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Work and Pay



A Sermon Preached in Trinity Church, New York, on the Eve
of Labor Day, Sunday, September 4, 1892

By the

Rt. Rev. Hugh Miller Thompson, D.D.

UNIVERSITY Of
ILLINOIS LIBRARY
at the request of the

%

Church Association for the Advancement of the Interests of

Labor

New York

Thomas Whittaker, 2 and 3 Bible House
1892Press of A. G. Sherwood & Co., New YorkThe following is an alleged report of this sermon which appeared the next

morning. September 5, in the New York Tribune.

It is printed here as a too-common specimen of the degradation and irrespon-
sibility of a certain class of newspaper.

WILD TALK IN OLD TRINITY CHURCH.

Remarkable Sermon from a Protestant Episcopal Prelate of

A special Labor Day service was held at Trinity Church last evening,
under the auspices of the Church Association for the Advancement of the
Interests of Labor. The Rev. Dr. Hugh Miller Thompson, Protestant
Episcopal Bishop of Mississippi, delivered the sermon to an audience which
completely filled the church. As early as half-past seven o'clock all the
seats had been taken, and from then until after eight the people came in
throngs. The audience was composed of almost every class in the com-
munity ; but the laboring man predominated. A special service, lasting
fully ail hour, was given before the sermon, and several hymns, which had
* J" been written especially for the occasion, were sung by the choir and con-
<4 gregation in unison. Thousands of intelligent laboring men, closely packed
into the pews and, crowding the aisles, waited patiently for the Bishop to
A begin his sermon, for it had been rumored that he would take a pronounced
«s and decided stand in favor of labor against capital. The front row of pews
^ was reserved for the members of the Association under whose auspices the
Jr. service was held, but it was impossible to keep the crowd out of them, and
j many of the members had to stand with the rest of the people.

J During the course of the sermon the Bishop was frequently interrupted
% by exclamations of approval, and it is safe to say that if the sermon had
3 been delivered in any place but a church, there would have been exhibited
a most vigorous and hearty approval of the stand he took. As it was there
was a demonstration seldom seen in a church, and as the congregation
Qyj slowly moved out men gathered in groups to discuss the statements which
the Bishop had made.

J He selected as the subject of his sermons " Labor's Conflict Against
Capital," and he took a most pronounced position in favor of labor. He
± railed against the Government of the United States, saying " It affords no
protection to life and property," and he advocated restricting the power of'
"*■ government and confining its functions to simple police duty. He warned
i4 the laboring classes not to appeal to government for aid in their troubles,
cJ for they would get none; an<| he asserted in the strongest terms that u all
J* government, as it at present exists, is an enemy to the advancement of
mankind in general and prevents an equal, distribution of wealth among

AN EXTRAORDINARY BISHOP.

Mississippi to Laboring Men.

ILLINOIS LIBRARY4

men." He declared that honest, ambitious men were not trying to get
rich, but merely were working to get enough money to maintain themselves
and families. The present government, he said, 44 limits itself to the taxing
of the people in the interest of the capitalists and does not afford any ade-
quate protection to life and property."

He further said 4 4 the Anarchist is even deserving of sympathy. Although
his measures are violent and barbarous, he is acting upon the principle of
the survival of the fittest, and fighting in his way for his natural rights."
The Bishop believed that men should organize in order to make a successful
fight against poverty and government as it now exists. He made the
statement that 44 the Republican party has never done anything for
the advancement of the interests of the laboring classes," and Presi-
dent Lincoln he said, " when he released the slaves, acted as a despot, with
the power of an army behind him." The speaker was especially bitter
against the American millionaire who goes abroad u and spends his money
there." The present brotherhoods and trades unions he was not in sym-
pathy with, as he wanted the laboring man to organize and be incorporated
by the State, so that he could successfully fight against the corporations of
capitalists. He said that the American laborer was in a unique and fortun-
ate position, as he was in every respect the equal of his employer. Men
worked here because they took a pride in their work and not for personal
advancement, and he believes that the reason why all were not successful,
was because they did not possess the power of 44 gathering in." This
faculty gave certain people a power over others in the community, so that
they received the result of others' skill and labor, which was not just.

During the course of his remarks the audience at times manifested con-
siderable uneasiness, as he attacked indiscriminately the existing order of
things. When it was capital he hit, they seemed satisfied, but when he
took such pronounced views against the Government and the labor unions,
the congregation showed strong signs of dissatisfaction.

Bishop Thompson criticised at length the action of the State of Tennessee
in employing convict laborers to take the place of honest men in the mines,
and then shooting down these citizens because they drove the convicts
from their work. The switchmen's strike at Buffalo, he said, should be
taken as a warning by the people of this country, as showing how a few
thousand men can completely paralyze the industries of the country. He
was especially indignant at the action of the coal magnates in 44 throwing
thousands of miners out of work and allowing them to starve, because if
they continued to work the price of coal might be lowered a few cents, for
these men have a right to live and earn enough to support their families."

In speaking of the conflict between capital and labor, and its consequent
evils, Bishop Thompson said as follows :

44This country is the most enlightened and most advanced, and has the
greatest natural resources of any in the world, and we shall soon develop
this wealth until we become the richest country in the world. Yet some-
thing is radically wrong, for in this land the people are uneasy, and they
are uneasy because they are an intelligent and enlightened people. In the
conflicts between labor and capital each side appeals in time to the Govern-
ment. Let labor simply understand that the Government is the last place
to appeal to. It is not a fraternal power to provide aid for all that need it,
as it should be. It is our duty to take care of government and see that gov-
ernment takes care of us. The whole history of man has been a struggle
agaipst government and to induce government to let us alone. The best5

government is the one that governs least, and government should only be
an arrangement for the maintenance of order and peace. To whom, then,
must labor look for aid simply for itself. There is no difference between
the employer and the employe in this country so far as I can find. Now do
you not see that here is the unique opportunity for American laborers ? The
single man working by himself has never yet been able to do anything. He
must band himself in order to cope with others. I do not believe in the
present trades unions and brotherhoods, and I think that the unions should
be incorporated by the State, and so fight capital, as they fight labor
through their corporations.

" If you are to cheat men you must combine. Capital asks the State to
help it to rot the laborer. Organized human society is against all such pi-
rates and sharks. The aim of brotherhood should be to get a more equal
distribution of wealth and to give men a chance to gain a living. Our rich
men are constantly leaving the country and spending the result of American
toil and skill abroad for nothing or worse than nothing. Ireland has com-
plained of absenteeism. There is no greater country in the world for ab-
sentees than this, and probably the rich men of this city have spent over
$150,000,000 in Europe this year, and yet we hear that there is not money
enough in the United States for all.

" We cannot prosper upon another's loss and trouble, and some day the
trades unions will undoubtedly consult with the capitalist for the advancing
of their mutual interests."

SERMON.

ilA*ll the whole Heavens are the Lord's. The earth hath He given to
the children of men." {Prayer Book Version.)—Psalm 115: 16.

In the beginning when God made man, male and female,
" in our image after our likeness," He blessed them and
said (it is the first commandment—remember, older than
Sinai, older fthan Moses: grayest of all la^vs, human or
divine), " Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth
and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea
and over the fo.wl of the air and over the cattle, and over
all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth."

Jt is a command to be obeyed. It is a charter conferring
right. It is a King's gift to His son. It confers all royal-
ties, conveys all right. It is becaijse such royalty and6

right are conveyed and have been exercised that we
are here to-night in this church in one of the world's great
cities where two hundred years ago the wolf howled, the
eagle screamed and the painted savage crept in the dark-
ness to the slaughter of his foe.

"The earth hath He given to the children of men."
You see it is declared again, after centuries of toil and
sorrow and pain, the old fact, the basis of the old com-
mand. The Hebrew Scriptures never once falter on the
primal marching order for the race of man.

They vindicate everywhere the Sovereignty for God—
for one great, just and righteous God alone. But they
always gladly, cheerily, thankfully proclaim that this
"Adonai .Echad" this "Lord Alone" has given the world
to His children, " the children of men," and that all of rich
and beautiful and wonderful upon it is their heritage.

And whether one accepts the authority of these Hebrew
writings or not, he must accept the fact that they fully
explain, and grandly account for the unique position that
man holds and has held, in all historic days upon this
world.

For man alone of all creatures on Earth has felt that he
owned the Earth, and had the right to do with it just what
he would. He has never hesitated to tear and trample and
burst open anywhere the dumb planet from which some
wise men say he came, soul and body. He has, from the
beginning, claimed absolute and irresponsible sovereignty
over it and all it holds.

Even the man of the stone hammer and the flint arrow-
head stood upon his sovereignty, and the man of New
York to-day would not be startled at the proposal to wall
in the Atlantic Ocean for miles outside of Sandy Hook for
a new harbor (which by the way, they are building ships
at present he may be compelled to do if you discharge
your, sewage into the Bay much longer), or blow up a
whole passage way round the Island from .the Sound to7

the Hudson, eight fathoms deep, which I think your chil-
dren will have to do.

Now mind it makes no difference in this case what a
man's notions about revelation or inspiration may be. The
visible fact is, that men since the dawn of time, the " Ice
Age," if you choose, if there ever was such an "Age," have
been always working, digging, plowing, planting, sweat-
ing ; in ice or out of it, to replenish and subdue the Earth
and get homes, and hearths and bread and meat and
clothes for wife and babies.

For after all, dear friends, that has been the whole story
of history since there ever was history. Of course the
books are full of wars and battles, and politics and
"heroes," so-called. Filled with wonderful things about
emperors, kings, queens, statesmen and generals, are the
books we call " Histories." But the real story of the
world, we are beginning to see in these latter days, is the
story of how common people lived and made their homes,
and got food and some small comfort for the mother and
the children. That has been, and we are all fast seeing
it, the real story of mankind. How the average man, no
hero, no king, no general, but just the common son of man as
he runs, has contrived to obey the old primal command
to master the world and get his living out of it.

It was a wise word of one of our wisest poets who made
his immortal songs behind his plow :

" To make a happy fireside clime
For bairns and wife,

Is the true pathos and sublime
Of human life."

I need not tell you how hard has been the battle for
mere bread and shelter in the long story. I need not tell
you how the children of men have grown in the struggle
wiser, stronger, more steadfast, under the toil. How the
primal curse, "in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat
bread," has become a blessing.8

The blunders have been frightful—wars which wasted
the gifts of God, wretched tyrannies of small and great
tyrants which trampled on men's souls and bodies. Yet
in spite of all the insanity and wickedness of men, they
have, I believe, been steadily climbing to the sense and
exercise of the splendid sovereignty with which the Father
in Heaven endowed them in the beginning, when He gave
this fair World to the Children of Men.

The foremost peoples who have done the World's work
in largest measure are finding at last how exhaustless is
the heritage, riches in the desolation of t.he mountains,
harvests in the barren sands, power obedient to human use
in the stones, light, for the street, and the fireside, and a
messenger of swift obedience in the burning leven.

And yet we are facing strange portents among these fore-
most peoples. They have learned much and carried their
conquests far. They have not, it seems, learned how
fairly and satisfactorily to divide what they have won, nor
amid overwhelming abundance, to find food and shelter
for the sons of men.

It is a terrible exhibition of the stupid savagery that
still exists in our highest civilization that a whole indus-
trial community goes idle, and a needed product of skill
and science, under contract to be supplied, cannot be sup-
plied and so a thousand other men are idle also.

The situation at Homestead has been for months a grim
satire upon our civilization, and our political and indus-
trial economics.

Perhaps the later situation at Buffalo is even more start-
ling. For we are confronted with the fact that the inter-
course of the whole country, indeed its intercourse with
the whole world, may be suddenly closed by a quarrel be-
tween employees and employed.

Men have half starved in Pennsylvania coal-towns, while
the riches of the mountains lay open at their feet, and poor
women and children have meanwhile shivered in New York9

tenements because these miners were not allowed to work
lest the abundance produced should lower the price of coal
fifteen cents per ton !

It is in England, in Belgium, in Germany, in the United •
States, in the very centres of human toil and amid the
abundance of its rewards that outbreaks, strikes, inarticu-
late fury and dumb despair against felt stupidities and
wrongs, are becoming, more and more, constant conditions.

There are no strikes among savages. There are no
strikes in poor countries. It is in the countries most in-
dustrious, most enlightened, most effectually carrying out
the old command, most thoroughly subduing the earth,
that the greatest contrasts exist between luxury and want,
enormous wealth and abject poverty, between the capital
used in subduing the world and the labor which subdues
it.

Our own country is possibly the richest in resources in
the World. These resources are most rapidly turned to
use. We are subduing on all hands. In actual developed
wealth we shall shortly be the richest people so far known.

And yet there is something darkly wrong in the results.

For this richest people in this richest land—our share
of God's gift—are, this night, the most uneasy people ex-
isting.

They are the most uneasy because the most intelligent !
Nowhere is there the like amount of sense and knowledge,
of s,kill and wisdom, of patient, loyal endurance and inde-
pendence as among the workingmen of the United States !

On the deck of an Atlantic steamer I heard a great Eng-
lish "Iron Master " give voice to this opinion : " Yes, they
will beat us. They hire brains in America not mere
' hands.' They will, in the end, beat us in our own special-
ties." It was in 1876. He had been at the Centennial.

I suppose there is not a railroad in the United States
that could not to-morrow be handled, ordered, managed,
by men selected from its ships, its engines and its cuttings.10

I venture to say the whole industry at Homestead can be
managed by men now upon the strike. There is not a de-
partment, nor a detail in the department that men, on day
wages, are not competent to control.

I say this the more readily, because in three cases which
I know three most successful railroad presidents were at
first track layers or firemen on their roads. And by the
way, on the roads of these gentlemen there never has been
a strike.

It is the serious part of it. It is the hopeful part of it,
too, that in these chaotic and irrational contests there is
so much of trained intelligence, of skill, patience, leader-
ship, and gentle manners among the people that depend
only upon their brains and hands. There was never any-
thing like it. A starving peasantry has before this revolted
against its feudal tyrants. An ignorant, debased popula-
tion has risen more than once in beast fury, against its
brutal masters. But here, in the United States, the struggle
is between men of about equal intelligence, equal skill and
equal good breeding. I can conscientiously declare that
I think one could pick from a locomotive engine to-morrow,
a man quite as intelligent, quite as well educated, quite as
competent, just as well mannered and well-bred and much
more to be trusted to stand at his post till he dies, as, let
me say, half a dozen s<5 called "railroad magnates " that I
have known.

For, dear friends, this thing is too often forgotten. There
are men of highest manhood, of greatest genius, of kingliest
nature, who c&awot gather things. As Agassiz said: "I have
no time to make money." There are men who love the
work for the work's sake. They have the consciousness of
mastership. They can do a thing well, write a poem,
preach a sermon, lead an army, run an engine, command a
ship, hammer a bar of iron, carve a statue, paint a picture,
or ^hoe a horse* But they have not the magpie instinct
for gathering things.11

They love what they can do. They are proud and happy
to do it well. They have no reward So great as the satis-
faction of doing it well. They beat out the bar, lead the
army, preach the sermon, shoe the horse. They are mas-
ters there. They realize to themselves the sovereignty.
They are children of men. Sons of God—"subduing"—
mastering under the old Royal Charter.

I stood one night by the sick bed of an old negro in dire
agony. One of the foremost physicians in a great south-
ern city was bringing all his skill and care to bear upon
the case. There were hours of toil and breathless anxiety.
At four in the morning, a hot August night passed, he
said to me, " All right, Doctor, I have won ; she'll live.
Let's go home."

Mind, not a penny for it! A negro cabin the scene, and
the pet doctor of "society ladies " with half boyish glee ran
home in the dewy morning rubbing his hands because he
had "won." He had saved a poor old negro's life ! He
was Master of his case !

I stood another night beside a rough, common railroad
engineer, lying smashed on the track, beside his wrecked
engine. He was dying, though none of us knew it then,
for the doctors had not come from the city yet. I said

"Do you know me, M-?" "Oh, Bishop, is it you?"

"Yes, M-." "How was it?" "An open switch,

M-." " Oh, yes, an open switch, Bishop, I stood by ?"

"Yes, M-." You stood by! Poor M-. A

gentleman gone to his account within the hour. But God

in Heaven loves gentlemen. And M-had driven his

"lightning express " engine like a gentleman.

You see what I mean.

The question between Labor and Capital is, in our
country, a very peculiar and a very new question.

The most of us belong to Jesus Christ's "great Congre-
gation of the Poor." We have no " Capital " in the ordi-
nary sense of the word, and moreover we don't want any.12

We have no time to get rich. We are hammering away
continually and enjoying our work, discovering our dis-
coveries, writing our books, shoeing our horses, preaching
our sermons, raising our fields of corn, cotton or wheat,
writing our songs or training our prize colts, making our
speeches in Congress, or smelting our iron ore.

You must accept that. The whole political economy
foolery must accept it. The average man does not care to
be rich. The whole story of our country is evidence of
that. The wisest and best men in the United States never
were rich. They are not so now. The men whq have
made the country, have subdued, conquered, utilized, for
our uses, this much of God's gift to the Children of Men,
never umade money " and never cared to make it.

They had no time. The men whom we honor in the
story of the United States had no time for money making.

George Washington died poor. Thomas Jefferson was a
broken man. Abraham Lincoln was not a millionaire.
Did Benjamin Franklin make a fortune? Did Jackson or
Polk or Arthur ? Have the Harrisons, either grandfather
or grandson, gathered thousands in our highest place ? Or
Grover Cleveland, has his aim in this world been to become
a millionaire ? Poor Grant tried it and his great heart
broke!

Did Webster, Clay or Calhoun toil to make fortunes ?
Or our poets, Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Lowell, or
our scientific men from Franklin to Morse, or our
historians, Bancroft or Motley, or our great lawyers and
jurists, from Jay and Marshall to Field and Fuller,, have
they been after money ?

Why, friends, the great workers, subduers and conquerors .
in the whole world's history have never had time to bother
their heads about money-making! The victories over chaos
anjd waste and the wild war of nature have been always
won by poor men.

And it is something to consider and be thankful for, that13

the average American who is doing respectable service in
this world, sometimes even heroic service, doesn't care for
money.

Does that sound strange to you ? " What!" you say, look-
ing over this great, busy, greedy, eager city, " do you tell me
the object of men in New York is not to get dollars, piles
of dollars, and more dollars still?"

I deliberately mean to say that the object of ninety-nine
industrious men in one hundred in New York is just to get
an honest living and succeed in their chosen calling! And
the object of many a rich man in New York, rich in money
honestly earned by himself or his father, is to find out
where he can put some thousands now and then, for other
men's good.

For, you see, we start with this advantage in the United
States. Our grandfathers (if all the people in New York
had grandfathers) were equally poor together. The grand-
father of one rich house came to the city, it is said, with a
bundle of German flutes under his arm.

But others came. One boy, I like to remember
him, a modest, bashful, clumsy New England boy, and he
made your New York Tribune and gave his money to any-
body who asked it.

And another, a Scotch boy, equally clumsy, bashful and
poor, but somewhat more " canny " came and he left you
your New York Herald. It is for you to say what has been
done with them since !

Both left their memorials. With all their contrasts each
liad his ideal, and Horace Greeley and James Gordon
Bennett were neither of them working for mere money.

Each worked to earn honest bread for the little flock at
home and to do what best he could for the ordering and-
subduing of the earth in his way, taking honest pride in
his work, trying to make it successful. And each has left
his memorial in this great city enduring and strong.
Shall I recall the sacred memory of William Cullen Bryant ?14

What need ? But I will not pass, in this connection, that
gentle scholar who left us only four days ago, and whose
stern self-sacrifice to a point of high honor kept him poor
all the days of his life, whose name and fame are a possession
forever for plain living and high thinking to us and our
children.

Dear friends, while this great, rich, luxurious city breeds
men of the mould of George William Curtis, who love
honor and clean conscience and fair thoughts above long
bank accounts, while New York honors them living and
mourns them dead, no man shall despair of her, and no
man shall say she is wholly given over to the worship of
mammon, the service of the flesh, or the false gods of
material success !

It has been the making of her, it is the crown of her
greatness to-day, this, and not the vastness of her wealth,
nor the extent of her Empire, that the queen of the Western
World has chosen for her honored names, and set in her
heart and the hearts of her children to be honored forever,
the roll of her sons who did high service, by tongue or pen
or noble deed, for other men, caring not whether, as the
world counts, they were rich or poor!

For it is in doing his honest work as it comes to him, in
caring for his house and children, and doing his homely
duty under the old law that enduring success has come to
any man.

There are thousands of clergymen in the United States
who have held their services and preached their Sermons
to-day. Would they change their places for the richest in
the land ? I know of only two open to the suspicion.

You say " What does all this mean ? What has all this
to do with capital and labor?"

I answer, dear friends, it has a great deal to do with both.
Labor, as such, has no rights. Capital, as such, has no
rights. The workingman, as such, has no rights, but also
the millionaire, as such, has no rights.15

There is just one right in this world which is universal^
the right for room to make a living, the right to a man's
own life and what he can make of it. That right is in-
volved in the first royal grant.

Now, mind you, making a living may mean living in a
log-cabin at one time or in a marble front on Central Park
at another. It depends entirely upon the man, the time
and the conditions.

There are men in thousands, like myself (if you will par-
don me), who do not care a sixpence which. I have a
board shanty in the Blue Mountains in North Carolina
worth two hundred dollars, I would rather sleep there to-
night than in the most " palatial residence " in New York,
because I love tumbling brooks, roaring cataracts and the
sound of the wind in the forest.

I mean that if I, loving these things, wish to live in the
forest and by the cataracts in a shanty, I ought to be
allowed to do it.

If you prefer a brown stone or marble front on Fifth
Avenue with the clatter of the milkman's cart in the morn-
ing, and the rumbling of the stages all day, you ought to
be allowed that. If I can get what I want, and if you can
get what you want !

Now I can't get what I want because I am under obliga-
tion very solemn, to live in Mississippi, instead of living in
North Carolina in the mountains.

And most of you are probably under obligations to live
at present in another house and not in a marble front high
up on the Avenue.

But if you can ever get that marble front on the Avenue,
it will be yours. And if I can ever get excused to lead my
ideal life in the board shanty in the mountains it will be
mine. Only neither of us must do any wrong in reaching
our ideal, nor upset each other on the way, nor break any
manly obligations in getting there.

I spoke before of what is called the contest between16

Labor and Capital. It is a contest very visible. Never-
theless it is an irrational contest on both sides.

Each side appeals to what is called " Government." I am
sorry to see the use of that word in the Chinese way,
growing in the United States. In that sense I do not
believe in " Governments." " The best government is that
which governs least." As "one of your own poets" in quite
another connexion " has said" " I am a Democrat."
Government is only the arrangement of a community for
its own order and peace, that each member of the com-
munity may be protected in his life, property and good
name. That absolutely is all that any sensible govern-
ment may exist for—purely police duty internally among
its own citizens. And outwardly as a protection against
possible enemies. The first part of this duty has never
been and is not now perfectly performed in any part of
the United States. No community indeed in any part or
age of the World has ever entirely performed the ordinary
police duty of making life, property, and honor safe.

Governments have taxed, tariffied and dutified to raise
money to fight other people. They have never succeeded
in making life quite safe at home. More lives have been
sacrificed in the United States by murder, homicide or
preventable accident five-fold than in all our foreign wars.

More property has been destroyed by arson, riot or
robbery ten-fold than by foreign enemies.

And yet we are taxed, and our patriotism appealed to
to build ships, and forts, and make " defences" against
an imaginary foreign enemy, when for eighty years we
could find no enemy in the world, and so turned to cutting
each others' throats as an expression of Northern or
Southern patriotism !

One might think the Anarchists half right ! The
governments of the earth are without sense, principle or
reason, as. soon as you take them far away from the fire-
sides and the home communities. They have based them-1?

selves on the notion—the old diabolic notion, that men
were by nature the enemies of men, and therefore that each
people must stand armed and bristling against each other
people.

So Europe is to-day an armed camp and every German*
French and Russian peasant hoes his poor patch of ground
with a soldier on his back.

For the solution of the difference between labor and cap-
ital, for the solution of any other differences or difficulties
the last place to look for help is to the thing you call
" Government."

Government, at its very best, is only the exression of
the average good sense and honesty of the people. But no
Government ever succeeded in being at one-tenth of its
best. Certainly the government of the United States or
of any particular State has never in your memory or
mine, expressed the best intelligence or honesty of those
it represented.

For you and me, and most men trying to make our
honest livings on the earth, Government, Federal or State,
stands for a thing that gets money from us.

It does not protect our lives from violence, our houses
from burglary, or our own good names from slander. In its
Federal form it taxes everything we eat, wear, or use, to
pay its own running expenses, support two or three hun-
dred thousand patriots and build cruisers, to be ready to
fight Chili or the Principality of Monaco some coming
century !

The United States has contrived to invent in one century
of existence the most expensive government by five-fold in
the world, ancient or modern, and to get the least protec-
tion out of it for the single citizen.

One wise state has, to save the expense of supporting its
thieves and murderers, hired them out in rivalry with
honest miners, and because they protested, the only way
they knew, against being brought into competition with18

the farmed out felony of a " sovereign State," has been
shooting them right are left. The State was, of course,
forced to do so. But it is pitiful.

In this same Sovereign State the Governor has prac-
tically interpreted the law, as its newspapers declare, to
mean that when a " Gentleman " assassinates another he
must not be hanged as the law requires—just sent to be a
clerk in the Penitentiary till the next Governor pardons
him out!

So whatever be the contests between labor and capital
hereafter, let labor, at least, distinctly understand there is
no hope for it in any governmental interference.

There is not on record, the single case in which any re-
publican government took the side of labor. I trust there
never will be. Republican Governments are supposed to
exist on the theory that labor can take admirable care of
itself. Alexander freed the serfs of Russia; but Alexander
was an arbitrary sovereign. Abraham Lincoln proclaimed
freedom to the slaves; but Abraham Lincoln did so outside
the Constitution, and as a war measure. In neither case
would a constitutional Legislature, Congress or Court have
dared to do what these men did !

For the just and wise settlement of the conditions which
are confronting the foremost people now there is no hope
in the machine we call " Government."

Government is not some paternal power organized to take
care of all imbeciles and furnish pap to all fools or knaves,
and provide dinners and shirts and greenbacks for all
patriots who need them.

I am ashamed that there are people in the United States
who have so far forgotten the traditions of their race and
country as to think the thing they call " Government " was
ever made to take care of anybody. There are some of us
yet who believe that it is our duty to take care of " Govern-
ment," and to see that " Government " most energetically
encourages every man to take care of himself!19

If we are going into the business of a Paternal" Gov-
ernment, it most be confessed we have, in the United
States, invented the most expensive and extraordinary
" Paternal" Government ever dreamed of by man !

It is perhaps natural enough that there should be a su-
perstition that a thing called " Government " is the great
Providence over men's lives—that some doings of "Govern-
ment," should be looked to as the solution of all diffi-
culties.

But the whole history of Man, as a social being, is the
story of a struggle with " Governments," a long, painful,
wretched story of his struggle to get from under the load
of " Governments," and compel " Governments " to let him
alone!

The poor, mad Anarchists who come to us from abroad
have some cause, as all insane folk have, for their mad-
ness !

But did we not settle that a hundred years ago when we
proclaimed that the thing called " Government " was only
an arrangement by the community to preserve its own
quiet and order, and to arrange things so that a man should
be able to mind his own business ?

We thought we did, without question. And now we are
confronted with all the heresies which we thought we had
buried, and are taxed and ridden in the interests of all
forms of Government, from boodle Aldermen to ring
Senators, from town constable to President, the most be-
governed people going.

To whom then shall the appeal be made? Here is a con-
dition where every old trouble is coming upon us, where
the man who has and the man who has not are pitted
against each other in enmity. Here are the submerged,
hopeless, and desperate "classes" (pardon me for using a
word I detest) growing daily in numbers. Here are the
thousands in your City slums, their children growing up
in the gutters, if they can succeed in living in their wretched
quarters at all.20

And on the other hand, here are several hundred thou-
sand Americans this year in Europe spending, it is safe to
say, one hundred and fifty million dollars of American
money abroad !

Our hearts have all been wrung, by the pitiful appeals of
Irish "patriots," against "Absentees. " As the O'Sullivan
is reported to have said—" the Country is full of Ab-
sentees !"

There is no such case of "absenteeism" as the United
States can show this very year.

The greatest Landlord in New York—the richest Land-
lord it is said in the world, is an absentee !

The owner and master of " Homestead " is an " Absentee."
The rents and profits more than you dream, of properties
and investments in New York are spent in London or
Paris ! Our rich people are more and more leaving the
country, for a time, or permanently, denying all responsibili-
ty for their wealth, and spending the results of American
toil and skill in waste or worse, in other lands, as they have
of course, the legal right to do.

But you say, if " Government" can do nothing, where
shall we look ? I answer, you must look to yourselves.

My dear friends, do you not see the thing you call
" Government " is simply the expression of your own will
and your own sense of decency and fitness ?

I said a while ago that in this country there is no dif-
ference happily, between the employer and the employed
in personal character. I know several millionaires em-
ploying a great many men. They are gentlemen whom I
esteem. I know a number of gentlemen whom they em-
ploy. They are also gentlemen whom I esteem. I am
glad to say, that in all that grand old name implies the
employer is just as good as the employed !

Now here, do you not see, is the unique opportunity of
Americans.

The Old Testament tells us God gave the Earth to the21

Children of Men. The New Testament tells us the Chil-
dren of Men are the Children of God. And Jesus says—
"All ye are Brethren." I suppose, all things considered,
that was the real central fact He came to tell us, and for
which He, " the Carpenter's Son," ever stands—" Ye all are
Brethren." *

The subduing and conquering of the heritage God gave
us is to be done by a band of Brothers.

As far as we have gotten it has been always done on that
basis. The single man, working by himself and for him-
self, has never yet " subdued " anything. We have always
been compelled to get together to meet common dangers,
and assume common risks, or we would not have risen
above the lowest savagery. Civilization has proceeded on
the principle that " all ye are Brethren " or it would not
exist. Every Bank, every Railroad, every "Trust" and
" Combine," every corporation of any kind exists on the
basis that the battle and the struggle to subdue the Earth
and possess it must organize on the basis of Brotherhood,
of mutual shoulder to shoulder help.

In no country has this basis so developed and revealed
itself as in our own. From the twilight of time comes the
command and the inheritance. " The Earth hath He given
to the Children of Men"—Replenish it, subdue it, possess it#

From the voice of the Lord Jesus, from the Carpenter's
shop in Nazareth, comes the mighty word which tells us
how it is to be done. " All ye are Brethren—he that will
be the greatest among you let him be your servant."

The battle is to be won by banded brethren. The single
isolated man, working for himself, is on the Devil's side.
Rich man, poor man, millionaire or tramp, he is on the side
of the Devil—of chaos and old Night. On his theory
there would not to-day be a civilized country or a civilize
city. Mankind would be living, each man in his own wig,-
wam, looking each night for his neighbor's scalp !

In the blessed ordering of human life, we are compelled22

s to act on the theory of our Brotherhood. Every humane,
kindly, civilized gathering of men for a common purpose
reveals to us that we are all, rich and poor, in the same
boat together, and sink or swim together. We cannot do
good to ourselves without doing good to other people.
We cannot wrong other men without wronging ourselves.
As far as we have won our way in subduing the Earth, we
have done it on the principle of Brotherhood.

Wolves have never " subdued " and never will, because
they are wolves and devour each other. Men have sub-
dued, and will subdue because they are brethren and help
each other.

It is slow to work out but it is working. It is not many
years since that it was an accepted piece of " politics " that
a war in Europe, scant harvests in Russia, or manufactur-
ing distress in England would in some way benefit the
United States. " Make a market" for something some-
where. The old, ignorant and savage notion that one men
might profit by another man's misfortunes was actually an
accepted principle in political economy ! It is appealed to
in some politics to day.

We have, thank God, outgrown all that. We understand
now that no people prospers by another people's loss, that
failure in London means failure in New York, that distress
and trouble in Berlin means distress and failure in Chicago
—that, whether or no, we are all in the same boat, broth-
ers together !

Why in the last month I have received a half dozen cir-
culars inviting me to join in a half dozen enterprises, nearly
all fraudulent, no doubt, but proceeding you see on the
ground that we must all get together in some company or
corporation, or co-operative undertaking in order even to
cheat each other. Our very knaves are proclaiming, " All
ye are brethren/' when they invite you to take stock in
some bogus mine, or some boom town in a swamp or on a
mountain out West. They recognize human brotherhood23

so far as to hold it sure that if you are even to cheat men,
you must make a " combine " to cheat them !

When " Capital " as it is called, combines, it combines
on the principle of Brotherhood. It asks the State—that
is, the rest of us, to give it new facilities, and special in-
ducements and advantages, that a number of men may
go together and be Brothers in some common undertaking.
You could not organize a gang of train robbers, or a pirate
crew on any other idea. The moment that any corporation
or company proceeds on the opposite theory it goes to
smash. The Bank President undertakes to run the Bank
for his own benefit, not that of the stockholders, and blows
up the Bank! The "Railroad Magnate" undertakes to
run the road, not for the benefit of the Brothers—the stock
and bond owners, but for his own, and wrecks the Road !
It has been done a good many times, may be done a few
years longer—not many, I trust.

Organized human society is against pirates and sharks,
and by the law of survival Pirates are hanged, and sharks
caught and their livers fried out !

For the Lord Jesus simply announced an eternal law
and fact when he said, " All ye are brethren." The Law
stands and inevitably crushes whatever stands opposed,
man or system.

I have read much foolish writing, and heard much
foolish talk about Trades' Unions and Labor Brotherhoods.
I take them to be tentative and temporary—mere groping
after better things, after closer unions and vaster Brother-
hood. I am sorry they do not get themselves incorporated
by the State as the combinations of capital do. They
have exactly the same claim to, and the same reason for,
special privileges and special position. I think they will
come to this.

But while both are compelled to bend to the imperative
law of Brotherhood, they both owe their troubles and
oppositions to the fact that at present they want a Broth-24

erhood on the Devil's principle and not on the Lord's ! I
mean both try to arrange it so that each Brother's broth-
erliness is not appealed to, but each Brother's self-profit
—I will make so much more for myself b)^the help of all
these other Brothers ! " " I go into the Brotherhood for
what I can get out of it."

Dear friends can you not see that this is the thing, that
in state or nation, politics or business, is the ruin of
things ? We are Brothers, and are compelled to row
together in some shape. The terrible danger in the storm
and stress upon the wild sea is, that so many of us get the
rowing done by others, and do not care whether the boat
sinks or swims so we get safe to shore with a goo.d mort-
gage on the cargo !

" If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it."
Baxter Street will give the cholera to Fifth Avenue, if Fifth
Avenue does not give due attention to Baxter Street. It is
a hard way to prove the Brotherhood of man, but some-
times the only effectual way—a tramp can give the yellow-
fever the small-pox or the cholera to a millionaire ! Perhaps
it is all he has to give, poor fellow, but he gives it freely !

The pressing problem now is not how we shall subdue
and win more for human wealth and use from the chaos of
unconquered nature. It is how we shall get our gains into
more equal distribution. How can we manage so that men
shall not starve up to the neck in heaps of corn, that wives
and children shall not go in rags, when cloth lies piled un-
salable in a glutted market?

" Over-supply " is the word. And " over-supply " means
that we have worked so hard and succeeded so well that
we don't know what to do with our product, and so a large
number of people sit down in the midst of this magnificent
success and starve !

Now as we have won all our profits in a civilized world,
by working together as brothers, why can we not divide
round by working together as brothers? If the arrange-25

merit was good for the victory, why not for the results of
the victory ?

Dear friends, I am sure in no other way will a satisfactory
settlement ever come.

Jesus of Nazareth announced the law of all living
"All ye are Brethren." His greatest apostle proclaimed
the law of action in the heavens and in the earth, " Bear
ye one another's heavy loads and so fulfill the law of Christ/

March together, toil together, enjoy together. It was a
grand thing to gain liberty for the single life. Without
fraternity individual liberty is just the savage in his hut.

So I say I am thankful for all combinations and associa-
tions among men for any good purpose, for mutual help,
profit, counsel and support. To get men into step together
is a great deal. Trades' Unions, Brotherhoods, Labor
Associations of all sorts are gropings toward the abiding
law of Brotherhood.

One day the Trades' Union will elect the capitalist an
honorary member and ask him to come and consult with
the brethren.

One day the Directory of the great corporation will
elect among its members the workman from the factory,
the engineer from the locomotive to come and consult with
the capitalist on the wise ordering of a business which is
vital to both.

For I have strong faith in the justice and good common
sense of the American people and I have unshakable faith
in our Brother the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazarath and his
law of Brotherhood. There will be wolves on land, sharks
in the ocean, and their counterparts in selfish greed and
hungry snarling grab among men.

But Jesus Christ and His law and those who try to fol-
low Him will be too many for them in the long run. We
will grasp hands all around and write these eternal laws of
His upon our banner: " The Earth hath He given to the
Children of men." The Children of men are " the children26

of God;'* "He that will be greatest among you let him be:
your servant." " Bear ye one another's heavy loads and so
fulfill the law of Christ." With these upon their standards
the struggling masses of men who just wisti to do their fair
day's work and keep their wives and children in comfort
and content and peace are going to win !

With these those who believe in the Fatherhood of God
and the Brotherhood of the Carpenter's Son of Nazareth^
who don't care to be rich but only to do good work, of
which they are not ashamed, will make room for them-
selves in this world and have grounded hope for the other
that they will hear the word " Well done, good and faithful,
servant."The Works of

Hugh riiller Thompson, D.D.

Bishop of Mississippi

The World and the Logos.

The Bedell Lectures for 1885. Square i2mo, cloth, $1.00.

"They deal with the Darwinian theory of Evolution, and the un-
believer in that doctrine will read the volume with a glow of satisfac-
tion and a feeling that the common-sense side of the question—from
his point of view—was never before so clearly and convincingly put."
—Boston Transcript.

The World and the Kingdom.

The Paddock Lectures for 1888. i2mo, cloth, 75cts.

"We have but touched upon one or two salient points of the
Bishop's argument. The full force and significance of his stimulating
book will, we are confident, interest all sorts and conditions of
readers."—From the Saturday Review, London.

The World and the flan.

Being the Baldwin Lectures for 1890, delivered at Ann
Arbor, Mich. i2mo, cloth, $1.25.

"And what a rich and rare style he has of putting his thoughts!
Every line of shining clearness, familiar in expression, full of nerve,
bears the mark of ripest contemplation, is stamped with the fresh,
singular individuality of the man."—New York Observer.

" Copy."

Essays from an Editor's Drawer on Religion, Literature,
and Life. i2mo, cloth, $1.50.

"A good many questions of the present hour are vigorously, intelli-
gently, helpfully touched. . . . There is many a corrective for local
disorders in these drops of ecclesiastical wisdom."—The Literary World*

Thomas Whittaker, 2 and 3 Bible House, New York.

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