Tolls and the man; property and industry under the Christian law

Front matter

.

Kcb. MasMtiffton (55latrtien.

THE LORD’S PRAYER. New Edition. i6mo, gilt top, $1.00.

Preface

The chapters which follow contain the sub¬ stance of a course of lectures spoken to the stu¬ dents of the New Haven Theological Seminary, on the Lyman Beecher foundation, in January, 1887. Portions of the same course have been given in Cornell University, in Mansfield Col¬ lege, Oxford University, and in other places. In November and December, 1892, they were recon¬ structed and delivered before the Meadville Theo¬ logical School and the citizens of Meadville, Pa. Of this last use of them some explanation should be made : —

The Rev. Adin Ballou, of Hopedale, Mass., left a legacy for the promotion of Christian Socialism, to the interests of which he had devoted a life of energetic philanthropy. Through some legal de¬ fects in the bequest, the courts refused to execute his will, and the property passed into the hands of his daughter, Mrs. Abbie Ballou Heywood. De¬ termined to carry out her father’s purposes, Mrs.

IV

PREFACE.

Heywood made over the entire amount to the trustees of the Meadville Theological School, to be held by them as a trust fund for the establishment and maintenance of “ The Adin Ballou Lec¬ tureship of Practical Christian Sociology.” The design of the founder is thus expressed in her own words : —

“The purpose of this offer is to secure the annual delivery of a course of lectures, by the most satisfactory talent that can be obtained, upon the social aspects of the religion of Christ, and the consequent duty and importance of applying the principles and spirit of that religion to the intercourse and conduct of man with man, in all the activities and relations of life. In these lectures special attention shall be paid to such subjects, for example, as ‘ The Barbarism of War and the consequent claims of the cause of Peace,’ ‘The Extinction of the Evils of Intemperance,’ ‘ The Proper Relation of the Sexes, including the true Doctrine of Marriage and Divorce,’ ‘The Higher Education and Complete Enfranchisement of Woman,’ ‘The Adjust¬ ment and Harmonization of the Relations between Cap¬ ital and Labor,’ ‘The Prevention of and Remedy for Poverty,’ ‘The Care and Reformation of Criminals,’ ‘ The Amelioration and Improvement of the Condition of the Unfortunate and Perishing Classes,’ including in their full range all topics calculated to enhance the well-being and happiness of mankind and to fashion

PREFACE.

v human society after the Christian ideal of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

“ These lectures, or such of them as may be deemed most valuable by the President and Board of Instruc¬ tion, shall be published from time to time, and sent, free of expense, to other Theological Schools, and to leading educational institutions, libraries, etc., to the end that their usefulness may be extended as far and wide as possible.

“ It is furthermore my express wish and intention that the contemplated lectureship shall be based upon the distinct and positive recognition of the eternal excellency of the religion of Christ , in its fundamental truth and essential spirit , as taught and exemplified in the Scriptures of the New Testament, and as interpreted by the light of the advancing intelligence of mankind, and that its administration shall be absolutely impartial and free, regardless alike of denominational peculiar¬ ities and limitations, and of all artificial distinctions of race, sex, and nationality.

“ This offer is made with the full expectation and assurance that, if accepted, the endowment involved will be held sacred to the purpose for which it is designed, and in the earnest hope that the work of human im¬ provement and social regeneration, so dear to the heart of my beloved father, will be advanced by the instru¬ mentality it provides for and ordains, and that his name and influence for good in the world may be conserved and perpetuated unto many generations.”

VI

PREFACE.

This volume comprises the first course of lec¬ tures upon the Ad in Ballou foundation. A por¬ tion of one of them has appeared in print; the remainder is now for the first time published.

My own deepest convictions are so clearly ex¬ pressed in the words quoted above that I have found no difficulty in following the lines laid down by the founder. By the study and observation of many years, I have been confirmed in the belief that the Christian law, when rightly interpreted, contains the solution of the social problem. I believe that Christianity not only holds up before us a beautiful ideal, but that it presents the only theory of industrial and social order which can be made to work. To the arguments which fol¬ low, in support of this opinion, I ask the serious attention of all men of good-will.

W. G.

First Congregational Church,

Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 22, 1893.

Contents

PAGE

I. The Christianization of Society ... 1

II. Economics and Christian Ethics . . . .25

I. The Christianization Of Society

The end of Christianity is twofold, a perfect man in a perfect society. These purposes are never separated; they cannot be separated. No man can be redeemed and saved alone; no commu¬ nity can be reformed and elevated save as the in¬ dividuals of which it is composed are regenerated. The law and the gospel address themselves to the conscience and the affection of the man, but they address him as a member of the social organism, and the response that he makes must be made through the medium of that organism. What says the law to him ? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Perfection requires perfect obedience to the second commandment as well as to the first. If there were a man who had no neighbor, he could not obey God’s law; he could not be a man, in any proper sense of the word; he could not exercise the powers and functions of the human nature; the perfection of manhood would

TOOLS AND THE MAN.

be utterly beyond his attainment. This vital and necessary relation of the individual to society lies at the basis of the Christian conception of life. Christianity would create a perfect society, and to this end it must produce perfect men; it would bring forth perfect men, and to this end it must construct a perfect society.

Christ’s first word as a preacher was, Repent. That was addressed to the individual. It was the reproof of his sin; it was the summons to that choice of righteousness which is the prerogative of a free personality. But his next word was connected with this by a copula that we must never break: “ Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The opportunity, the motive, the condition of repentance is the presence of a divine society, of which the penitent, by virtue of his penitence, at once becomes a member.

The first commandment of the new dispensation is, therefore, a commandment with promise, and the commandment can never be divorced from the promise. Life implies an environment, the contin¬ uous adjustment of external and internal relations. Everything that lives, lives in some element to which its nature is adapted. The fish lives in the water; the man lives in an atmosphere. The spiritual life is no exception to this law. When a man is born of the spirit, he needs a spiritual atmosphere to breathe as truly as he needs the vital air the moment he is born into the world. True it is that except a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdom of

God; but equally true it is that if there were not a kingdom of God for him to be born into, his birthday would be the day of his death. To bid a man repent without furnishing him at the same time a spiritual society in which he may live and move and have his being would be like ordering a man who was stifling in bad air to betake himself to a vacuum. Such unreasoning cruelty our Lord does not countenance; when he calls men to new life he surrounds them with the conditions in which the new life is possible.

When Jesus commissions the twelve and sends them forth, he puts into their mouths the same message that he himself first proclaimed, save that he omits the first word “Repent.” “As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” I am not inclined to attach any peculiar significance to this omission. Doubtless the word of repentance and reformation was part of their message, though not here specified. They were bidden to preach the truth which he had taught them; what they had heard in the ear they were to proclaim upon the housetops, and the call to repentance was surely included in this. Nevertheless, the fact remains that in this commission the emphasis is put upon the proclamation of the kingdom of God. “ As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It is not a remote and dubious infer¬ ence that the regeneration of the individual and the regeneration of society are coordinate inter¬ ests ; that the one cannot be secured without the

TOOLS AND THE MAN.

other; that, whatever the order of logic may be, there can be no difference in time between the two kinds of work; that we are to labor as con¬ stantly and as diligently for the improvement of the social order as for the conversion of man.

The success of our Christian work largely de¬ pends, indeed, upon maintaining the equilibrium between these two kinds of activity. Progress is often conditioned upon preserving the balance of equal forces; many of the losses and delays of civilization are due to the failure to secure this equipoise. The Greek republics sacrificed the in¬ dividual to the state, and perished for that fault; the modern radical democracy has sacrificed the state to the individual, and threatens us with de¬ struction from this cause. In practical states¬ manship, it is not easy to adjust the opposing claims of liberty and order. The Roman Catholic church minimizes the individual and magnifies the ecclesiastical organization ; many of our Protest¬ ant churches foster an excessive development of individualism and greatly undervalue social forces and institutional methods.

There is need among us, then, of emphasizing the social side of our Christian work, of pointing out the fact that Christianity gives a law to society as well as to the individual. We are called to con¬ vert men, and we are called at the same time and with equal authority to furnish them a Christian society to live in after they are converted. It is idle and even cruel for us to cry, “ Repent,” unless we can truly say at the same time, “ The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

In a recent admirable essay upon “ Social Ethics ” I find this passage: “ [Christianity] teaches that men owe it to each other to labor, not first for the improvement of outward conditions, but first for the worth and goodness of men them¬ selves, according to the high and definite standards of the Christian character. Christianity is not satisfied with mere improvement upon the existing order, nor will it turn aside and expend its ener¬ gies on reforms which affect only the surface of society.” In terms this is exactly true ; neverthe¬ less, it needs to be supplemented by a fuller state¬ ment. There are certain outward conditions, certain forms of social organization, which tend to emphasize and promote the worth and goodness of men themselves ; and there are other outward conditions which tend to belittle and discourage personal worth and goodness. There is a social philosophy, an economical philosophy, which dis¬ parages and ignores character; it gets itself in¬ corporated into outward conditions; it makes the problem of arousing and developing men themselves a very difficult business. Now, while the ends of character are above all things precious, because they are above all things precious, we need to en¬ courage those forms of social organization in which the value of character shall be rightly estimated, and men shall not be reckoned merely as counters in the great game of material exchanges.

TOOLS AND THE MAN.

The Christianization of society is, therefore, a part, and a large part, of the calling of the disci¬ ples and servants of Jesus Christ. The kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and the phrase includes not merely the kingdom of Siam, and the kingdom of Madagascar, and the kingdom of Dahomey, but the kingdom of commerce, and the kingdom of in¬ dustry, and the kingdom of fashion, and the king¬ dom of learning, and the kingdom of amusement; every great department of society is to be pervaded by the Christian spirit and governed by Christian law. This is the end that we are to set before ourselves, and toward the achievement of which we are to direct our energies.

1. The Christianization of society involves the Christianization of the prevailing social senti¬ ments. “ Social sentiment,” says Dr. Bascom, “ is the pervasive j>rotoplasm of general and individ¬ ual life. From this must come the constructive and beneficent forces of the state, and largely the impulses which govern each individual within the state.” 1

The best society differs from the worst in its practices, its institutions, its laws, but more deeply and radically in its sentiments. It is because song is the voice of sentiment that the philosopher said, “ Let me make the songs of a people, and I care not who makes its laws.” Now, there are social sentiments that are distinctively Christian, and 1 The Words of Christ, p. 198.

THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF SOCIETY.

others that are as clearly unchristian, and it is part of our work to propagate those that are Christian, and extirpate those that are not. Re¬ spect for character more than for rank or wealth is a Christian sentiment. “ A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth,” said the Teacher. Honor for honest industry is a Christian sentiment; no follower of the Judean Carpenter can be in doubt about that. Compassion for the suffering and the helpless is a Christian sentiment. Noblesse oblige is a Chris¬ tian sentiment; who was it that washed his disci¬ ples’ feet? The prevalence in society of senti¬ ments like these makes it peaceful, pure, and stimulating; every soul that breathes this atmos¬ phere is comforted and quickened and ennobled by it. On the other hand, the sentiments opposed to these, when they prevail in society, as they often do, fill it with envy and strife and bitterness; every generous feeling is chilled by such a social atmosphere. Now, it is quite possible for us, in our social intercourse, to aid in cultivating these Chris¬ tian sentiments, and in exterminating those which are unchristian. We are called, as disciples of Christ, to the frank and hearty utterance of Chris¬ tian sentiments, and to the equally positive repu¬ diation of those that are unchristian. If you respect the upright brakeman more than the gam¬ bling and swindling general manager, say it and show it. If you feel that the true-hearted shop¬ girl who supports herself and her mother by her

TOOLS AND THE MAN.

labor is more to be admired than the giggling flirt who is doing nothing but waste her father’s substance in frivolous follies, make that feeling clearly manifest. Opportunities are hourly occur¬ ring for the utterance of the thoughts and feelings by which our estimate of life and conduct is re¬ vealed, and a manly avowal of the truth that is in us, that has become part of ourselves, often has a most salutary influence. We are not merely to think on the things that are honest and pure and lovely and of good report; we are to stand up for them, to declare our love for them, to defend them by word and act when others cast contempt upon them. There is a great deal of good missionary work to be done in reforming the sentiments of the society in which we live, — to be done in drawing-rooms and church-aisles, in school-rooms and shops and street-cars, wherever men and women meet and greet one another; and here, as much as anywhere, our Master wants brave confessors and true witnesses.

2. Sentiments that have crystallized into max¬ ims or formularies take the shape of theories. The relations of individuals and of classes in society are defined by social theories ; there are theories of social duty and obligation, some of which con¬ form to the Christian law, and many of which do not. One very large part of our duty as citizens of the kingdom of heaven is to test these social theories by the law of that kingdom ; to uphold those that agree with it, and to renounce and condemn those that do not. Bad practice has its roots in bad philosophy; and the social disorder and mischief that abound will never be corrected until the false social philosophy which breeds them is exposed. A social theory was in vogue not very long ago, in all parts of Christendom, that some human beings are born to be the chattels of other human beings; that this division of the race into masters and slaves is one of the laws of nature, and part of the plan of Providence. That theory was contrary to the great doctrine of human brotherhood, which is the corner-stone of Christian society. It was necessary to kill that theory be¬ fore society could be christianized.

There is a theory which finds wide acceptance in these days, to the effect that when husband and wife conclude that they cannot get along very well together they ought to be divorced. This theory has been making great havoc in society of late, breaking up homes and weakening the bonds of the family, which is the very foundation of society. It expressly contradicts the Christian law; and one of the most urgent duties resting upon Chris¬ tian disciples at the present time is to expose the sophistry and wickedness of this doctrine of easy divorce, and lift up against it Christ’s law of the family.

Not a few pernicious social theories must be cor¬ rected and counteracted by the application of the Christian law; and, on the other hand, there are many wise and salutary social maxims that ought

TOOLS AND THE MAN.

to be diligently inculcated, the truth and wisdom of which will gradually be made manifest if they are faithfully taught. The theory that all prop¬ erty is held in trust for societythat there is no such thing as absolute ownership ; that every pos¬ sessor of wealth, no matter how lawfully he may have gained it, holds it as a steward or a trustee, and is bound to use it for the best interest of the society in which he lives, — this is a part of the clear teaching of Christ which must be steadily en¬ forced. Society will never be christianized until this truth is accepted and reduced to practice.

These examples, which might be multiplied, and will be in the chapters that follow, show that there is a Christian philosophy of social relations which differs widely in many respects from the prevail¬ ing social philosophy; and that our business as servants of Christ is to challenge the sensual and selfish philosophy so widely prevalent, and to sup¬ plant it by the doctrine of the kingdom of heaven.

3. When social theories are reduced to practice, we call them customs. A large part of social life is customary. Our sentiments and theories are organized into these living forms, and are thus unconsciously communicated from one life to an¬ other, and transmitted from generation to gen¬ eration. Many of these social customs are already Christian, and among the mightiest conquests that Christianity has achieved is the silent and gradual transformation of the usages and conventions of society by the inward working of its power. How much there is in our customary life that expresses good will! How many of our forms of etiquette are only transcriptions of the law of love ! And not only benevolence, but justice and purity and modesty and many other Christian virtues find ex¬ pression in social conventions to which we have been habituated all our lives. Probably none of us is aware of the extent to which his life has been influenced by these organized forms of life which surround him like an atmosphere. Yet there are many existing social customs which are not Christian, — which are the reverse of Chris¬ tian. There are still vast spaces of this customary life which need to be subdued and informed by the spirit of Christ. Customs that are pernicious, destructive, heathenish, abound in most commu¬ nities, and there is need that the law of Christ should be applied to them, and that they should be made to feel the steady weight of its condemna¬ tion. Yet, in judging all these, we must be care¬ ful to discern the real meaning of the law, and beware how we substitute for it our own whims and prejudices. There are various evil customs, like the drinking usages, and the gambling prac¬ tices, and the unhealthy excesses of all sorts, which still prevail in some quarters, and against which the Christian moralist must utter a clear testi¬ mony ; and there are other social customs, inno¬ cent enough in themselves, but liable to abuse, and of these he must learn to speak with discrimi¬ nation. Perhaps there is no part of his work in

TOOLS AND THE MAN.

which a judicial temper is more necessary than in the criticism of social customs. He must make the truth he speaks manifest to the consciences of those to whom he speaks ; he must beware lest he make that to be sin which is not sin, and load the moral sense of those who hear him with a burden that they will not bear. Great wisdom is needed here, but the law of Christ applies to this realm of life as well as to every other, and it must be possible to bring its truth to bear upon the cus¬ toms of society so as to condemn those that are evil, and approve those that are good.

4. Customs that are organized under definite and permanent forms are institutions. The insti¬ tutions of civilized society are its vital organs ; it lives in them and by them. The family is the first of these ; the church, the schools, the various organizations for industrial purposes, for culture, for pleasure, for charity, are numbered among them. For every one of these institutions the great Lawgiver has a law; it is for his disciples to discern and reveal the manner of its applica¬ tion. Most of these established forms of social life recognize to some extent the ethics of Christ, and embody more or less perfectly the precepts and principles of his teaching in their organic life. Yet there is not one of them that completely and consistently conforms to his law; not one of them that does not need to be christianized. The church is supposed to be organized upon Christ’s words, and to be the embodiment of his life. Of the ideal church, of the invisible church, this is true ; of the visible church it is only partially true. . A great deal of the teaching, the administration, the corporate life of the church is unchristian; the kingdom of God, which Jesus came to establish in the world, is divided against itself and crippled in its growth in many places through organizations calling themselves churches. True it is that the church, in most communities, contains the greater part of the moral force existing in those communi¬ ties ; the only hope for the reformation of society is in the church; if society is christianized, it must be done mainly through the church ; yet it is no less true that the church is everywhere part of the thing to be reformed, and that the institution which represents Christ in the world and speaks for him is an institution that discerns his mind but in part, and that reflects his spirit as in a mir¬ ror darkly. Every church needs prayerfully to ask itself how much of its doctrine, its discipline, its practice, needs christianizing. Part of its busi¬ ness is to criticise the social order; but it should never forget, in its criticisms of the social order, that judgment should begin at the house of God. Surely the church that deliberately proposes to be a church of the wealthy and cultivated classes; that makes no provision for the poor in its assem¬ blies ; that tolerates arrangements in its place of worship under which the poor could not find a home in it if they would ; that openly says, “ These poor people can come to our church, of course, if

TOOLS AND THE MAN.

they wish to come, but frankly we think that they would enjoy themselves more in a mission chapel down on one of the back streets, and we shall be happy to contribute toward the building of such a chapel for them,” — a church like this really needs to do a good deal of home mission work within its own four walls before it will be pre¬ pared to assist very materially in the Christianiza¬ tion of society.

There are many other features of the social life of some of our churches which very imperfectly conform to the Christian ideal, and those who are responsible for the conduct of the churches ought to consider more carefully than they sometimes do what manner of organization a Christian church ought to be; what should be the relation of its members one to another, what the ordering of its assemblies, what the spirit of its appeal to the world outside. There is a sense in which a church may think too much about itself: it may expend all its energies in building up its own organiza¬ tion ; it may care for those that are without only in so far as there is a fair prospect of bringing them within, and so adding to its own popularity and power. Human nature often takes on this phase, in churches as well as in secret lodges and political parties. But there is another way in which a church does well to think much about itself : it ought continually to compare its own internal life with the Sermon on the Mount; it ought to seek to develop its life in accordance with that high, unworldly standard. Every true pastor should be admonished to keep this matter very near his own heart. The spirit of the world out¬ side is always insensibly pervading the church ; its pride, its indifference, its exclusiveness, its methods of competition, first steal in and hide, and then stalk in and take possession; and there is need of coming back to first principles very often, and of reminding ourselves whose disciples we are, and what is the nature of the kingdom that he came to found. And the earnest pastor will find it in his heart to say very often, Dearly beloved brethren, let us remember that we are Christians ; let us try to behave in the house of God as though we were Christians ; let us show all men, rich or poor, who come into our place of worship that we are Christians ; let us meet one another on the street as though we were Christians; let us put ourselves into such relations with all other churches that they shall know that we are Christians ; let us speak to our neighbors round about us a mes¬ sage of such invincible friendliness that they shall be constrained to believe that we are Christians, that we have been with Jesus. If the life that is in us is thus manifestly the life of Christ, and the bond that unites us is the love of Christ, we shall surely be able to do some good work in christianizing society. We can never accomplish much as a church in this direction unless we can make it evident that Christ is not only the Head, but also the Heart of the body that claims to rep¬ resent him.

TOOLS AND THE MAN.

If the church needs thus to apply to itself the perfect standard of Christ’s law in order that its faults may be corrected and its social life properly developed, it is not probable that any other of the institutions of society could wisely dispense with such criticism. To bring all these institutions into conformity with the Christian law, and to fill them all with the Christian spirit, is the work be¬ fore us, — a work so vast that we might well turn away from it in despair, had we not the assurance that when, in the regeneration, the Son of Man shall come in his glory, these kingdoms, too, shall belong to him.

5. Above all the social institutions the state is supreme. It is as truly divine as the church is, and its scope is more comprehensive. It is the business of the state to declare and maintain upon the earth the righteousness of God; could there be a more august vocation ? Christ as Prophet and Priest is the Head of the church, as King he is the Head of the state. His kingly office is his supreme office. Messiah, the King, he always claimed to be. True it is that the King has not yet come to his own; but a great voice has been heard saying, “ I will overturn, overturn, overturn it . . . until he come whose right it is, and I will give it him.” The state is to be christianized. Government is to be christianized, not by the restoration of the temporal power, not by calling back the Pope or the Puritans, but by the exaltation and coronation of the spiritual power, the true spiritual power, in the hearts and lives of the people. Most true is the word of Immanuel H. Fichte, “ Christianity is destined some day to be the inner organizing power of the state.” 1