of course the church should recognize the good in socialism, as it should also in its polar opposite anarchism, and in anything else that has any good in it. And although it is not true that "the church has much to learn from social- ism," s it can learn much from the origin and history of the movement. As in Germany, the Social Democracy has been called the only champion of the new needs of a new era for the 1 Ante, p. 104. ' Cf. "mysticismus" and "mystik." 8 Mathews, "The Church and the Changing Order," 174. THE WAGE EARNERS 165 workingmen, 1 so everywhere the churches' fail- ure to champion these new needs is largely respon- sible for the infidelity of the masses of the laboring people. As Professor Ely says: 2 "The clergy are partly to blame for the irreligious attitude of many modern socialists"; and there is no doubt in my mind that the growth of so- cialism and the concurrent decline of the churches are correlated about this centre. For it is true that there are grave moral dan- gers inherent in a competitive system to which the church has not in the past paid sufficient attention. The demands of business often per- mit, not to say encourage, practices which are in direct violation of ethics. In many respects the ethics of commercialism are contrary to the ethics of the church. This of course does not mean that the present system must be abolished; but it does mean that the divergence between the ethics which are most successful in it, and the ethics of Christianity, must be overcome, and that the church is the natural agency through which the reform should be wrought. It is true that some of the virtues of business life truth, honor, fi- delity, loyalty are also Christian virtues; 3 but 1 Gohre, "Three Months in a Workshop," in. * Ely, "French and German Socialism," 23. 3 Peabody, /. c., 319. 166 THE CHURCHES AND they are not exclusively Christian virtues, and the people see no reason for crediting the churches with such prevalence as they have attained. It is also true and this is a fact apt to be over- looked by all but the socialists that these are the virtues of the employee, not necessarily of the employer, in modern industry. The most conspicuous great fortunes of our day were, in general, made precisely through the utter neg- lect of these virtues and that, often, by des- perately conscientious "Christians." This is matter; of common knowledge; and it is about time for the churches' voice to be heard in un- mistakable protest against such a condition. Nor should the churches be surprised that in this day of growing wealth and industry the laborers are demanding a larger share of the enjoyments of life. This is not entirely a de- mand for mere materialistic satisfaction. Com- mon observation shows that wealth stands for more abundant life while poverty usually means a narrow life. "The greater our com- munal command of the potentialities of the ma- terial world in which we live, the greater the ex- tent of our spiritual possibilities." J It is not only easy to be virtuous on ten thousand a year: it is easier to stimulate and satisfy the craving 1 Campbell, /. c., 234. THE WAGE EARNERS 167 for mental, moral and spiritual improvement, if one is inclined that way; and many a man who yearns and works for a better material order does so, not for "pudding and praise," but for the sake of the ideal benefits he expects to derive from it. So far as this is a demand of socialism, it should be recognized as a just de- mand; and as a just demand it must be included within the principles of Christianity. Here one must, however, be on his guard about the use of this word "justice." The so- cialist demands "justice in distribution," and the Christian is inclined at once to say, "Well, of course, we, too, want justice in distribution, so we must be to that extent socialists." But the socialist proposes a number of definite schemes of distribution, e. g., "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need"; more specifically he insists that the share of labor in the total product of industry is the whole of the product, inasmuch as labor made it. But a care- ful analysis will show that the first proposal is not only utterly impracticable, but would not be just, by any customary standard, if it were at- tainable; while the second overlooks the fact that land and brains and self-denial (saving) are also factors in the production of the world's goods, and are themselves entitled to share in i68 THE CHURCHES the product. This whole question of justice as applied to distribution is a difficult one which still awaits treatment at the hands of one who is at once an economist and an ethicist. In the meantime it behooves us not to dogmatize on the subject. THE TASK IT may be that the combination of conserva- tism and progress which is, or should be, found in the churches may yet save society both from socialism and from industrial and social an- archy. The danger is only that the forces of progress in the churches may be overcome by the forces of retrogression in the future as they have been so often in the past; and that a democratic despotism without the churches may be found preferable to a plutocratic or oligarchic tyranny with them. The spirit of mutual helpfulness and broth- erhood which has been read into socialism is the spirit which must find a manifestation in some form of society sooner or later. It is be- cause the spirit of brotherhood is an essentially idealistic and religious spirit, while the genius of socialism is materialistic and irreligious, that we are unable to find any common ground be- tween it and Christianity, and, in fact, find them utterly opposed to each other. But it still re- mains for this religious spirit to be fostered and 171 172 THE CHURCHES applied to some economic system, the present one or another, and by some agency, the church or another. When the present churches are seen going about this business, the working- men's confidence in them may be restored but not before. How the churches can show that they are doing this will now be considered. THE NATURE OF THE OPPORTUNITY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, with charac- teristic force and acumen, has observed : "The shifting of the churches from the plain people to the rich in the cities must be looked upon with discomfort and alarm." l Mr. Charles Booth views the phenomenon with more than discomfort and alarm: in fact, with positive and complete despair. The alienation of the masses is so complete, their indifference to the church is so dense, that the task of win- ning them back appears very heavy indeed. The hopelessness of it becomes final once the churches are satisfied with the present situation. They have in the past encountered difficulties almost equally staggering, but, by perseverance and enthusiasm, they have succeeded in over- coming them. Their chief danger now seems to lie in a certain perceptible wilful ignorance and indifference. 1 Hodges and Reichert, "The Administration of an Institu- tional Church," ix. 173 174 THE CHURCHES AND In view of the blind optimism of some of the "servants of religion," it is refreshing (or dis- couraging) to read this clear and sane expression of an "outsider": 1 "Even the philosophic free-thinker cannot look upon that vast change in religious ideas that is now sweeping over the civilized world without feeling that this tremen- dous fact may have most momentous relations, which only the future can develop. For what is going on is not a change in the form of re- ligion, but the negation and destruction of the ideas from which religion springs. Christianity is not simply clearing itself of superstitions, but in the popular mind it is dying at the root, as the old paganisms were dying when Christianity entered the world. And nothing arises to take its place. The fundamental ideas of an intelli- gent Creator and of a future life are in the gen- eral mind rapidly weakening." But there are still seven thousand left who have not bowed the knee to Baal; who are cer- tain that religion is the salvation not only of the individual but of society; and that as religion cannot, apparently, long persist except as ex- pressed in some form of organization, the church, in some form or other, must be a per- manent feature of civilization, if civilization it- 1 George, "Progress and Poverty," 539. THE WAGE EARNERS 175 self is to live and attain to ever greater heights. The present situation, then, instead of being looked upon as a cause of despair, is rather to be considered a challenge and an opportunity. As Dr. Gordon said : 1 " We are confronted by our greatest opportunity. In the stern days that are before us, in the terrible epoch of the trial of strength between capital and labor, there is an immeasurable opportunity for the church that appeals to man as man, that is no respecter of persons, that claims Lazarus the beggar as a son of God, that reminds Dives that he is nothing more, and that seeks by the Gos- pel of the Divine Man to lift human society into the mood and power of brotherhood." There is not now, nor probably ever will be again, such an occasion for theological discus- sion as some periods of the past have afforded. "Christology" is not the dominant issue of the day, outside of theological conferences and di- vinity schools. The present opportunity lies, not merely in "the respect of the workingmen for Christ," nor even in the responsiveness of labor to the " simple gospel of the working Je- sus," favorable as these conditions are, if true. The churches' opportunity to-day is social, and only social. The responsiveness of the people George A. Gordon, "Denominational Memories," 31. 176 THE CHURCHES AND to the gospel is a responsiveness to a social gos- pel only. It is the outcome of the birth of a new spirit of social aspiration in the ranks of labor, a spirit which would like the sanction of the gospel if the gospel can be shown to con- form to it, but which otherwise is not interested in the gospel at all. Experience has demonstrated that the policy of inviting, scolding, and warning the un- churched is not sufficient. The invitation is de- clined, the scolding is resented, the warning is ridiculed. If the churches are not to miss their present chance, they must seek the people; they must modernize their preaching and their prac- tice, especially along social and economic lines; they must revise and improve their methods in the light of experience; and they must secure abler leaders and preachers. As the workingmen will not come to the churches, the churches must go to the working- men. If there is any adaptation to be done, the churches must take the initiative; for, appar- ently, the people are getting along much better (for awhile, at least) without the churches than the churches can without the people. This pol- icy of seeking the people is especially to be ex- pected in those churches in which the clergy are not a special class in the nature of a sacred aris- THE WAGE EARNERS 177 tocracy, but are a "citizen clergy," as in Eng- land and America. There must be an aggressive, intelligent and carefully planned campaign to recapture the masses of the workingmen. The women and children also must not be neglected; for even they, especially business women, are showing signs of failing to respond to the confidence which has for so long been justly placed in them. Nor is it worth while to "build up'* one church by merely taking the members out of another. This process may help the individual member, if he finds a better church; but it makes no impression upon society as a whole. It is truly said that the church must save the immigrant or she cannot save herself. 1 There is a great demand for churchmen of all denom- inations to work among the foreigners. The immigrant, a stranger in a strange land, is con- fronted by many difficult problems, in the handling of which a single word from one who knows might sometimes save an infinity of trouble. Here is a chance for Christian work which, if it were more frequently seized upon, would save many an immigrant's faith in re- ligion. To be sure, plans for capturing the for- eign Catholic and making a Protestant of him 1 Stelzle, "Christianity's Storm Centre," 26. 178 THE CHURCHES the moment he lands have been carefully worked out; and it has been found that the Italians are open to evangelization. The chief obstacle to this kind of missionary work among the foreigners, according to one of its leaders, is the lack of harmony and cooperation between the Protestant churches. 1 A greater obstacle, as it would appear to the disinterested observer, is that the movement is a case of misdirected effort, so long as its sole aim is the conversion of Catholics to Protestantism. If the Home Mis- sions would direct their energies to keeping the immigrants in active connection with the churches to which they are accustomed; and, better still, if they would devote the same amount of zeal to missionary work among all classes of the population, native as well as fo- eign, it would seem more in harmony with present needs. 1 Grose, "Aliens or Americans?" CHAPTER II SOCIAL PREACHING churches must offer the people a mod- ern Christianity in harmony with current modes of thought in history and science. In- sistence on the traditional theology is an utter failure. Revisions and reinterpretations accom- plish but little. The churches must look to the problems of the present rather than of the past. They must not forget that other agencies are at work educating the common people, and that those agents are "right up to date/' While re- ligion remains the chief part of the churches' work, they must so broaden their definition of religion as to cover all life; while they must continue the work of character building, it must be placed on a broader basis. They must trans- fer their onslaught from personal and individual "vice" to social and collective "sin." 1 They must remember that the churches are at least one of the means of social regeneration; that the coming of the Kingdom of God should not 1 Ross, " Sin and Society." 179 i8o THE CHURCHES AND be brought about exclusively by the schools and the settlements and the labor organizations and the political parties and the "secular" press. The great problems in the minds of the peo- ple to-day are not theological but social prob- lems. The people care not about the disputes of the Higher Criticism, nor about the philosophy of religion, nor even about the place of Christ in theology the great Christological problem on the solution of which the divines seem to think the world hangs, but about which, as a matter of fact, the greater part of the world cares not at all. The religious problem about which the world is concerned is quite a different matter. "Behind all the extraordinary achievements of modern civilization there lies the burdening sense of social mal-adjustment which creates the social question." * The social question is a religious problem in its spirit, though its form is economic. At its root is a "passionate de- mand for industrial justice"; and the problem of industrial justice is almost the only ethical problem which the churches have not already set- tled to the practical satisfaction of all. 2 The churches have accomplished their work 1 Peabody, /. c., 2. 2 Except the socialists, whose philosophy does not permit them to accept the conclusions of Christian ethics, as shown in Part III. THE WAGE EARNERS 181 too well for their own good. The Christian standards of ethics are in the atmosphere and the blood; they have become the conscience of Western peoples. The churches now are saying nothing which the people do not already know. So long as the ministers confine themselves to the old ground of personal morality, it is as though they were to repeat the table of threes every Sunday morning. In ethics they conduct a perpetual kindergarten; when they talk the- ology they are conducting a seminary in He- brew for people who don't know an aleph from a carotid artery, and don't care. "Liberty and not theology is the enthusiasm of the nineteenth century," wrote Lecky; and his words are, if possible, truer of the twentieth than of the nineteenth century. What the people of to-day need, and what the ministers ought to give them, is social preaching, discussion of social and economic matters from the highest ethical and religious point of view. The churches must train a new con- science prepared to meet the new temptations of a commercialized age. "The evolution of conscience has not kept pace with the deepening problems of civilization." l These problems are in the domain of social ethics. They de- 1 Crocker, "The Church of To-day," 142. 182 THE CHURCHES AND mand an intimate acquaintance with the opera- tion of social and economic forces, and a clear and straightforward discussion of them in all their details. The greatest preachers and prophets the world has known dealt directly and intimately with the social conditions of their times. When the ordinary preachers have neg- lected these, the masses of the people, with unerring instinct, have denied their claim to re- ligious leadership, and have followed " laymen," like Shaftesbury and Phillips and Roosevelt, as their real priests. It should not be necessary to prove that such preaching is scriptural. 1 That it is so we think has been sufficiently established; but scriptural or not, it must be done if the churches are to per- form any useful function in their present environ- ment. There is a great source of social energy in the teachings of the Old and New Testa- ments, as yet unutilized, but which could be made to meet the revolt of the laboring classes by proving that "the Christian religion is ra- tional, practicable, socially redemptive, and economically justified." 2 The preacher has an opportunity to point out the responsibility of Christians for social conditions, and to train 1 "Ethical preaching is scriptural." Stelzle, /. c., 61. " Peabody, /. c., 299. THE WAGE EARNERS 183 that individual sensitiveness to social obliga- tions which is the most pressing need of the day. The subtle variations of personal responsi- bility which the complex ramifications of capital permit to-day need to be traced home and defi- nitely insisted upon. 1 The minister must preach "the new evangelism, which aims to reform the social evils and wrongs that breed sinners." 2 It is unquestionably the duty of the churches to assist in effecting reforms by cooperation with other agencies in the moulding of public opinion; such cooperation requires well-in- formed social preaching. Perhaps Professor Com- mons's suggestion that a minister should devote one-half his pulpit work to sociology is not ask- ing too much. 3 Certainly if that were done the ministry would no longer be subject to Professor Veblen's jibe: "What falls within the range of economics falls below the proper level of solici- tude of the priesthood in its best estate." 1 "A striking illustration of the lack of a sense of responsibility which those having capital to invest often evince was brought to light recently in New York City when it was discovered that a prominent church was deriving a part of its revenues from the ownership of some of the worst tenement houses in the city. When those charged with funds to further the mission of Christ can per- mit them to be invested in insanitary and immoral tenements, not much regard for public welfare is to be expected from ordinary investors." Seager, "Introduction to Economics," 251. 2 Outlook, June 6, 1908. 3 J. R. Commons, "Social Reform and the Church," 19, ai. 184 THE CHURCHES AND If the preachers made a habit of diligently acquiring and systematically and clearly pre- senting social facts, they might also be better able to satisfy the present demand for social leaders from the churches. Leadership in so- cial movements is a field from which ministers are conspicuously absent, although in it is an opportunity to get into close touch with the people and with their aims such as the clergy ought not neglect. Hitherto they have been unable to take advantage of this opportunity, not only on account of indifference but more particularly because of ignorance of the nature of the problems with which they would have to deal. Of course the pulpit must be absolutely non- partisan and impartial in its treatment of social questions. It has no place for the suggestion that "the rich should be driven out of the churches," * any more than it should allow the poor to remain out without any effort to regain them. There is no reason why the rich should be neglected; in fact, there are several reasons why they should receive special attention. Moderation, for example, and the refinement of amusements, should be encouraged as virtues in the rich as well as in the poor. 1 Perry, 4 Am. Jour. Soc., 624. THE WAGE EARNERS 185 The churches' treatment of social matters must also be marked by absolute and unflinch- ing justice, so far as they can see it. This is a difficult matter; for often the allocation of the justice is not entirely clear; and when it is fairly obvious, insistence upon it is quite sure to antagonize the side placed in the wrong. Fear- lessness toward wealth and "corporate highway robbery" is needed; but an equal fearlessness is necessary toward organized labor and mob rule. The clergy are bound to mutual sympathy with rich and poor; but the greater need of the poor, and the relative disadvantage of their po- sition, cannot help but sway the "shepherds of the flock" toward the side of the common peo- ple. They should make every effort to grasp the significance of the labor movement from the inside; for their position is such that they are not likely to get at the facts without special exertion. On occasion, the pastor should expect to be the champion of labor. For it must be recog- nized that labor is not an ordinary commodity. It is the disposal of the souls of men which is in- volved in settling the market price of labor. It is not inconceivable that a true pastor, whose charge consisted of a large element of laborers, i86 THE CHURCHES AND must at times be drawn irresistibly into what appear superficially to be mere bargaining dis- putes, mere incidents of the "higgling of the market," but are, in reality, contests over the price of health, strength, brain, character, and life. This aspect of the subject is full of practical difficulties, and one should be careful to avail oneself of the results of experience, whenever possible. National recognition of organized labor, as by the Presbyterian Church, has had a good effect. It is said that the brilliant dis- covery that Paul was a member of a labor union produces, when properly handled, a better feeling on the part of the workingmen toward the church. 1 The observance of Labor Sunday has been an unquestionable good. The "peo- ple's forum" idea works well, when under tact- ful but firm leadership. At the Morgan Memo- rial, in Boston, the Forum meets every Sunday afternoon to listen to a talk on some social question, usually given by a minister. The meeting is then thrown open to the audience, usually composed almost entirely of working- men, for discussion. In Boston the Forum is a thoroughly democratic institution, and its suc- cess grows the longer it operates. In New York 1 Stelzle, /. c., 67. THE WAGE EARNERS 187 the same thing has been tried at the Parish House of the Church of the Ascension, and the same gratifying success is reported. 1 Similar experiments are being tried in other places. In a former part of this discussion it was seen that a large proportion of the objections the people urge against the churches are simply misunderstandings either of theory or of fact. The minister is in a position to correct these misunderstandings, and this is a part of his work he should by no means neglect. If the minister does not attend to it, no one will. If he cannot get the people into his church to listen to him, he should go to them in their lodges, and in public lecture halls, and in the newspapers, and anywhere else where he can secure their attention. After all, the churches are not quite so bad as the people think; and it is certainly worth while to disseminate some correct infor- mation about the facts. Of course it must be understood that a min- ister's preaching cannot be exclusively on social subjects. The church must make its appeal to life, and to the whole of life; and, after all, man is a being who stands in some relation person- ally to God, and that relation is not of second- 1 Interview with Rev. Percy S. Grant, New York Sun, Apr. 19, 1908; Outlook, May 16, 1908, p. 113. i88 THE CHURCHES AND ary importance. The church should be "a power-house, where there is generated a supply of spiritual energy sufficient to move the world with wisdom, courage and peace." * It still remains true that the church must be a savior first of men, and a savior of society through them. " Behind the problem of social life lies the problem of individual life." 2 There is a great deal to be said in favor of the position that the solution of the social problem lies in the en- forcement of the idea of spiritual sonship, 3 es- pecially when a stronger emphasis than usual is laid on its correlate, brotherhood. "Between masters and workmen truly Christian," wrote de Laveleye, 4 "no difficulty could arise; for justice would preside at the distribution of the product." Especially must the churches, in the interests of the happiness of mankind and the highest ideals of civilization, continue to oppose to the utmost the grosser forms of the materialistic thought of our times. Fortunately, the excesses of that form of thought in its baldest manifesta- tions are already bringing about a reaction. The popular interest in "New Thought," 1 Peabody, /. c., 357. a George, /. c., 553. 8 Mathews, "Social Teaching of Jesus," 186; "The Church and the Changing Order," 97; Rauschenbusch, /. c., 48; Glad- den, "The New Idolatry." 4 De Laveleye, "De 1'avenir des peuples catholiques," 29. THE WAGE EARNERS 189 "Christian Science," and similar movements is encouraging testimony to the recrudescence of spirituality and religion. But it must be insisted that religion covers all the relations of life and not only a single com- partment called "sacred." The fallacious sep- aration between sacred and secular must be ab- solutely abolished. In season and out of season it must be enforced that, if this is essentially a spiritual universe and not merely a material one, if God is all there is, then spirituality must per- vade politics, business, and secular occupations, as well as "religion" and the ministry; that the bank and the factory are as essentially sacred as the church; and that what is evil in the church is evil in the directors' room and on the stock exchange also. The charge that the churches divert interest from evils in this life to reward in the hereafter must be met by insisting that heaven is here if anywhere, and that it is for men to insure the reward of their righteous liv- ing, in a happy life. A religion which is good for Sunday only is no religion at all worthy of the name, and the masses of the people to-day know it. The doctrine of immanence must be consistently and assiduously applied to all life. Life is primarily secular; either religion must be secularized, or the secular sanctified. CHAPTER III SOCIAL PRACTICE ministers' social work should not be limited to their preaching. They should be leaders in the social and philanthropic move- ments in their neighborhoods. They should ex- hibit an active "enthusiasm for humanity'* of a kind that will show clearly that the churches' purposes are the best good of the whole of hu- manity. The people will serve the churches so long as the churches serve the people. The churches should embody all the really Christian movements of the world. They should incor- porate all the social workers. This does not necessarily mean that the settlements and other "secular" movements for social betterment should be made "religious" in a sense different from that in which they are so now; it means that the churches' definition of religion must be so extended that settlement work will easily be seen to fall under it. The ministers must be brought to see that "mere enthusiasm to save 190 THE WAGE EARNERS 191 souls is not sufficient, for all souls reside in bod- ies," and to accept all the consequences of that quite innegligible fact. For the churches' interest in the amelioration of social conditions is not merely an ethical or sentimental one. They are vitally interested in the remedying of economic evils, in behalf of the success of their "soul redemptive" work. 1 Change of character and change of environment must go together. Salvation cannot come to a community so long as the plague-spot of the slum remains within it. The churches' influ- ence upon the daily life of the individual de- pends largely upon his economic conditions. "So long as life is one long scramble for per- sonal gain still more, when it is one long struggle against destitution there is no free time or strength for much development of the sympathetic, intellectual, artistic, or religious faculties." 2 Gbhre asks pointedly: "How can we be honestly reproachful if a meal in the street is begun without the folded hands of prayer?" Nor should the churches overlook the influ- ence of economic conditions upon the supply of ministers. In a commercial environment in 1 Rauschenbusch, /. c., 291. * Webb, " Industrial Democracy," 849. i 9 2 THE CHURCHES AND which success is measured by income, and in which the income of selfishness is great, while that of sacrifice of ability and energy to the good of others is small, it does not require a prophet to predict the result, so far as the profession of pastor is concerned. The decline in the num- ber of young men in training for the ministry, not only in comparison with the numbers being educated for law, medicine, teaching, and busi- ness, but absolutely, is notorious. There are fewer men in all the theological schools of the United States to-day than ten years ago. 1 It has been seriously proposed that women must be encouraged to enter the ministry, to occupy the pulpits left vacant by men. 2 The commer- cial consideration is not the only nor, perhaps, the chief reason for this. The ministry in gen- eral is still comparatively free from the taint of money-greed. And yet it is obviously becoming increasingly difficult, as the years go by, to find an adequate number of young men of real ability who are willing to forego the financial benefits which would accrue to them in other professions in favor of the "ideal" income of the ministry. It ought to be sufficiently evident that if the 1 Crocker, "The Church of To-day," 50, 59. 8 The Christian Advocate (N. Y.), Nov., 1906. THE WAGE EARNERS 193 churches are ever to be composed of the masses of the people, and are to be self-supporting, as in their best estate they should be, the economic conditions must be such that it will be feasible for the masses easily to meet the necessary ex- penses. Salaries must be adequate, and church buildings must be at least "decently" main- tained. These call for money; they require that the church member must have a fair sur- plus income. The churches' ministrations, however, should not be merely a bait to win the workingmen. Besides being wrong, this policy never works. Absolute sincerity toward the common man is necessary; the churches must be interested in him for his own sake, and not as a workingman, but as a man. At the same time, they must be very careful of his sensibilities. They must not arouse any suspicion that they are patronizing him. "The church should show the working people that it needs them, not that they need it." 1 It must be careful to avoid the appear- ance of commercialism in its methods of raising money. Churches, like ministers, are held to an excessive accountability which is never de- manded of other institutions or persons. The minister of a properly constituted church 1 Judson, 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 438. i 9 4 THE CHURCHES AND is in a peculiarly favorable position to interpret social classes to each other. He can be a real mediator between them. "The creation of a sympathetic relation between the forces of labor and capital is a task of the minister," writes Dr. Evans. 1 Misunderstanding and antipathy be- tween these two forces is partly chargeable to the ministers' neglect of this opportunity. The churches' interest in the mental as well as the physical capacities of their workers and of the people should make it unnecessary to in- sist on the performance of their duty as educa- tional centres. The public schools in America make adequate provision for the mental train- ing of those who are able to take advantage of them; but the branches of education which really broaden the outlook upon life are, as a rule, not reached until the high school, and the vast majority of children drop out before arriv- ing at that point. The spread of industrial education, necessary and commendable as that is, threatens further to contract the average child's acquaintance with "the humanities." Each church might well be, so far as possible, a miniature University Extension centre. The clergy of to-day, especially in the "liberal" 1 Evans, "The Social Work of a Church in a Factory Town," 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 504. THE WAGE EARNERS 195 churches, have not neglected wide reference to literature. Literature is good; but what the people need more than Chaucer and Villon is economics and sociology, and these the minis- ters should be in position to supply. Especially they should be prepared to cooperate in the dissemination of correct principles of relief, and in the diffusion of real information about alco- holism, pauperism, sanitation, etc. The preacher must avoid becoming a politi- cian. Democracy must be spiritualized, but it must be by the influence of the churches and not by their authority. Religion should be dis- tinguished from government, but not separated from it. Politics is necessarily partisan: that the churches cannot afford to be. Political issues often involve moral questions, and thus come within the jurisdiction of the pulpit; but the preacher must handle them as an ethicist, not as a politician. CHAPTER IV MODERN METHODS TF the new spirit of the churches is thus to be one of predominantly social preaching and social service, the machinery must be moulded anew in accordance therewith. In a progres- sive age new methods are always necessary, and the churches' traditional slowness and conserv- atism in regard to them must be overcome. Of course no cast-iron rules can be laid down in advance. Any methods suggested must be practicable for the ordinary church, and they must be subject to modification to fit the needs of the particular neighborhood and time. One thing may be laid down as universally essential: whatever "attractions" the churches offer must be such as either cannot be obtained anywhere else, or else they must be offered in such a way that the people will prefer to accept them from a church. Thus a dance given by a church in an ordinary hall is not different from a dance given by any other organization in a hall, ex- cept that by most people it is likely to bedis- 196 THE WAGE EARNERS 197 criminated against. Whereas, a dance given by the church in its own halls and under the direc- tion of its own officers, insures a refinement of surroundings which cannot be guaranteed any- where else, and is a really attractive thing. Similarly, warmth, light and music alone can- not be relied upon, for these may be had else- where just as well. These are essential, but there must be added to them other features more attractive than those offered by the churches' competitors. It is of no use merely to duplicate other activities. The churches are bound always to originate or to improve. And they must be extremely careful to make their ventures "go." Failure, like success, is cumu- lative. Occasionally, especially among Baptists and Catholics, we find a church held together by strictness and exclusiveness of doctrine and by the terms of church membership, or by a gen- uine belief in the authority of the church and its divinely appointed priesthood. But, as a rule, Protestant attempts based on the authority of the church or on discipline fail. Sometimes a High Anglican church has been able to en- force the confessional, but this fails utterly to reach the masses of the people. Even the clubs started in the churches are difficult to manage 198 THE CHURCHES AND in any way that would suit a disciplinarian. If they are successful they tend to expand far be- yond their own neighborhoods, and conse- quently to become less and less identified with the church in which they originated. Their tendency to eliminate from their meetings all formal "religion" has been already noted. The day of external religious authority is irrevocably passing. Allied to this disinclination to accept author- ity is the demand for more democracy in the churches. The religion of the common school system of America is democracy, and the people have learned to expect and to demand it in all their cooperative activities. A democratic church organization will get and hold people conspicuously, whereas the failure of undemo- cratic missions and of plutocratic, "exclusive" congregations is often observed. The church of the future must be democratic. Another thing which the people are learning from the common schools is the real inessen- tialness of the minor differences between churches. The evils of competition and the advantages of cooperation are just as great in the case of the churches as elsewhere in modern life. It is the churches' duty to unite. Not that important creedal differences are likely to be, or THE WAGE EARNERS 199 should be, overcome; but it would be the part of wisdom at present to subordinate these, in the presence of the greater problems of society. 1 Moreover, no one denies that sectarianism has been carried to an unjustifiable extreme; and it is possible that cooperative sociological work may be a means of healing many minor breaches and getting rid of the petty sectarianism which is the bane of organized Christianity. 2 Federa- tion of churches in cities, towns and counties, for administrative and social purposes, 3 could not help being a good thing for efficiency. For one thing, it would remedy the present poor distribution of churches. The country towns would not have one church to 80 people, and the cities one to 3,000. Proper cooperation would also make it possible for each church to have assigned to it a definite task with the under- standing that it, and it alone, would be held re- sponsible for its performance. Each church should be made accountable for the unchurched masses in its immediate neighborhood, native or foreign, and should not be interfered with. It must be recognized that methods and pro- 1 Ross, "Sin and Society," 85. 1 For an exceedingly significant illustration of the modern ten- dency toward the unification of religion about a social centre, see "A Civic Revival," Outlook, July n, 1908. 3 Strong, "New Era," 312. 200 THE CHURCHES AND grammes which work in the country will not often do in the city. The city has its own pecul- iar problems, which must be solved in their own way, and by men raised and trained in city work. It is in the cities that the policy of "aggressive evangelism" is likely to be most successful. 1 " Seats Free, Everybody Welcome," is not a suf- ficient invitation. Revivals, shop-services, sum- mer-tents, extensive advertising, etc., are meth- ods of securing attention whose efficacy has been often demonstrated. Every church must be evangelistic in some considerable degree; and it must be remembered that it is not only the "evangelical" churches that can be evangelistic. The duty of social evangelization rests upon all churches, and neither "liberal" nor "evangeli- cal" is as yet sufficiently awake to that fact. The "evangelical" churches are subject to a special risk in this connection : the risk of mak- ing the mistake that the masses can be "saved" as masses, and not as individuals. The soul is a delicate thing, like a watch; souls "saved" by the wholesale are like watches made by machin- ery: they are cheap, and don't wear well. Perhaps the most characteristically city work is that of the institutional churches. This work recognizes that the churches must reach the 1 Stelzle, "Christianity's Storm Centre," passim. THE WAGE EARNERS 201 masses on the plane where the masses live; that they must lead to the spiritual through the phys- ical. The best institutional churches are thor- oughly religious, and religious in the best sense: the sense that covers every phase of life. They recognize the duty and the value of all-day and every-day ministration. "You cannot get an- gels out of a block of marble with a stroke of the chisel once a week." * And so they keep after their people daytime and evening, seven days in the week, working along every line, physical, mental and moral, through which a spiritually helpful uplift may be given. In this kind of work the absolute necessity of cooperation be- tween churches again becomes apparent, in the interests of harmony and efficiency. Within the church itself a combination of democracy with strong autocracy, as at St. George's in New York, seems to be most successful. The leader must, of course, be a man of religious fervor and vast administrative ability. The most success- ful volunteer workers are those who have been brought up in the church, have derived the most benefit from it, and are consequently most inter- ested in it. Trained workers are necessary in some departments, and sometimes these cannot be secured without the payment of salaries; 1 Judson, 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 439. 202 THE CHURCHES AND but, other things being equal, volunteer work is best, because most spontaneous. The rock on which institutional churches and missions are most likely to break is the matter of relief. Dr. Rainsford found, of course, that he would have to make the sittings in his church free before anything else could be done. But beyond that the parishioner pays for what he gets, though not always the cost price. The great success of the Baptist Shoreditch Taber- nacle in London, 1 which uses no church relief at all, is very encouraging to those whose fear of its dangers would lead them to do away with it altogether. The combination of religion with indiscriminate relief almost always detracts from the success of both. And the spectacle of sev- eral churches in the same neighborhood making bids for the people with indiscriminate dona- tions leads Charles Booth to warn us that the special dangers arising from degrading forms of competition apply to charity quite as much as to industry, and call no less imperatively for in- tervention. 2 In the absence of individual and cooperative regulation, public opinion always intervenes with its strong disapproval. Although it is true that in general church privileges should not be sold, and that self- 1 Booth, /. c., II, 81. Ibid., 45. THE WAGE EARNERS 203 support is not the most important thing for an institutional church, yet the fact remains that those are weak churches in which a few indi- viduals pay all the expenses. One may be pau- perized as truly by free "religion" as by free blankets or free tobacco. In its worst phases the recipients of such bounty develop a moral flabbinesss and shiftlessnes which are far in- deed from religious; at the best, it works insidi- ously against that individual independence which is essential to democracy. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to assume that the people will be satisfied with any unnecessary stinting of expense. "The masses in New York require the very best preaching, architecture and music." The same is true of the masses everywhere. They are so well trained by their "betters" in the incidents of luxury that they will not have anything "cheap," even as a gift. Besides, cheap things are not usually attractive. Evidence of costliness is to most people the only guarantee of aesthetic quality. The advantages of appeal to the aes- thetic sense are generally recognized. It is util- ized to great effect by the Catholic church everywhere. The value of music, from every point of view, has been acknowledged, with few exceptions, from time immemorial. The Prot- 204 THE CHURCHES AND estants would do well if, instead of spending annually millions on the heathen in foreign lands, they would spend the same or more mill- ions on the heathen at home. Small expendi- ture in home missionary work, as in any other kind of advertising, gets small results. The following paragraph from a denomina- tional paper sums up the situation admirably: l "Our city missions are mostly a disgrace to us. And the people whom we are attempting to reach know it. Their minds are often quite as keen as ours. The trouble with our churches is that they are not willing to spend sufficient money and to show a real interest in these city- mission efforts. A rich city church, with a home of its own costing thousands of dollars, carpeted, cushioned, adorned with rich pews, pipe-organ, and stained windows, will have as a * mission* a wretched, unpainted hut on a side street, alongside negro cabins, with battered chairs, worn-out hymnals, no facilities for Sunday- school work or the physical comfort of the chil- dren, and expect the 'poor' to crowd into it. The kind of poor we have in our cities of mod- erate size will do nothing of the kind. Nor can they be blamed. Neither will they go to service in the rich church itself at least not till their 1 Cited in Literary Digest, July 18, 1908, p. 86. THE WAGE EARNERS 205 wages have increased till they can dress as they see others dress." There must be an increased sense of individ- ualized responsibility among the church mem- bers. The conception of the universality of re- ligion makes the layman's opportunity; and each church member can and should be a social missionary. Pastors must know how to set their people to work. There must be closer and more effective organization within the churches. The pastor must be a specialist in such admin- istrative work; and his authority, established by training and experience, must be recognized and maintained in the "congregational" churches as well as in the (nominally) less democratic denominations. The defect of de- mocracy has always been its unwillingness to defer to the leadership of ability; the churches might demonstrate its practicability. Leader- ship is as essential in church administration as in any other. Lack of it results in inefficiency and failure, and keeps men out of the churches; with it, a small body of workers can, by the cumulative effects of success, make an impor- tant institution. Personal evangelism is a need created by the present situation: there must be a transmission of the Spirit by a universal contact which can 2 o6 THE CHURCHES AND come only from the laity. Leaving everything to the minister makes neglect of the non-church- goer inevitable. When the minister can call on two hundred families, each member of his con- gregation might reasonably be expected to attend to two. The absence of this kind of per- sonal effort is apt to be taken by the unchurched as evidence of indifference, of lack of spiritual life. This variety of personal work is needed also for its tonic effects on the worker himself. The idea is altogether too prevalent that if one contributes to the financial support of a church one is doing all that can be expected. Money is no substitute for personal service. To the masses the check of a successful business man does not represent a sacrifice; and sacrificial atonement is still necessary. That is why the Salvation Army and the army of settlement workers get results, while the missions languish. The arrest of the modern tendency toward the break-up of the home life would contribute materially toward the good of the churches; and the opportunity of home-rehabilitation is one which is peculiarly for the laity. For the need of personal help in improving the home and only by improvement can it be saved calls especially for house-to-house visitation on a scale which is impossible for the clergy. This THE WAGE EARNERS 207 process would also afford that personal contact which is needed by both the church-goer and the unchurched, and would accomplish that wider distribution of the personally good and self-sac- rificing in the slums and elsewhere where their example and influence are needed. There are numerous special methods resorted to in special cases, whose value must be deter- mined each time solely by their success or fail- ure. For example, the "High Church" meth- od, aside from its theological bearings, is some- times successful and sometimes not. Booth re- ports that in one case a High Church service, bright and short, with strong appeal to the im- agination and little strain on the attention, secured a genuine congregation of quite poor people. Occasionally, the insistence on con- fession is successful. But on the whole, High Church efforts in London are not heartily re- sponded to. There is a general opposition to ritualism; "simple gospel" services reach more people than "Romanism"; elaborate services at St. Stephen's fail completely. Booth con- cludes that the value of High Church methods is extremely doubtful. But on the other hand, an appeal to the spec- tacular, without the objectionable ritualistic features, is usually more or less successful. A 2o8 THE CHURCHES AND free use of sensational methods made even a High Church prosperous under adverse circum- stances in one case in London. The great effi- cacy of these methods is demonstrated in Lon- don in the North Central Wesleyan Mission, 1 St. James Hall, the United Methodist Free Church (built in the shape of a lighthouse), and other instances which might be multiplied with- out end from England and America. On the other hand there are churches, and many of them, which succeed fairly well within their sphere, without resort to spectacular extremes which have their (too frequently pointed out) dangers. This is a matter which must be deter- mined in each individual case by the character of the surrounding population and the personal qualifications and temperament of the minister. The value of the use of the secular press in a modern way is receiving increasing recognition. The Presbyterians in America have a "Press Bureau," and its manager bears eloquent testi- 1 Booth, I. c., II, 125: "The North Central Wesleyan Mission's success is due to exceptional methods. The secret is the breathing of human life into every function of religion; or it may be put the other way, as the introduction of religion into every function of human life. The energy evolved by this method is astonishing. Everything hums with activity, and is carried on with what the Americans describe as a hurrah of enthusiasm. There would seem to be no time for meditation. The quieter influences of re- ligion are lost; but there is assuredly no time for doubt." THE WAGE EARNERS 209 mony to its good results. The Unitarian Church in America has recently developed what it calls "The Paragraph Pulpit," which is reaching effectively a class of people who could never be induced to enter a church, and yet are open to the message offered them, and are in the course of time subject to "conversion" to a better understanding. Mr. Booth suggested that a touch of fashion would fill some neglected churches; and the history of one prominent denomination in America verifies this fully. The only disadvan- tage is that it fills the churches in question only with fashionable people, and draws those from other churches. This suggestion was probably ironical; the following idea is simply thought- less: a London church conceived the notion of having services much earlier than usual, so that wives could get home in time to cook dinner; overlooking the fact that the working people, too, like to sleep late on Sunday. However, this is not the place to go into a detailed discussion of miscellaneous church methods. But just one word must be said with reference to churches in small towns and in the country. It would be as great a mistake for them to at- tempt to take over bodily the plans and meth- ods of city churches as for the latter to model 210 THE CHURCHES AND their methods on the needs and experiences of the former. Habits of thought and of life, social customs and traditions, are entirely different from those in cities, and they also differ from one town to another. Each locality is a separate problem and requires separate study. Peculiar qualifications are demanded in the minister of the rural church, such qualifications as are most likely to be found in men born and bred in such communities. The city minister is no more likely to "fit" in the country than the country minister in the city. There is need for serious discussion of the question of the superfluity of churches in small towns. Sectarianism has here done its deadliest work, and it is safe to say that there are too many churches in most villages. These churches, as a rule, are too small and too poor to do effective work; and their mutual jealousies and rivalries impede all efforts at cooperation. Their members are exceedingly apt, except under extraordinary circumstances, to develop that selfish and narrow outlook which so often goes with suburban and provincial life. Alto- gether it is questionable whether Gbhre's dic- tum that "the small parish church must be re- vived" 1 should apply to America, whatever 1 Gb'hre, /. c. t 317. THE WAGE EARNERS 211 may be its justification in Germany. Says Mr. Crocker: 1 "Religious destitution has fallen upon many towns and villages because there are too many churches in them." The truth seems to be that here "we need a new and brief period of Christian martyrdom, in which many churches shall suffer death for the glory of God." 2 1 Crocker, /. c., 14. 2 Strong, /. c., 327. CHAPTER V THE MODERN MINISTER T7INALLY, we must not forget that as the * salvation of society can be wrought only through individuals, in the ultimate analysis, so also with the salvation of the churches. For better or for worse, the churches, or at any rate, the Protestant churches, depend upon their ministers; the condition of the churches at any given time is a fair index of the quality of their ministers. It is the personality of the man that makes or mars the individual church; and it is the collective ideals and practices of the minis- ters which determines whether the churches as a whole shall be successful or otherwise in their relations with the people. That the minister must be a good man goes without saying. The influence of personal ex- ample is immeasurable, for good or for bad. The efficacy of personal relations depends upon the character of the "parson"; and it has been asserted that more has been accomplished for the church through personal contact with the 212 THE WAGE EARNERS 213 masses than through all its institutionalized work. It is time, however, to call ministers' attention to the fact that goodness is no longer identified with piety or devoutness. A minister is usually taught that he must be better than other men; and often the only way he can be better than some of the people in his parish is in the assumption of an excessive devoutness. But this at once creates in him the " holier than thou" feeling, and ends his further usefulness. This is not a pious age. We must also have a higher average of preach- ing ability than the churches can at present boast. The minister can no longer rely upon the "sacredness" of his calling to secure him a hearing. He must meet the demands of the populace; and those demands are numerous and exacting. He must have unlimited famil- iarity with all modern thought on all modern subjects; he must be able to discuss the ethics of employers' liability Sunday morning; social- ism Sunday evening; industrial education at a teachers' meeting Monday; municipal govern- ment on Tuesday; Browning Wednesday after- noon, and the efficacy of prayer Wednesday evening; talk to the Woman's Club Thursday afternoon on current topics, and to the High School Friday afternoon on the duties of citi- 214 THE CHURCHES AND zenship; and Saturday he may be asked to con- duct a Nature-study excursion, working out in the meantime his next sermon on the Roycian conception of immortality, which, of course, he must put into popularly intelligible form. Intelligibility is a virtue too little appreciated by many preachers. With the shifting of the churches from the masses of the people with only slight education to the wealthier and pre- sumably more cultured classes has come a style of preaching which is aimed at the latter, but which, in fact, often misses its mark altogether. There must be sound and deep thinking in every sermon, and such thinking is not easily followed or grasped even when most clearly presented. Preaching must be intellectual; but if it is to accomplish any purpose, it must be understood. Its aim is to lead people to do or to be some- thing better than their present doing or being. It must persuade. The preacher therefore must use every means of persuasion; and if he finds that a baldly logical presentation of a thought is not effective (and it rarely is), he should not hesitate to avil himself of any other manner or method which will secure the desired result. And the minister must display the most un- questionable sincerity of thought and expression, or the people will none of him. Any suspicion THE WAGE EARNERS 215 that he is subservient to financial or ecclesias- tical influence, that it is not his mind but an- other's which is working, is sure to be fatal. Then his best thought must be presented with freshness and brilliancy, or the people will stay home and read the newspapers and magazines, where the editors are at great pains to insure freshness and brilliancy. Then he must have energy and histrionic ability; and if he hasn't them by nature, he must acquire them by art. With it all he must avoid any tinge of feminin- ity. His bearing in the pulpit and out of it must be one of essential manliness; neither conceited, nor overbearing, nor over-refined. He must be always a gentleman, but never a fop. In this connection must be noticed a mistaken policy pursued by some churches in keeping their old ministers in full activity long after their strength has ceased to be equal to the tasks imposed upon them. We can all call to mind famous ministers whose old age was a ver- itable sunset glow of beauty and power. And yet it must be admitted these cases are rare. More often advancing years bring failing health and failing mental grasp, which are, perhaps, not so much noticed by the minister's contem- poraries, but are only too obvious to the younger generation growing up under him, and perhaps 2i6 THE CHURCHES AND leaving the church rather than giving voice to their real feelings. Over-long pastorates have been the death of many a church. There is great danger also in the practice of retaining an ex-minister, retired on account of age, in connection with the church as pastor- emeritus. There is in this something as com- plimentary to the church which thus shows its appreciation of a life of ability and service as there is to the minister thus honored. But ex- perience has shown that, with human nature constituted as it is, embarrassments are bound to ensue. The pastor-emeritus, by the inevi- table processes of human life, is a generation be- hind; but he rarely knows it himself, and his friends are not kind enough to him and to the church to make him aware of it. It is difficult for him to realize that he is retired; that his po- sition is an honorary one, relieved of responsi- bilities and consequently of official duties. And so he takes a natural interest in the way his suc- cessor does things, and if his successor happens to do them in a way to which he is not accus- tomed, he is apt to betray his apprehension that the church is being ruined by departures from the ways of the fathers. In parishes where, through his long residence and intimate rela- tions with the people from their childhood, his THE WAGE EARNERS 217 influence, though unofficial, is still considerable, this cannot help but lead to difficulties. Re- tirement with the understanding that the ex- minister is to sever all official relations with his parish when he leaves its active ministry is the remedy for this. That ministers should be high-grade social leaders has already been pointed out. That they must be hard workers is surely obvious. "Perspiration is just as important as inspira- tion, and sometimes it accomplishes more," says Mr. Stelzle. A minister cannot afford to be too busy to attend to any request for help of any kind which comes to him. The plea of pre- occupation is never accepted from a clergyman. He must expect to work eighteen hours a day, if necessary, to help secure an eight-hour day for the rest of humanity. His life is a life of service, as he must be fully aware before he ventures into it; and as there is no possibility of over- production, there are no natural or legal limits on the length of the service-day. Finally, a matter of clerical education calls for attention. Professor Peabody has remarked : * "Neither ethical passion nor rhetorical genius equips a preacher for economic judgments." Yet, as we have seen, the insistent need of this 1 Peabody, I. c., 35. 2i8 THE CHURCHES time is for preachers capable of making sound economic and sociological judgments. The re- proach of their ignorance must be taken away. They must become familiar with sociology and economics in all their branches. They must study them at first hand, by actual contact and by investigation of "sources." 1 Their formal theological education must be broadened so as to include these subjects. A few of the leading schools provide for them now Harvard Divin- ity and others connected with the great non- sectarian universities; but, as a rule, the minis- ters' ignorance of the social topics in which all the rest of the population is vitally interested is as dense at though they did not live on this planet. Nowhere is attention to this sufficiently insisted upon. Education in theological semi- naries should be thoroughly modernized and "secularized." Whatever may be the case for the Biblical scholar and prospective professor, for the active minister economics and sociology are vastly more important than Hebrew and Aramaic; the vital concerns of Europeans and Americans of to-day are much better worth knowing than the habits of the Hittites and the Perizzites. 1 But avoiding the indecencies of the amateur "sociologist" so amusingly depicted by one of the victims Stelzle, /. c., 101. CONCLUSION TN concluding this study one is minded to consider whether, after all, there is hope for the continuance of organized religion. It is un- deniable that the people as a whole have de- serted the churches, and that it is at least partly the churches' "fault." I have tried to point out the way the churches, as it seems to me, must go to regain the people; but it is the only way, and it is an unquestionably hard one. The sum of the situation is this: The churches' old methods and ideas have failed; they must change their methods and ideas to conform with the predominant social interests of the day. The churches must be thoroughly socialized. If that can be done only at the expense of "historical continuity" and the other fetiches of the study, by all means let them go. They are worth nothing in comparison with religion. And the ultimate preservation of religion de- pends upon its continued institutionalization. It is easy to be optimistic about the " religion of the unchurched"; there is undoubtedly a great 219 220 THE CHURCHES deal of religion among them, inherited and ab- sorbed; but it is indefinite and chaotic, and is gradually thinning out and disappearing. But humanity will not let religion disappear entirely. Evolution is a growth of the Spirit; progress and civilization exist only in, by and through the Spirit. There must be an awaken- ing some day. The only question is, Will the churches of to-day see their present opportunity and grasp it, or will they struggle on fitfully until humanity comes to their rescue, but with a new religion of its own? The call is clear enough; will the churches heed it ? BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY The following list of works includes the best of the literature most closely related to the subject of this book. It does not include the innumerable magazine articles, for which reference should be made to the standard in- dexes. Those works which at the present time (1909) are most valuable for the English reader are marked with a star (*). On special topics, see the "Bibliography on Modern Social Questions," edited by Rev. John Haynes Holmes, and issued by the Unitarian Fellowship for Social Jus- tice; also the numbers of "The Gospel of the Kingdom," edited by Rev. Josiah Strong. An excellent bibliography of English works on Socialism may be found in Le Ros- signol, cited below. ALLEN, W. H.: "Efficiency in Religious Work"; Annals American Academy of Political and Social Science, November, 1907, p. in. (Abbreviated hereafter 30 Ann. Am. Ac.) BAADER, FRANZ VON: "Ueber die Zeitschrift Avenir und Ihre Principien." BALMFORTH, RAMSDEN: "The New Reformation" (1893). BAUDRILLART, HENRI J. L.: "Des rapports de Pe*cono- mie politique et de la morale" (1883). 223 224 BIBLIOGRAPHY BAX, E. BELFORT: "Essays in Socialism Old and New" (1906). BAX, E. BELFORT: " The Ethics of Socialism" (1893). BAX, E. BELFORT: " Outlooks from the New Standpoint" (1890). BAX, E. BELFORT: "Outspoken Essays" (1897). * BAX, E. BELFORT: " The Religion of Socialism " (1886) . BEBEL, AUGUST: "Woman" (1891). *BLISS, W. D. P.: "New Encyclopedia of Social Re- form" (1908). BOOTH, GENERAL WILLIAM: "In Darkest England" (1890). *BOOTH, CHARLES: "Life and Labour in London," Part III; " Religious Influences," Vols. I to VII (1902). BRUCE, WILLIAM S. : " Social Aspects of Christian Moral- ity" (1905). CAIRNS, D. S.: "Christianity and the Modern World" (1907). CAMPBELL, REGINALD J. : " Christianity and the Social Order" (1907). CARSTENS, C. C.: "The Salvation Army A Criticism"; 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 117. CHADWICK, WILLIAM E.: "The Social Teaching of St. Paul" (1906). COATES, THOMAS F.: "The Prophet of the Poor" (Gen. Booth) (1906). COCHRAN, J. W. : " The Church and the Working Man " ; 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 13. COLEMAN, JAMES M.: " Social Ethics" (1903). *COMMONS, JOHN R. : " Races and Immigrants in Amer- ica" (1907). COMMONS, JOHN R. : " Social Reform and the Church " (1894). BIBLIOGRAPHY 225 CRAFTS, WILBUR F.: "Practical Christian Sociology" (1906). CRAPSEY, ALGERNON S.: "The Rebirth of Religion" (1907). *CRAPSEY, ALGERNON S. : " Religion and Politics" (1903) CROCKER, JOSEPH H.: "The Church of To-day" (1908). DEVINE, EDWARD T. : " Principles of Relief " (1905) . DOLE, CHARLES F.: "The Coming People" (1897). EARP, EDWIN L.: "Social Aspects of Religious Institu- tions" (1908). ELY, RICHARD T.: "French and German Socialism" (1883). *ELY, RICHARD T.: "Social Aspects of Christianity" (1889). *ELY, RICHARD T.: "Socialism and Social Reform" (1894). EVANS, D.: "The Social Work of a Church in a Factory Town"; 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 75. EVANS, T. S.: "The Christian Settlement"; 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 55. FAIRBAIRN, ANDREW M.: "Religion in History and in Modern Life" (1893). FARWELL, P. T.: "The Social Work in a Suburban Church"; 30 Ann. Am. Ac., 68. * FREMANTLE, WILLIAM H. : " The World as the Subject of Redemption" (1895). GLADDEN, WASHINGTON: "Applied Christianity" (1886). GLADDEN, WASHINGTON: "The New Idolatry" (1906). * GLADDEN, WASHINGTON: "Social Salvation" (1902). GLADDEN, WASHINGTON: "Tools and the Man" (1893). * GOHRE, PAUL: " Three Months in a Workshop" (1895) GORDON, GEORGE A.: "Denominational Memories" (1903)- 226 BIBLIOGRAPHY GRAHAM, WILLIAM: "The Social Problem" (1886). GROSE, HOWARD B.: "Aliens or Americans?" (1906). GUYOT, YVES: "La come'die socialiste" (1897). GUYOT, YVES: "Etudes sur les doctrines sociales du christianisme" (1892). HALL, PRESCOTT F.: "Immigration" (1906). HARNACK, ADOLF: "What Is Christianity?" (Trans. 1901). HAW, GEORGE (editor) : " Christianity and the Working Classes" (1906). HEERMANCE, EDGAR L.: "Democracy in the Church" (1906). HENDERSON, CHARLES R.: "Chalmers's Christian and Civic Economy" (1900). HERRON, GEORGE D.: "The Christian Society" (1894). 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ZIEGLER, THEOBALD: "Die Soziale Frage" (1899), ZUEBLIN, CHARLES: "The Religion of Democracy" (1908). THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL U3 A 000713795 3