Book VII…

Book VII

Jesus

"The martyred Christ of the working class, the inspired evangel of the downtrodden masses, the world's supreme revolutionary leader, whose love for the poor and the children of the poor hallowed all the days of his consecrated life, lighted up and made forever holy the dark tragedy of his death, and gave to the ages his divine inspiration and his deathless name."--Debs.

Jesus

BY EUGENE V. DEBS

(See page 144)

The martyred Christ of the working class, the inspired evangel of the downtrodden masses, the world's supreme revolutionary leader, whose love for the poor and the children of the poor hallowed all the days of his consecrated life, lighted up and made forever holy the dark tragedy of his death, and gave to the ages his divine inspiration and his deathless name.

Crusaders

BY ELIZABETH WADDELL

(Contemporary American writer)

They have taken the tomb of our Comrade Christ-- Infidel hordes that believe not in Man; Stable and stall for his birth sufficed, But his tomb is built on a kingly plan. They have hedged him round with pomp and parade, They have buried him deep under steel and stone-- But we come leading the great Crusade To give our Comrade back to his own.

Jesus the Revolutionist

(From "Christianity and the Social Crisis"[A])

[A] By permission of the Macmillan Co.

BY WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH

(Theologian, born 1861; professor in Rochester Theological Seminary)

There was a revolutionary consciousness in Jesus; not, of course, in the common use of the word "revolutionary," which connects it with violence and bloodshed. But Jesus knew that he had come to kindle a fire on earth. Much as he loved peace, he knew that the actual result of his work would be not peace but the sword. His mother in her song had recognized in her own experience the settled custom of God to "put down the proud and exalt them of low degree," to "fill the hungry with good things and to send the rich empty away." King Robert of Sicily recognized the revolutionary ring in those phrases, and thought it well that the Magnificat was sung only in Latin. The son of Mary expected a great reversal of values. The first would be last and the last would be first. He saw that what was exalted among man was an abomination before God, and therefore these exalted things had no glamour for his eye. This revolutionary note runs even through the beatitudes, where we should least expect it. The point of them is that henceforth those were to be blessed whom the world had not blessed, for the kingdom of God would reverse their relative standing. Now the poor and the hungry and sad were to be satisfied and comforted; the meek who had been shouldered aside by the ruthless would get their chance to inherit the earth, and conflict and persecution would be inevitable in the process.

We are apt to forget that his attack on the religious leaders and authorities of his day was of revolutionary boldness and thoroughness. He called the ecclesiastical leaders hypocrites, blind leaders who fumbled in their casuistry, and everywhere missed the decisive facts in teaching right and wrong. Their piety was no piety; their law was inadequate; they harmed the men whom they wanted to convert. Even the publicans and harlots had a truer piety than theirs. If we remember that religion was still the foundation of the Jewish State, and that the religious authorities were the pillars of existing society, much as in mediæval Catholic Europe, we shall realize how revolutionary were his invectives. It was like Luther anathematizing the Catholic hierarchy.

His mind was similarly liberated from spiritual subjection to the existing civil powers. He called Herod, his own liege sovereign, "that fox." When the mother of James and John tried to steal a march on the others and secure for her sons a pledge of the highest places in the Messianic kingdom, Jesus felt that this was a backsliding into the scrambling methods of the present social order, in which each tries to make the others serve him, and he is greatest who can compel service from most. In the new social order, which was expressed in his own life, each must seek to give the maximum of service, and he would be greatest who would serve utterly. In that connection he sketched with a few strokes the pseudo-greatness of the present aristocracy: "Ye know that they which are supposed to rule over the nations lord it over them, and their great ones tyrannize over them. Thus shall it not be among you." The monarchies and aristocracies have always lived on the fiction that they exist for the good of the people, and yet it is an appalling fact how few kings have loved their people and have lived to serve. Usually the great ones have regarded the people as their oyster. In a similar saying reported by Luke, Jesus wittily adds that these selfish exploiters of the people graciously allow themselves to be called "Benefactors." His eyes were open to the unintentional irony of the titles in which the "majesties," "excellencies," and "holinesses" of the world have always decked themselves. Every time the inbred instinct to seek precedence cropped up among his disciples he sternly suppressed it. They must not allow themselves to be called Rabbi or Father or Master, "for all ye are brothers." Christ's ideal of society involved the abolition of rank and the extinction of those badges of rank in which former inequality was incrusted. The only title to greatness was to be distinguished service at cost to self. All this shows the keenest insight into the masked selfishness of those who hold power, and involves a revolutionary consciousness, emancipated from reverence for things as they are.

To the "Christians"

BY FRANCIS ADAMS

(See pages 219, 266)

Take, then, your paltry Christ, Your gentleman God. We want the carpenter's son, With his saw and hod.

We want the man who loved The poor and the oppressed, Who hated the Rich man and King And the Scribe and the Priest.

We want the Galilean Who knew cross and rod. It's your "good taste" that prefers A bastard "God!"

Life of Jesus

BY ERNEST RENAN

(French philosopher and historian, 1823-1892)

The chosen flock presented in fact a very mixed character, and one likely to astonish rigorous moralists. It counted in its fold men with whom a Jew, respecting himself, would not have associated. Perhaps Jesus found in this society, unrestrained by ordinary rules, more mind and heart than in a pedantic and formal middle class, proud of its apparent morality.... He appreciated conditions of soul only in proportion to the love mingled therein. Women with tearful hearts, and disposed through their sins to feelings of humanity, were nearer to his kingdom than ordinary natures, who often have little merit in not having fallen. We may conceive on the other hand that these tender souls, finding in their conversion to the sect an easy means of restoration, would passionately attach themselves to Him. Far from seeking to soothe the murmurs stirred up by his disdain for the social susceptibilities of the time, He seemed to take pleasure in exciting them. Never did anyone avow more loftily this contempt for the "world," which is the essential condition of great things and great originality. He pardoned a rich man, but only when the rich man, in consequence of some prejudice, was disliked by society. He greatly preferred men of equivocal life and of small consideration in the eyes of the orthodox leaders. "The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him." We can understand how galling the reproach of not having followed the good example set by prostitutes must have been to men making a profession of seriousness and rigid morality.

FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner.

And the Lord said unto him, "Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he, that made that which is without, make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God; these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them."

Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, "Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also."

And he said, "Woe unto you, also, ye lawyers, for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.... Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge; ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered."

And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.

A Tramp's Confession

(From "The Cry of Youth")

BY HARRY KEMP

(See page 37)

We huddled in the mission Fer it was cold outside, An' listened to the preacher Tell of the Crucified;

Without, a sleety drizzle Cut deep each ragged form,-- An' so we stood the talkin' Fer shelter from the storm

They sang of God an' angels, An' heaven's eternal joy, An' things I stopped believin' When I was still a boy;

They spoke of good an' evil, An' offered savin' grace-- An' some showed love for mankin' A-shinin' in their face,

An' some their graft was workin' The same as me an' you: But most was urgin' on us Wot they believed was true.

We sang an' dozed an' listened, But only feared, us men, The time when, service over, We'd have to mooch again

An' walk the icy pavements An' breast the snowstorm gray Till the saloons was opened An' there was hints of day.

So, when they called out "Sinners, Won't you come!" I came ... But in my face was pallor And in my heart was shame ... An' so forgive me, Jesus, Fer mockin' of thy name--

Fer I was cold an' hungry! They gave me grub an' bed After I kneeled there with them An' many prayers was said.

An' so fergive me, Jesus, I didn't mean no harm-- An' outside it was zero, An' inside it was warm....

Yes, I was cold an' hungry,-- An', O Thou Crucified, Thou friend of all the Lowly, Fergive the lie I lied!

The Call of the Carpenter[A]

[A] By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co.

BY BOUCK WHITE

(American Congregational clergyman, born 1874; imprisoned for protesting in a church against the Colorado massacres)

Jesus held that self-respect required of the rich young man that he refuse to accept too long a handicap over his fellows in the race of life, and start as near as may be from the same mark with them. But he went also a step further. He exacted of the young man that he de-class himself. "Come, follow me." This was the staggerer. To stay in his own set and invest his fortune in works of charity, would have been comparatively easy. Philanthropy has been fashionable in every age. Charity takes the insurrectionary edge off of poverty. Therefore the philanthropic rich man is a benefactor to his fellow magnates, and is made to feel their gratitude; to him all doors of fashion swing. But Jesus issued a veto. He denied the legitimacy of alms-giving as a plaster for the deep-lying sore in the social tissue. Neighborly help, man to man, was acceptable to him, and he commended it. But philanthropy as a substitute for justice--he would have none of it. Charity is twice cursed--it hardens him that gives and softens him that takes. It does more harm to the poor than exploitation, because it makes them willing to be exploited. It breeds slavishness, which is moral suicide. The only thing Jesus would permit a swollen fortune to do was to give itself to revolutionary propaganda, in order that swollen fortunes might be forever after impossible. Patchwork reformers are but hewing at a hydra. Confronted with this imperative, the rich young ruler made the great refusal. To give up his fashionable set and join himself to this company of working-class Galileans, was a moral heroism to which he was unequal. Therefore he was sorrowful; he went away, for he had a great social standing.

Something of the same brand of atonement was evidently in the mind of Dives when he awoke to the mistake he had made--desirous to send from hell and tell his five brothers to use the family fortune in erecting a "Dives Home for the Hungry," belike with the family name and coat of arms over the front portal. Jesus would concede no such privilege. He referred those "five brethren" to "Moses and the prophets; let them hear them"--Moses being the leader of the labor movement which had given to the slaves in the Goshen brick-yards their long-deferred rights; and the prophets being those ardent Old Testament tribunes of the people who had so hotly contended for the family idea of society against the exploiters and graspers at the top. Dante's idea that each sin on earth fashions its own proper punishment in hell receives confirmation in this parable. "The great gulf fixed," which constituted Dives's hell, was the gulf which he himself had brought about. For the private fortune he amassed had broken up the solidarity of society--had introduced into it a chasm both broad and deep. The gulf between him and Lazarus in this world exists in the world to come to plague him. The thirst which parched Dives's tongue, "being in torments," was the thirst for companionship, the healing contact once more with his fellows, from whom his fortune had sundered him like a butcher's cleaver. Jesus had so exalted a notion of the working class, their absence of cant, their rugged facing of the facts, their elemental simplicities, their first-hand contact with the realities of life, that he regarded any man who should draw himself off from them in a fancied superiority, as immeasurably the loser thereby, and as putting himself "in torments."

Lazarus

(From the London "Spectator")

ANONYMOUS

Still he lingers, where wealth and fashion Meet together to dine or play-- Lingers, a matter of vague compassion, Out in the darkness across the way; Out beyond the warmth and the glitter, The light where luxury's laughter rings, Lazarus waits, where the wind is bitter, Receiving his evil things.

Still ye find him when, breathless, burning, Summer flames upon square and street, When the fortunate ones of the earth are turning Their thoughts to meadows and meadow-sweet; Far away from the wide green valley, The bramble patch where the white-throat sings, Lazarus sweats in his crowded alley, Receiving his evil things....

In the name of Knowledge the race grows healthier, In the name of Freedom the world grows great; And men are wiser, and men are wealthier, But--Lazarus lies at the rich man's gate. Lies as he lay through human history, Fame of heroes and pomp of kings, At the rich man's gate, an abiding mystery, Receiving his evil things.

A Parable

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

(See page 189)

Said Christ our Lord, "I will go and see How the men, my brethren, believe in me." He passed not again through the gate of birth, But made himself known to the children of earth.

Then said the chief priests, and rulers, and kings, "Behold, now, the Giver of all good things; Go to, let us welcome with pomp and state Him who alone is mighty and great."

With carpets of gold the ground they spread Wherever the Son of Man should tread, And in palace chambers lofty and rare They lodged him, and served him with kingly fare.

Great organs surged through arches dim Their jubilant floods in praise of him; And in church, and palace, and judgment-hall, He saw his image high over all.

But still, wherever his steps they led, The Lord in sorrow bent down his head, And from under the heavy foundation-stones The son of Mary heard bitter groans.

And in church, and palace, and judgment-hall, He marked great fissures that rent the wall, And opened wider and yet more wide As the living foundation heaved and sighed.

"Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, On the bodies and souls of living men? And think ye that building shall endure, Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?

"With gates of silver and bars of gold Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold; I have heard the dropping of their tears In heaven these eighteen hundred years."

"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, We build but as our fathers built; Behold thine images, how they stand, Sovereign and sole, through all our land.

"Our task is hard,--with sword and flame To hold thine earth forever the same, And with sharp crooks of steel to keep Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep."

Then Christ sought out an artisan, A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin Pushed from her faintly want and sin.

These set he in the midst of them, And as they drew back their garment-hem, For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he, "The images ye have made of me!"

FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was a hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me."

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, "Lord, when saw we thee a hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? or when saw we thee sick or in prison, and came unto thee?"

And the King shall answer and say unto them, "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was a hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not."

Then shall they also answer him, saying, "Lord, when saw we thee a hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?"

Then shall he answer them, saying, "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."

The Easter Children

(From "The Frozen Grail and other Poems")

BY ELSA BARKER

(See page 315)

"Christ the Lord is risen!" Chant the Easter children, Their love-moulded faces Luminous with gladness, And their costly raiment Gleaming like the lilies.

But last night I wandered Where Christ had not risen, Where love knows no gladness, Where the lord of Hunger Leaves no room for lilies, And no time for childhood.

And today I wonder Whether I am dreaming; For above the swelling Of their Easter music I can hear the murmur, "Suffer all the children."

Nay, the world is dreaming! And my seeing spirit Trembles for its waking, When their Saviour rises To restore the lilies To the outcast children.

The Quest

BY FREDERIK VAN EEDEN

(The most widely read of modern Dutch novels, this story of the life of "Little Johannes" is perhaps the most successful of the many attempts that have been made to portray the coming of Jesus into the modern world. Johannes is a boy of good family, who meets a strange, homeless workingman, to whom he becomes devoted, and whom he calls his "Brother." The present selection narrates how Johannes was taken to church.)

"You see, Father," said the countess, "we have come to seek Jesus. Johannes, also."

"He is waiting for you," replied the priest, solemnly, pointing out the great crucifix above the altar. Then he disappeared into the sacristy.

Johannes immediately fastened his eyes upon that figure, and continued to contemplate it while the people were taking their places.

It hung in the strongest light of the shadowy church. Apparently it was of wood stained to a pale rose, with peculiar blue and brown shadows. The wounds in the side and under the thorns on the forehead were distinct to exaggeration--all purple and swollen, with great streaks of blood like dark-red sealing-wax. The face, with its closed eyes, wore a look of distress, and a large circle of gold and precious stones waggishly adorned the usual russet-colored, cork-screwy, woodeny locks. The cross itself was of shining gold, and each of its four extremities was ornamented, while a nice, wavy paper above the head bore the letters I. N. R. I. One could see that it was all brand-new, and freshly gilded and painted. Wreaths and bouquets of paper flowers embellished the altar.

For a long time--perhaps a quarter of an hour--Johannes continued to look at the image. "That is Jesus," he muttered to himself, "He of whom I have so often heard. Now I am going to learn about Him, and He is to comfort me. He it is who has redeemed the world."

But however often he might repeat this, trying seriously to convince himself--because he would have been glad to be convinced and also to be redeemed--he could nevertheless see nothing except a repulsive, ugly, bloody, prinked-up wooden doll. And this made him feel doubly sorrowful and disheartened. Fully fifteen minutes had he sat there, looking and musing, hearing the people around him chatting--about the price they had paid for their places, about the keeping on or taking off of women's hats, and about the reserved seats for the first families. Then the door of the sacristy opened, and the choir-boys with their swinging censers, and the sacristan, and the priests in their beautiful, gold-bordered garments, came slowly and majestically in. And as the congregation kneeled, Johannes kneeled with them.

And when Johannes, as well as the others, looked at the incoming procession, and then again turned his eyes to the high altar, behold! there, to his amazement, kneeling before the white altar, he saw a dark form. It was in plain sight, bending forward in the twilight, the arms upon the altar, and the face hidden in the arms. A man it was, in the customary dark clothes of a laborer. No one--neither Johannes nor probably any one else in the church--had seen whence he came. But he was now in the full sight of all, and one could hear whisperings and a subdued excitement run along the rows of people and pass on to the rear, like a gust of wind over a grain-field.

As soon as the procession of choir-boys and priests came within sight of the altar, the sacristan stepped hastily out of line and went forward to the stranger, to assure him that, possibly from too deep absorption in devotion, or from lack of familiarity with ecclesiastical ceremony, he was guilty of intrusion.

He touched the man's shoulder, but the man did not stir. In the breathless stillness that followed, while everyone expectantly awaited the outcome, a deep, heartrending sob was heard.

"A penitent!" "A drunken man!" "A convert!" were some of the whispered comments of the people.

The perplexed sacristan turned round, and beckoned Father Canisius, who, with impressive bearing, stepped up in his white, gold-threaded garb, as imposingly as a full-sailed frigate moves.

"Your place is not here," said the priest, in his deep voice. He spoke kindly, and not particularly loudly. "Go to the back of the church."

There was no reply, and the man did not move; yet, in the still more profound silence, his weeping was so audible that many people shuddered.

"Do you not hear me?" said the priest, raising his voice a little, and speaking with some impatience. "It is well that you are repentant, but only the consecrated belong here--not penitents."

So saying, he grasped the shoulder of the stranger with his large, strong hand.

Then, slowly, very slowly, the kneeling man raised his head from his arms, and turned his face toward the priest.

What followed, perhaps each one of the hundreds of witnesses would tell differently; and of those who heard about it later, each had a different idea. But I am going to tell you what Johannes saw and heard--heard quite as clearly as you have seen and heard the members of your own household, today.

He saw his Brother's face, pale and illumined, as if his head were shone upon by beams of clearest sunlight. And the sadness of that face was so deep and unutterable, so bitter and yet so gentle, that Johannes felt forced, through pain, to press both hands upon his heart, and to set his teeth, while he gazed with wide, tear-filled eyes, forgetting everything save that shining face so full of grief.

For a time it was as still as death, while man and priest regarded each other. At last the man spoke, and said:

"Who are you, and in whose name are you here?"

When two men stand thus, face to face, and address each other with all earnestness in the hearing of many others, one of them is always immediately recognized to be the superior--even if the listeners are unable to gauge the force of the argument. Every one feels that superiority, although later many forget or deny it. If that dominance is not very great, it arouses spitefulness and fury; but if it is indeed great, it brings, betimes, repose and submissiveness.

In this case the ascendency was so great that the priest lost even the air of authority and assurance with which he had come forward, and did that for which, later, he reproached himself--he stopped to explain:

"I am a consecrated priest of the Triune God, and I speak in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ--our Saviour and Redeemer."

There ensued a long silence, and Johannes saw nothing but the shining, human face and the eyes, which, full of sorrow and compassion, continued to regard the richly robed priest with a bitter smile. The priest stood motionless, with hanging hands and staring eyes, as if uncertain what next to say or do; but he listened silently for what was coming, as did Johannes and all the others in the church--as if under an overpowering spell.

Then came the following words, and so long as they sounded no one could think of anything else--neither of the humble garb of him who spoke, nor of the incomprehensible subjection of his gorgeously arrayed listener:

"But you are not yet a man! Would you be a priest of the Most High?

"You are not yet redeemed, nor are these others with you redeemed, although you make bold to say so in the name of the Redeemer.

"Did your Saviour when upon earth wear cloth of silver and of gold?

"There is no redemption yet--neither for you nor for any of yours. The time is not come for the wearing of garments of gold.

"Mock not, nor slander. Your ostentation is a travesty of the Most High, and a defamation of your Saviour.

"Do you esteem the kingdom of God a trifle, that you array yourself and rejoice, while the world still lies in despair and in shackles?...

"You are so commanded to serve your Father in spirit and in truth, and you have served Him with the letter and with lies.

"His prophets, who loved the truth better than their lives, you have burned at the stake, and have made them martyrs....

"You pull the carriage of prince and moneyed man, and make grimaces before the powerful.

"They build your churches, and you say masses for them, although they be Satan himself....

"What have you done for the sheep committed to your care--for the poor and bereaved--for the oppressed and the disinherited?

"Submission you have taught them--ay--submission to Mammon. You have taught them to bow meekly to Satan.

"God's light--the light of knowledge--you have withheld from them. Woe be to you!

"You have taught them to beg, and to kiss the rod that smote them. You have cloaked the shame of alms-receiving, and have prated of honor in servitude.

"Thus have you humbled man, and disfigured the human soul....

"Of the love of the Father you have made commerce--a sinful merchandise. Not because you love virtue do you preach it, but because of the sweet profit. You promise deliverance to all who follow your counsel; but as well can you make a present of moon and stars.

"Are you not told to recompense evil with good? And is God less than man that He should do otherwise?

"It is well for you that He does not do otherwise, for where then were your salvation?

"For you, and you only, are the brood of vipers against whom is kindled the wrath of Him who was gentle with adulterers and murderers."

While speaking, the man had risen to his full height, and he now appeared, to all there assembled, impressively tall.

When he had spoken, reaching his right hand backward he grasped the foot of the great golden crucifix. It snapped off like glass, and he threw it on the marble floor at the feet of the priest. The fragment broke into many bits. It was apparently not wood, but plaster.

"Sacrilege!" cried the priest, in a stifled voice, as if the sound were wrung from his throat. His eyes seemed to be starting out of his great purple face.

The man quietly replied:

"No, but my right; for you are the sacrilegist and the blasphemer who makes of the Son of man a hideous caricature."

Then the priest stepped forward, and gripped Markus by the wrist. The latter made no resistance, but cried in a loud voice that reverberated through the church:

"Do your work, Caiaphas!"

After that he suffered himself to be led away to the sacristy.

The Image in the Forum

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN

(English novelist and dramatist, 1814-1901)

Not Baal, but Christus-Jingo! Heir Of him who once was crucified! The red stigmata still are there, The crimson spear-wounds in the side; But raised aloft as God and Lord, He holds the Money-bag and Sword.

See, underneath the Crown of Thorn, The eye-balls fierce, the features grim! And merrily from night to morn We chaunt his praise and worship him Great Christus-Jingo, at whose feet Christian and Jew and Atheist meet!

A wondrous god! most fit for those Who cheat on 'Change, then creep to prayer; Blood on his heavenly altar flows, Hell's burning incense fills the air, And Death attests in street and lane The hideous glory of his reign.

O gentle Jew, from age to age Walking the waves thou could'st not tame, This god hath ta'en thy heritage, And stolen thy sweet and stainless Name! To him we crawl and bend the knee, Naming thy Name, but scorning Thee!

The Quest

BY FREDERIK VAN EEDEN

(Sequel to the scene quoted on page 360. Jesus has been held for examination as to his sanity)

"Does he often have those whims, Johannes," asked Dr. Cijfer, "when he will not speak?"

"He has no whims," said Johannes, stoutly.

"Why, then, will he not reply?"

"I think you would not answer me," returned Johannes, "if I were to ask you if you were mad."

The two learned men exchanged smiles.

"That is a somewhat different situation," said Bommeldoos, haughtily.

"He was not questioned in such a blunt manner as that," explained Doctor Cijfer. "I asked about his extraction, his age, the health of his father and mother, about his own youth, and so forth--the usual memory promptings. Will you not give us some further information concerning him? Remember, it is of real importance to your brother."

"Mijnheer," said Johannes, "I know as little as yourself about all that...."

There was a knock at the door. The nurse came and said, "Here is the patient." Then he let Markus in....

Markus had on a dark-blue linen blouse, such as all the patients of the working-class wear. He stood tall and erect, and Johannes observed that his face was less pale and sad than usual. The blue became his dark curling hair, and Johannes felt happy and confident as he looked at him--standing there so proud and calm and handsome.

"Take a seat," said Dr. Cijfer.

But Markus seemed not to have heard, and remained standing, while he nodded kindly and reassuringly to Johannes.

"Observe his pride," said Professor Bommeldoos, in Latin to Dr. Cijfer.

"The proud find pride, and the gloomy, gloom; but the glad find gladness, and the lowly, humility," said Markus.

Dr. Cijfer stood up, and took his measuring instrument from the table. Then, in a quiet, courteous tone, he said:

"Will you not permit us, Mijnheer, to take your head measure? It is for a scientific purpose?"

"It gives no pain," added Bommeldoos.

"Not to the body," said Markus.

Said Dr. Cijfer, "There is nothing in it to offend one. I have had it done to myself many a time."

"There is a kind of opinionativeness and denseness that offend."

Bommeldoos flushed. "Opinionativeness and denseness! Mine, perchance? Am I such an ignoramus? Opinionated and stupid!"

"Colleague!" exclaimed Dr. Cijfer, in gentle expostulation. And then, as he enclosed Markus's head with the shining craniometer, he gave the measurement figures. A considerable time passed, nothing being heard save the low voice of the doctor dictating the figures. Then, as if proceeding with his present occupation, taking advantage of what he considered a compliant mood of the patient, the crafty doctor fancied he saw his opportunity, and said:

"Your parents certainly dwelt in another country--one more southerly and more mountainous."

But Markus removed the doctor's hand, with the instrument, from his head, and looked at him piercingly.

"Why are you not sincere?" he then asked, with gentle stress. "How can truth be found through untruth?"

Dr. Cijfer hesitated, and then did exactly what Father Canisius had done--something which, later, he was of the opinion he ought not to have done: he argued with him.

"But if you will not give me a direct reply I am obliged to get the truth circuitously."

Said Markus, "A curved sword will not go far into a straight scabbard."

Professor Bommeldoos grew impatient, and snapped at the doctor aside, in a smothered voice: "Do not argue, Colleague, do not argue! Megalomaniacs are smarter, and sometimes have subtler dialectic faculties than you have. Just let me conduct the examination."

And then, after a loud "h'm! h'm!" he said to Markus:

" ... Now just tell me, frankly, my friend, are you a prophet? An apostle? Are you perhaps the King? Or are you God himself?"

Markus was silent.

"Why do you not answer now?"

"Because I am not being questioned."

"Not being questioned! What, then, am I now doing?"

"Raving," said Markus.

Bommeldoos flushed, and lost his composure.

"Be careful, my friend. You must not be impertinent. Remember that we may decide your fate here."

Markus lifted his head, with a questioning air, so earnest that the professor held his peace.

"With whom rests the decision of our fate?" asked Markus. Then, pointing with his finger: "Do you consider yourself the one to decide?"

After that he uttered not a word. Dr. Cijfer questioned with gentle stress, Professor Bommeldoos with vehement energy; but Markus was silent, and seemed not to notice that there were others in the room.

"I adhere to my diagnosis, Colleague," said Bommeldoos.

Dr. Cijfer rang, and ordered the nurse to come.

"Take the patient to his ward again. He will remain, for the present, under observation."

Markus went, after making a short but kindly inclination of the head to Johannes.

"Will you not tell us now, Johannes, what you know of this person?" asked Dr. Cijfer.

"Mijnheer," replied Johannes, "I know but little more of him than you do yourself. I met him two years ago, and he is my dearest friend; but I have seen him rarely, and have never inquired about his life nor his origin."

"Remarkable!" exclaimed Dr. Cijfer.

"Once again, Colleague, I stand by my diagnosis," said Bommeldoos. "Initial paranoia, with megalomaniacal symptoms, on the basis of hereditary inferiority, with vicarious genius."

The Swordless Christ

BY PERCY ADAMS HUTCHISON

(American poet, born 1875)

"Vicisti Galilaee"

Ay, down the years behold he rides, The lowly Christ, upon an ass; But conquering? Ten shall heed the call, A thousand idly watch him pass:

They watch him pass, or lightly hold In mock lip-loyalty his name: A thousand--were they his to lead! But meek, without a sword, he came.

A myriad horsemen swept the field With Attila, the whirlwind Hun; A myriad cannon spake for him, The silent, dread Napoleon.

For these had ready spoil to give, Had reeking spoil for savage hands; Slaves, and fair wives, and pillage rare: The wealth of cities: teeming lands.

And if the world, once drunk with blood, Sated, has turned from arms to peace, Man hath not lost his ancient lusts; The weapons change; war doth not cease.

The mother in the stifling den, The brain-dulled child beside the loom, The hordes that swarm and toil and starve-- We laugh, and tread them to their doom.

They shriek, and cry their prayers to Christ; And lift wan faces, hands that bleed: In vain they pray, for what is Christ? A leader--without men to lead.

Ah, piteous Christ afar he rides! We see him, but the face is dim; We that would leap at crash of drums Are slow to rise and follow him.

How Long, O Lord

BY HALL CAINE

(English novelist and dramatist, born 1853)

Look down, O Lord, look down. Are the centuries a waste? Nigh upon two thousand years have gone since Thou didst walk the world, and the face of things is not unchanged. In Thy Name now doth the Pharisee give alms in the street to the sound of a trumpet going before him. In Thy Name now doth the Levite pass by on the other side when a man hath fallen among thieves. In Thy Name now doth the lawyer lay on the poor burdens grievous to be borne. In Thy Name now doth the priest buy and sell the glad tidings of the kingdom, giving for the gospel of God the commandments of men, living in rich men's houses, faring sumptuously every day, praying with his lips, "Give us this day our daily bread," but saying to his soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years: take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."

Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Is it this Thy gospel that yields that Thy fruit? Then will the master of the vineyard come shortly and say, "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?"

In a Siberian Prison Church

(From "Resurrection")

BY LEO TOLSTOY

(See pages 88, 110, 148, 276)

The service began.

It consisted of the following. The priest, having dressed himself up in a strange and very inconvenient garb of gold cloth, cut and arranged little bits of bread on a saucer and then put most of them in a cup with wine, repeating at the same time different names and prayers. Meanwhile the deacon first read Slavonic prayers, difficult to understand in themselves, and rendered still more incomprehensible by being read very fast; he then sang them turn and turn about with the convicts.

The essence of the service consisted in the supposition that the bits of bread cut up by the priest and put into the wine, when manipulated and prayed over in a certain way, turned into the flesh and blood of God.

These manipulations consisted in the priest, hampered by the gold cloth sack he had on, regularly lifting and holding up his arms and then sinking to his knees and kissing the table and all that was on it; but chiefly in his taking a cloth by two of its corners and waving it rhythmically and softly over the silver saucer and the golden cup. It was supposed that at this point the bread and the wine turned into flesh and blood; therefore this part of the service was performed with the utmost solemnity. And the convicts made the sign of the cross, and bowed, first at each sentence, then after every two, and then after three; and all were very glad when the glorification ended and the priest shut the book with a sigh of relief and retired behind the partition. One last act remained. The priest took from a table a large gilt cross with enamel medallions at the ends, and came out into the center of the church with it. First the inspector came up and kissed the cross, then the jailers, and then the convicts, pushing and jostling, and abusing each other in whispers. The priest, talking to the inspector, pushed the cross and his hand, now against the mouths and now against the noses of the convicts, who were trying to kiss both the cross and the hand of the priest. And thus ended the Christian service, intended for the comfort and edification of these brothers who had gone astray.

And none of these present, from the inspector down, seemed conscious of the fact that this Jesus, whose name the priest repeated such a great number of times, whom he praised with all these curious expressions, had forbidden the very things that were being done there; that he had not only prohibited this meaningless much-speaking and the blasphemous incantation over the bread and wine, but had also, in the clearest words, forbidden men to call other men their master or to pray in temples; had taught that every one should pray in solitude; had forbidden to erect temples, saying that he had come to destroy them, and that one should worship not in a temple, but in spirit and in truth; and, above all, that not only had he forbidden to judge, to imprison, to torment, to execute men, as was done here, but had even prohibited any kind of violence, saying that he had come to give freedom to the captives.

No one present seemed conscious that all that was going on here was the greatest blasphemy, and a mockery of that same Christ in whose name it was being done. No one seemed to realize that the gilt cross with the enamel medallions at the ends, which the priest held out to the people to be kissed, was nothing but the emblem of that gallows on which Christ had been executed for denouncing just what was going on here. That these priests, who imagined they were eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ in the form of bread and wine, did in reality eat and drink his flesh and his blood, only not as wine and bits of bread, but by ensnaring "these little ones" with whom he identified himself, by depriving them of the greatest blessings and submitting them to most cruel torments, and by hiding from men the tidings of great joy which he had brought--that thought did not enter the mind of any one present.

Before a Crucifix

BY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

(English poet of nature and liberty, 1837-1909)

Here, down between the dusty trees, At this lank edge of haggard wood, Women with labor-loosened knees, With gaunt backs bowed by servitude, Stop, shift their loads, and pray, and fare Forth with souls easier for the prayer.

The suns have branded black, the rains Striped gray this piteous God of theirs; The face is full of prayers and pains, To which they bring their pains and prayers; Lean limbs that shew the laboring bones, And ghastly mouth that gapes and groans.

God of this grievous people, wrought After the likeness of their race, By faces like thine own besought, Thine own blind helpless, eyeless face, I too, that have nor tongue nor knee For prayer, I have a word to thee.

It was for this then, that thy speech Was blown about the world in flame And men's souls shot up out of reach Of fear or lust or thwarting shame-- That thy faith over souls should pass As sea-winds burning the grey grass?

It was for this, that prayers like these Should spend themselves about thy feet, And with hard overlabored knees Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat Bosoms too lean to suckle sons And fruitless as their orisons?

It was for this, that men should make Thy name a fetter on men's necks, Poor men made poorer for thy sake, And women withered out of sex? It was for this, that slaves should be, Thy word was passed to set men free?

The nineteenth wave of the ages rolls Now deathward since thy death and birth. Hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls? Hast thou brought freedom upon earth? Or are there less oppressions done In this wild world under the sun?

Nay, if indeed thou be not dead, Before thy terrene shrine be shaken, Look down, turn usward, bow thine head; O thou that wast of God forsaken, Look on thine household here, and see These that have not forsaken thee.

Thy faith is fire upon their lips, Thy kingdom golden in their hands; They scourge us with thy words for whips, They brand us with thy words for brands; The thirst that made thy dry throat shrink To their moist mouths commends the drink....

O sacred head, O desecrate, O labor-wounded feet and hands, O blood poured forth in pledge to fate Of nameless lives in divers lands, O slain and spent and sacrificed People, the grey-grown speechless Christ!

Is there a gospel in the red Old witness of thy wide-mouthed wounds? From thy blind stricken tongueless head What desolate evangel sounds A hopeless note of hope deferred? What word, if there be any word?

O son of man, beneath man's feet Cast down, O common face of man Whereon all blows and buffets meet, O royal, O republican Face of the people bruised and dumb And longing till thy kingdom come!...

The tree of faith ingraft by priests Puts its foul foliage out above thee, And round it feed man-eating beasts Because of whom we dare not love thee; Though hearts reach back and memories ache, We cannot praise thee for their sake....

Nay, if their God and thou be one, If thou and this thing be the same, Thou shouldst not look upon the sun; The sun grows haggard at thy name. Come down, be done with, cease, give o'er; Hide thyself, strive not, be no more.

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Book VIII

The Church

Contains passages, both of exhortation and denunciation, dealing with the relation of the church toward modern problems, and the effort to bring back a property-strangled institution to the revolutionary gospel of its founder.

God and My Neighbor

BY ROBERT BLATCHFORD

(See pages 66, 121, 170)

"For all that, Robert, you're a notorious Infidel." I paused--just opposite the Tivoli--and gazed moodily up and down the Strand.

As I have remarked elsewhere, I like the Strand. It is a very human place. But I own that the Strand lacks dignity and beauty, and that amongst its varied odors the odor of sanctity is scarcely perceptible.

There are no trees in the Strand. The thoroughfare should be wider. The architecture is, for the most part, banal. For a chief street in a Christian capital, the Strand is not eloquent of high national ideals.

There are derelict churches in the Strand, and dingy, blatant taverns, and strident signs and hoardings; and there are slums hard by.

There are thieves in the Strand, and prowling vagrants, and gaunt hawkers, and touts, and gamblers, and loitering failures, with tragic eyes and wilted garments; and prostitutes plying for hire.

And east and west, and north and south of the Strand, there is London. Is there a man amongst all London's millions brave enough to tell the naked truth about the vice and crime, the misery and meanness, the hypocrisies and shames of the great, rich, heathen city? Were such a man to arise amongst us and voice the awful truth, what would his reception be? How would he fare at the hands of the Press, and the Public--and the Church?

As London is, so is England. This is a Christian country. What would Christ think of Park Lane, and the slums, and the hooligans? What would He think of the Stock Exchange, and the music hall, and the race-course? What would He think of our national ideals? What would He think of the House of Peers, and the Bench of Bishops, and the Yellow Press?

Pausing again, over against Exeter Hall, I mentally apostrophize the Christian British people. "Ladies and Gentlemen," I say, "you are Christians in name, but I discern little of Christ in your ideals, your institutions, or your daily lives. You are a mercenary, self-indulgent, frivolous, boastful, blood-guilty mob of heathen. I like you very much, but that is what you are. And it is you--you who call men 'Infidels.' You ridiculous creatures, what do you mean by it?"

If to praise Christ in words, and deny Him in deeds, be Christianity, then London is a Christian city, and England is a Christian nation. For it is very evident that our common English ideals are anti-Christian, and that our commercial, foreign, and social affairs are run on anti-Christian lines.

Renan says, in his Life of Jesus, that "were Jesus to return amongst us He would recognize as His disciples, not those who imagine they can compress Him into a few catechismal phrases, but those who labour to carry on his work."

My Christian friends, I am a Socialist, and as such believe in, and work for, universal freedom, and universal brotherhood, and universal peace.

And you are Christians, and I am an "Infidel." Well, be it even so.

FROM THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

When he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!

From the Bottom Up

BY ALEXANDER IRVINE

(The life-story of an Irish peasant lad, born 1863, who became in turn stableman, man-of-war's-man, slum-missionary, clergyman, and Socialist agitator)

After some years' experience in missions and mission churches, I would find it very hard if I were a workingman living in a tenement not to be antagonistic to them; for, in large measure, such work is done on the assumption that people are poor and degraded through laxity in morals. The scheme of salvation is a salvation for the individual; social salvation is out of the question. Social conditions cannot be touched, because in all rotten social conditions, there is a thin red line which always leads to the rich man or woman who is responsible for them.

Coming in contact with these ugly social facts continuously, led me to this belief. It came very slowly; as did also the opinion that the missionary himself or the pastor, be he as wise as Solomon, as eloquent as Demosthenes, as virtuous as St. Francis, has no social standing whatever among the people whose alms support the institutions, religious and philanthropic, of which he is the executive head. The fellowship of the saints is a pure fiction, has absolutely no foundation in fact in a city like New York except as the poor saints have it by themselves.

FROM THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.

The Inside of the Cup[A]

[A] By permission of the Macmillan Co.

BY WINSTON CHURCHILL

(One of the most popular of American novelists, born 1871. This story has for its theme the failure of the Church in the face of modern social problems. In the following scene a rich man is rebuked by his pastor)

The perceptions of the banker were keen, and his sense of security was brief. Somehow, as he met the searching eye of the rector, he was unable to see the man as a visionary, but beheld and,--to do him justice--felt a twinge of respect for an adversary worthy of his steel. He, who was accustomed to prepare for clouds when they were mere specks on his horizon, paused even now to marvel why he had not dealt with this. Here was a man--a fanatic, if he liked--but still a man who positively did not fear him, to whom his wrath and power were as nothing! A new and startling and complicated sensation--but Eldon Parr was no coward. If he had, consciously or unconsciously, formerly looked upon the clergyman as a dependent, Hodder appeared to be one no more. The very ruggedness of the man had enhanced, expanded--as it were--until it filled the room. And Hodder had, with an audacity unparalleled in the banker's experience, arraigned by implication his whole life, managed to put him on the defensive.

"But if that has become your philosophy," the rector said--"that a man must look out for himself--what is it in you that impels you to give these large sums for the public good?"

"I should suppose that you, as a clergyman, might understand that my motive is a Christian one."

Hodder sat very still, but a higher light came into his eyes.

"Mr. Parr," he replied, "I have been a friend of yours, and I am a friend still. And what I am going to tell you is not only in the hope that others may benefit, but that your own soul may be saved. I mean that literally--your own soul. You are under the impression that you are a Christian, but you are not and never have been one. And you will not be one until your whole life is transformed, until you become a different man. If you do not change, it is my duty to warn you that sorrow and suffering, the uneasiness which you now know, and which drive you on, in search of distraction, to adding useless sums of money to your fortune--this suffering, I say, will become intensified. You will die in the knowledge of it, and live on after, in the knowledge of it."

In spite of himself, the financier drew back before this unexpected blast, the very intensity of which had struck a chill of terror in his inmost being. He had been taken off his guard,--for he had supposed the day long past--if it had ever existed--when a spiritual rebuke would upset him; the day long past when a minister could pronounce one with any force. That the Church should ever again presume to take herself seriously had never occurred to him. And yet--the man had denounced him in a moment of depression, of nervous irritation and exasperation against a government which had begun to interfere with the sacred liberty of its citizens, against political agitators who had spurred that government on. The world was mad. No element, it seemed, was now content to remain in its proper place. His voice, as he answered, shook with rage,--all the greater because the undaunted sternness by which it was confronted seemed to reduce it to futility.

"Take care!" he cried, "take care! You, nor any other man, clergyman or no clergyman, have any right to be the judge of my conduct."

"On the contrary," said Hodder, "if your conduct affects the welfare, the progress, the reputation of the church of which I am rector, I have the right. And I intend to exercise it. It becomes my duty, however painful, to tell you, as a member of the Church, wherein you have wronged the Church and wronged yourself."

He didn't raise his tone, and there was in it more of sorrow than of indignation. The banker turned an ashen gray.... A moment elapsed before he spoke, a transforming moment. He suddenly became ice.

"Very well," he said. "I can't pretend to account for these astounding views you have acquired--and I am using a mild term. Let me say this" (he leaned forward a little, across the desk): "I demand that you be specific. I am a busy man, I have little time to waste, I have certain matters before me which must be attended to to-night. I warn you that I will not listen any longer to vague accusations."

It was Hodder's turn to marvel. Did Eldon Parr, after all, have no sense of guilt? Instantaneously, automatically, his own anger rose.

"You may be sure, Mr. Parr, that I should not be here unless I were prepared to be specific. And what I am going to say to you I have reserved for your ear alone, in the hope that you will take it to heart while it is not yet too late, and amend your life accordingly...."

(The clergyman tells the banker of lives that have been ruined by his financial dishonesties.)

"I am not talking about the imperfect code of human justice under which we live, Mr. Parr," he cried. "This is not a case in which a court of law may exonerate you, it is between you and your God. But I have taken the trouble to find out, from unquestioned sources, the truth about the Consolidated Tractions Company--I shall not go into the details at length--they are doubtless familiar to you. I know that the legal genius of Mr. Langmaid, one of my vestry, made possible the organization of the company, and thereby evaded the plain spirit of the law of the state. I know that one branch line was bought for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and capitalized for three millions, and that most of the others were scandalously over-capitalized. I know that while the coming transaction was still a secret, you and other gentlemen connected with the matter bought up large interests in other lines, which you proceeded to lease to yourselves at guaranteed dividends which these lines do not earn. I know that the first large dividend was paid out of capital. And the stock which you sold to poor Garvin was so hopelessly watered that it never could have been anything but worthless. If, in spite of these facts, you do not deem yourself responsible for the misery which has been caused, if your conscience is now clear, it is my duty to tell you that there is a higher bar of justice."

The intensity of the fire of the denunciation had, indeed, a momentary yet visible effect in the banker's expression. Whatever the emotions thus lashed to self-betrayal, anger, hatred,--fear, perhaps, Hodder could not detect a trace of penitence; and he was aware, on the part of the other, of a supreme, almost spasmodic effort for self-control. The constitutional reluctance of Eldon Parr to fight openly could not have been more clearly demonstrated.

"Because you are a clergyman, Mr. Hodder," he began, "because you are the rector of St. John's, I have allowed you to say things to me which I would not have permitted from any other man. I have tried to take into account your point of view, which is naturally restricted, your pardonable ignorance of what business men, who wish to do their duty by Church and State, have to contend with. When you came to this parish you seemed to have a sensible, a proportional view of things; you were content to confine your activities to your own sphere, content not to meddle with politics and business, which you could, at first hand, know nothing about. The modern desire of clergymen to interfere in these matters has ruined the usefulness of many of them.

"I repeat, I have tried to be patient. I venture to hope, still, that this extraordinary change in you may not be permanent, but merely the result of a natural sympathy with the weak and unwise and unfortunate who are always to be found in a complex civilization. I can even conceive how such a discovery must have shocked you, temporarily aroused your indignation, as a clergyman, against the world as it is--and, I may add, as it has always been. My personal friendship for you, and my interest in your future welfare impel me to make a final appeal to you not to ruin a career which is full of promise...."

"I hinted to you awhile ago of a project I have conceived and almost perfected of gifts on a much larger scale than I have ever attempted." The financier stared at him meaningly. "And I had you in mind as one of the three men whom I should consult, whom I should associate with myself in the matter. We cannot change human nature, but we can better conditions by wise giving. I do not refer now to the settlement house, which I am ready to help make and maintain as the best in the country, but I have in mind a system to be carried out with the consent and aid of the municipal government, of playgrounds, baths, parks, places of recreation, and hospitals, for the benefit of the people, which will put our city in the very forefront of progress. And I believe, as a practical man, I can convince you that the betterment which you and I so earnestly desire can be brought about in no other way. Agitation can only result in anarchy and misery for all."

Hodder's wrath, as he rose from his chair, was of the sort that appears incredibly to add to the physical stature,--the bewildering spiritual wrath which is rare indeed, and carries all before it.

"Don't tempt me, Mr. Parr!" he said. "Now that I know the truth, I tell you frankly I would face poverty and persecution rather than consent to your offer. And I warn you once more not to flatter yourself that existence ends here, that you will not be called to answer for every wrong act you have committed in accumulating your fortune, that what you call business is an affair of which God takes no account. What I say may seem foolishness to you, but I tell you, in the words of that Foolishness, that it will not profit you to gain the whole world and lose your own soul. You remind me that the Church in old time accepted gifts from the spoils of war, and I will add of rapine and murder. And the Church today, to repeat your own parallel, grows rich with money wrongfully got. Legally? Ah, yes, legally, perhaps. But that will not avail you. And the kind of church you speak of--to which I, to my shame, once consented--Our Lord repudiates. It is none of his. I warn you, Mr. Parr, in his Name, first to make your peace with your brothers before you presume to lay another gift on the altar."

During this withering condemnation of himself Eldon Parr sat motionless, his face grown livid, an expression on it that continued to haunt Hodder long afterwards. An expression, indeed, which made the banker almost unrecognizable.

"Go," he whispered, his hand trembling visibly as he pointed towards the door. "Go--I have had enough of this."

Trinity Church

BY EDWIN DAVIES SCHOONMAKER

(Contemporary American poet)

In vain she points her finger to the sky And sends her voice along the famous street, Admonishing how the mortal hours fleet And bidding men bethink that they must die. Tearing the coat of Christ they jostle by And ply their gambling at her very feet. "Prepare, prepare, prepare thy God to meet!" She loudly calls. They do not heed her. Why?

Thou, stuffed with tithes of them that traffic here, Flesh of their flesh, and with thy spotted hand Buying and selling, fattening year by year, How darest thou rebuke this venal band? Thou mocker of the man of Galilee, Prepare to meet thy God, thou Pharisee.

The Church and the Workers

BY WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH

(See page 346)

The stratification of society is becoming more definite in our country, and the people are becoming more conscious of it. The industrial conflicts make them realize how their interests diverge from those of the commercial class. As that consciousness increases, it becomes harder for the two classes to meet in the expression of Christian faith and love--in prayer meetings, for instance. When the Christian business man is presented as a model Christian, working people are coming to look with suspicion on these samples of our Christianity. I am not justifying that, but simply stating the fact. They disapprove of the Christianity of the churches, not because it is too good, but because it is not good enough. The working people are now developing the principle and practice of solidarity, which promises to be one of the most potent ethical forces of the future, and which is essentially more Christian than the covetousness and selfishness which we regard as the indispensable basis of commerce. If this is a correct diagnosis of our condition, is it strange that the Church is unable to evangelize a class alienated from it by divergent class interests and class morality?

Tainted Wealth

BY JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

(See page 298)

Capacious is the Church's belly; Whole nations it has swallowed down, Yet no dyspepsia 'neath its gown; The Church alone, in jewels drest, Your "tainted wealth" can quite digest.

The Collection

BY ERNEST HOWARD CROSBY

(American writer and social reformer, 1856-1907)

I passed the plate in church.

There was little silver, but the crisp bank-notes heaped themselves up high before me;

And ever as the pile grew, the plate became warmer and warmer until it burned my fingers, and a smell of scorching flesh rose from it, and I perceived that some of the notes were beginning to smoulder and curl, half-browned, at the edges.

And then I saw thru the smoke into the very substance of the money, and I beheld what it really was;

I saw the stolen earnings of the poor, the wide margins of wages pared down to starvation;

I saw the underpaid factory girl eking out her living on the street, and the overworked child, and the suicide of the discharged miner;

I saw poisonous gases from great manufactories spreading disease and death; ...

I saw hideousness extending itself from coal mine and foundry over forest and river and field;

I saw money grabbed from fellow grabbers and swindlers, and underneath them the workman forever spinning it out of his vitals....

I saw all this, and the plate burned my fingers so that I had to hold it first in one hand and then in the other; and I was glad when the parson in his white robes took the smoking pile from me on the chancel steps and, turning about, lifted it up and laid it on the altar.

It was an old-time altar indeed, for it bore a burnt offering of flesh and blood--a sweet savor unto the Moloch whom these people worship with their daily round of human sacrifices.

The shambles are in the temple as of yore, and the tables of the money-changers, waiting to be overturned.

BY ÉMILE DE LAVELAYE

(Belgian economist, 1822-1892)

If Christianity were taught and understood conformably to the spirit of its Founder, the existing social organism could not last a day.

The Voice of the Early Church

BY CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

(Greek Church; 150-215)

I know that God has given us the use of goods, but only as far as is necessary; and He has determined that the use be common. It is absurd and disgraceful for one to live magnificently and luxuriously when so many are hungry.

BY TERTULLIAN

(Earliest of the Latin fathers; 155-222)

All is common with us except women. Jesus was our man, God and brother. He restored unto all men what cruel murderers took from them by the sword. Christians have no master and no Christian shall be bound for bread and raiment. The land is no man's inheritance; none shall possess it as property.

BY ST. CYPRIAN

(Latin; 200-258)

No man shall be received into our commune who sayeth that the land may be sold. God's footstool is not property.

BY ST. BASIL

(Greek Church; 329-379)

Which things, tell me, are yours? Whence have you brought your goods into life? You are like one occupying a place in a theatre, who should prohibit others from entering, treating that as his own which was designed for the common use of all. Such are the rich. Because they preoccupy common goods, they take these goods as their own. If each one would take that which is sufficient for his needs, leaving what is superfluous to those in distress, no one would be rich, no one poor.... The rich man is a thief.

BY ST. AMBROSE

(Latin; 340-397)

How far, O rich, do you extend your senseless avarice? Do you intend to be the sole inhabitants of the earth? Why do you drive out the fellow sharers of nature, and claim it all for yourselves? The earth was made for all, rich and poor, in common. Why do you rich claim it as your exclusive right? The soil was given to the rich and poor in common--wherefore, oh, ye rich, do you unjustly claim it for yourselves alone? Nature gave all things in common for the use of all; usurpation created private rights. Property hath no rights. The earth is the Lord's, and we are his offspring. The pagans hold earth as property. They do blaspheme God.

BY ST. JEROME

(Latin; 340-420)

All riches come from iniquity, and unless one has lost, another cannot gain. Hence that common opinion seems to me to be very true, "the rich man is unjust, or the heir an unjust one." Opulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor.

BY ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

(Greek Church; 347-407)

Tell me, whence are you rich? From whom have you received? From your grandfather, you say; from your father. Are you able to show, ascending in the order of generation, that that possession is just throughout the whole series of preceding generations? Its beginning and root grew necessarily out of injustice. Why? Because God did not make this man rich and that man poor from the beginning. Nor, when He created the world, did He allot much treasure to one man, and forbid another to seek any. He gave the same earth to be cultivated by all. Since, therefore, His bounty is common, how comes it that you have so many fields, and your neighbor not even a clod of earth?... The idea we should have of the rich and covetous--they are truly as robbers, who, standing in the public highway, despoil the passers.

BY ST. AUGUSTINE

(Latin; 354-430)

The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others.

BY ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

(Latin; 540-604)

They must be admonished who do not seek another's goods, yet do not give of their own, that they may know that the earth from which they have received is common to all men, and therefore its products are given in common to all. They, therefore, wrongly think they are innocent who claim for themselves the common gift of God. When they do not give what they have received, they assist in the death of neighbors, because daily almost as many of the poor perish as have been deprived of means which the rich have kept to themselves. When we give necessaries to the needy we do not bestow upon them our goods; we return to them their own; we pay a debt of justice rather than fulfil a work of mercy.

The Annexing of Christianity[A]

[A] By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co.

(From "The Call of the Carpenter")

BY BOUCK WHITE

(See page 353)

The annexing process was started by a Roman citizen named Saul. Formerly a Jew, he deserted his nationality and with it his former name, and called himself thereafter Paul. Paul was undeniably sincere. He believed that in reinterpreting the Christian faith so as to make it acceptable to the Romans he was doing that faith a service. His make-up was imperial rather than democratic. Both by birth and training he was unfitted to enter into the working-class consciousness of Galileans. He was in culture a Hellenist, in religion a Pharisee, in citizenship a Roman. From the first strain, Hellenism, he received a bias in the direction of philosophy rather than economics; from the second, his Pharisaism, he received a bias toward aloofness, otherworldliness; and from the third, his Romanism, he received a bias toward political acquiescence and the preservation of the status quo....

Paul planned to make Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. It needed a religion badly. The catalogue of its vices, in the forepart of the Epistle to the Romans, is proof. Paul the Roman citizen saw nothing but excellence in Rome's world-wide empire. Only, it must be redeemed from its laxity of morals. Therefore he would bring to it the Christ as its cleanser and thereby its perpetuator. It was the test of loyal citizenship among the Romans to seek out in every part of the world that which was most rare and valued, and bring it back to Rome as a gift. Thus her sons went forth and returned laden with richest trophies to lay at her feet. They brought to her pearls from India, gold chariots from Babylon, elephants from interior Africa, high-breasted virgins from the Greek isles, Phidian marbles from Athens. Paul also would be a bringer of gifts to the Rome that had honored him and his fathers with the high honor of citizenship. And the gift he would bring and lay at her feet would be the richest of them all--a religion....

Paul was a stockholder in Rome's world corporation. And that stock by slow degrees had blinded him to the injustice of a social system in whose dividends he himself shared. This explains in large part why he accepted the political status quo, and preached its acceptance by others. Students of ethics have difficulty in reconciling Aristotle's defence of human servitude, "slavery is a law of nature which is advantageous and just," with his insight and logic in other matters. The difficulty resolves itself when it is recalled that Aristotle possessed thirteen slaves, and therefore had exactly thirteen arguments for the righteousness of slavery. Seneca, gifted in other things with fine powers of moral philosophy, saw no monstrousness in Nero that he should rebuke--Seneca was a favorite with Nero, and was using that favoritism to amass an enormous fortune. Paul was too highly educated--using the term in its academic sense--to be at one with the unbookish Galileans, and he was personally too much the gainer from Rome's empire of privilege to share the insurrectionary spirit of the Son of Mary....

Paul was under the spell of Rome's material greatness. His heart was secretly enticed by her triumphal arches, her literature, her palaces on the Palatine, her baths, porticos of philosophy, gymnasia, schools of rhetoric, her athletic games in the arena. He thought of her history, her jurisprudence, her military might, the starry names in her roll of glory, her sweep of empire from the Thames to the Tigris, and from the Rhine to the deserts of Africa; and when, to this summary, came the pleasant reflection that he was a part of this world corporation, one of the privileged few to share in its profits, it was not hard for him to find reasons to justify his desertion of that poverty-stricken and fanatically democratic race of Israel off there in unimportant Palestine.

A true Roman, Paul preaches to the proletariat the duty of political passivity. To the Carpenter, with his splendid worldliness, the premier qualification for character was self-respect, and the alertness and mastery of environment which go with self-respect. But to Paul the primate virtue is submissiveness--"the powers that be!" He sought to cure the seditiousness of the working class by drawing off their gaze to a crown of righteousness reserved in heaven for them--a gaseous felicity beyond the stars. Israel, holding fast to the enrichment of the present life, had kept its religion from getting off into fog lands, by seeking "a city that hath foundations." But Paul sought to hush all these "worldly" aims; he wooed the toiling masses to desire "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." He was a true yoke-fellow of Pylades, the Roman play-actor, who, wishing to justify his usefulness to the master class, said to Augustus that "it was for the emperor's advantage that the people should have their attention fixed on the playhouse rather than on politics."

Preface to "Major Barbara"

BY G. BERNARD SHAW

(See pages 193, 212, 263)

Churches are suffered to exist only on condition that they preach submission to the State as at present capitalistically organized. The Church of England itself is compelled to add to the thirty-six articles in which it formulates its religious tenets, three more in which it apologetically protests that the moment any of these articles comes in conflict with the State it is to be entirely renounced, abjured, violated, abrogated and abhorred, the policeman being a much more important person than any of the Persons of the Trinity. And this is why no tolerated Church nor Salvation Army can ever win the entire confidence of the poor. It must be on the side of the police and the military, no matter what it believes or disbelieves; and as the police and the military are the instruments by which the rich rob and oppress the poor (on legal and moral principles made for the purpose), it is not possible to be on the side of the poor and of the police at the same time. Indeed the religious bodies, as the almoners of the rich, become a sort of auxiliary police, taking off the insurrectionary edge of poverty with coals and blankets, bread and treacle, and soothing and cheering the victims with hopes of immense and inexpensive happiness in another world, when the process of working them to premature death in the service of the rich is complete in this.

Prince Hagen

BY UPTON SINCLAIR

(Prince Hagen, ruler of the Nibelungs, a race of gold-hoarding gnomes, comes up to visit the land of the earth-men, and study Christian civilization. He finds a number of ideas worth taking back to his underground home)

Prince Hagen paused for a moment and puffed in silence; then suddenly he remarked: "Do you know that it is a very wonderful idea--that immortality? Did you ever think about it?"

"Yes," I said, "a little."

"I tell you, the man who got that up was a world-genius. When I saw how it worked, it was something almost too much for me to believe; and still I find myself wondering if it can last. For you know if you can once get a man believing in immortality, there is no more left for you to desire; you can take everything in the world he owns--you can skin him alive if it pleases you--and he will bear it all with perfect good humor. I tell you what, I lie awake at night and dream about the chances of getting the Nibelungs to believe in immortality; I don't think I can manage it, but it is a stake worth playing for. I say the phrases over to myself--you know them all--'It is better to give than to receive'--'Lay not up for yourself treasures on earth'--'Take no heed, saying what shall ye eat!' As a matter of fact, I fancy the Nibelungs will prove pretty tough at reforming, but it is worth any amount of labor. Suppose I could ever get them to the self-renouncing point! Just fancy the self-renunciation of a man with a seventy-mile tunnel full of gold!"

Prince Hagen's eyes danced; his face was a study. I watched him wonderingly. "Why do you go to all that bother?" I demanded, suddenly. "If you want the gold, why don't you simply kill the Nibelungs and take it?"

"I have thought of that," he replied; "I might easily manage it all with a single revolver. But why should I kill the geese that lay me golden eggs? I want not only the gold they have, but the gold that they will dig through the centuries that are to come; for I know that the resources of Nibelheim, if they could only be properly developed, would be simply infinite. So I have made up my mind to civilize the people and develop their souls."

"Explain to me just how you expect to get their gold," I said.

"Just as the capitalist is getting it in New York," was the response. "At present the Nibelungs hide their wealth; I mean to broaden their minds, and establish a system of credit. I mean to teach them ideals of usefulness and service, to establish the arts and sciences, to introduce machinery and all the modern improvements that tend to increase the centralization of power; I shall be master--just as I am here--because I am the strongest, and because I am not a dupe."

"I see," I said; "but all this will take a long time."

"Yes," said he, "I know; it is the whole course of history to be lived over again. But there will be no mistakes and no groping in this case, for I know the way, and I am king. It will be a sort of benevolent despotism--the ideal form of government, as I believe."

"And you are sure there is no chance of your plans failing?"

"Failing!" he laughed. "You should have seen how they have worked so far."

"You have begun applying them?"

"I have been down to Nibelheim twice since the death of dear grandpa," said the prince. "The first time, as you imagine, there was tremendous excitement, for all Nibelheim knew what a bad person I had been, and stood in terror of my return. I got them all together and told them the truth--that I had become wise and virtuous, that I meant to respect every man's property, and that I meant to consecrate my whole endeavor to the developing of the resources of my native land. And then you should have witnessed the scene! They went half wild with rejoicing; they fell down on their knees and thanked me with tears in their eyes: I played the pater patriae in a fashion to take away your breath. And afterwards I went on to explain to them that I had discovered very many wonderful things up on the earth; that I was going to make a law forbidding any of them to go there, because it was so dangerous, but that I myself was going to brave all the perils for their sakes. I told them about a wonderful animal that was called a steam-drill, and that ate fire, and dug out gold with swiftness beyond anything they could imagine. I said that I was going to empty all my royal treasure caves, and take my fortune and some of theirs to the earth to buy a few thousand of these wonderful creatures; and I promised them that I would give them to the Nibelungs to use, and they might have twice as much gold as they would have dug with their hands, provided they would give me the balance. Of course they agreed to it with shouts of delight, and the contracts were signed then and there. They helped me get out all my gold, and I took them down the steam-drills, and showed them how to manage them; so before very long I expect to have quite a snug little income."

The Prince

BY NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

(Italian courtier, author of a famous treatise on statecraft: 1469-1527)

A prince has to have particular care that, to see and to hear him, he appears all goodness, integrity, humanity and religion, which last he ought to pretend to more than ordinarily. For everybody sees, but few understand; everybody sees how you appear, but few know what in reality you are, and those few dare not oppose the opinion of the multitude, who have the majesty of their prince to defend them.

Children of the Dead End[A]

[A] By permission of E. P. Dutton & Co.

BY PATRICK MACGILL

(See pages 32, 47, 122)

Nearly every second year the potatoes went bad; then we were always hungry, although Farley McKeown, a rich merchant in the neighboring village, let my father have a great many bags of Indian meal on credit. A bag contained sixteen stone of meal and cost a shilling a stone. On the bag of meal Farley McKeown charged sixpence a month interest; and fourpence a month on a sack of flour which cost twelve shillings. All the people round about were very honest, and paid up their debts when they were able. Usually when the young went off to Scotland or England they sent home money to their fathers and mothers, and with this money the parents paid for the meal to Farley McKeown. "What doesn't go to the landlord goes to Farley McKeown," was a Glenmornan saying.

The merchant was a great friend of the parish priest, who always told the people if they did not pay their debts they would burn for ever and ever in hell. "The fires of eternity will make you sorry for the debts that you did not pay," said the priest. "What is eternity?" he would ask in a solemn voice from the altar steps. "If a man tried to count the sands on the sea-shore and took a million years to count every single grain, how long would it take him to count them all? A long time, you'll say. But that time is nothing to eternity. Just think of it! Burning in hell while a man, taking a million years to count a grain of sand, counts all the sand on the sea-shore. And this because you did not pay Farley McKeown his lawful debts, his lawful debts within the letter of the law." That concluding phrase, "within the letter of the law," struck terror into all who listened, and no one, maybe not even the priest himself, knew what it meant.

Incantations

BY MAX EASTMAN

(Editor of "The Masses," born 1883)

I remember a vesper service at Ravello in Italy. I remember that the exquisite and pathetically resplendent little chapel was filled with ragged and dirty-smelling and sweet, sad-eyed mothers. Some carried in their arms their babies, some carried only a memory in their haggard eyes. They were all poor. They were all sad in that place. They were mothers. Mothers wrinkle-eyed, stooped, worn old, but yet gentle--O, so gentle and eager to believe that it would all be made up to them and their beloved in Heaven! I see their bodies swaying to the chant of meaningless long syllables of Latin magic, I see them worked upon by those dark agencies of candle, and minor chord, and incense, and the unknown tongue, and I see that this little dirt-colored coin clutched so tight in their five fingers is going to be given up, with a kind of desperate haste, ere the climax of these incantations is past. Poor, anguished dupes of the hope of Heaven, poor mothers, pinching your own children's bellies to fatten the wallets of those fat priests!

Exit Salvatore

BY CLEMENT WOOD

(American poet, born 1888)

Salvatore's dead--a gap Where he worked in the ditch-edge, shovelling mud; Slanting brow; a head mayhap Rather small, like a bullet; hot southern blood; Surly now, now riotous With the flow of his joy; and his hovel bare, As his whole life is to us-- A stone in his belly the whole of his share.

Body starved, but the soul secure, Masses to save it from Purgatory, And to dwell with the Son and the Virgin pure-- Lucky Salvatore!

Salvatore's glad, for see On the hearse and the coffin, purple and black, Tassels, ribbons, broidery Fit for the Priest's or the Pope's own back; Flowers costly, waxen, gay, And the mates from the ditch-edge, pair after pair; Dirging band, and the Priest to pray, And the soul of the dead one pleasuring there.

Body starved, and the mind as well. Peace--let him rot in his costly glory, Cheated no more with a Heaven or Hell-- Exit Salvatore.

FROM MICAH

Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets divine for money.... Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.

The Saint

BY ANTONIO FOGAZZARO

(Italian poet and novelist, 1842-1911. A devout Catholic, he endeavored to reform the Church from within. The present novel created a tremendous sensation in Italy, and was placed upon the "Index." In this scene "the Saint" pleads with the Pope)

"May I continue, Your Holiness?"

The Pope, who while Benedetto had been speaking had kept his eyes fixed on his face, now bowed his head slightly, in answer.

"The third evil spirit which is corrupting the Church does not disguise itself as an angel of light, for it well knows it cannot deceive; it is satisfied with the garb of common, human honesty. This is the spirit of avarice. The Vicar of Christ dwells in this royal palace as he dwelt in his episcopal palace, with the pure heart of poverty. Many venerable pastors dwell in the Church with the same heart, but the spirit of poverty is not preached sufficiently, not preached as Christ preached it. The lips of Christ's ministers are too often over-complaisant to those who seek riches. There are those among them who bow the head respectfully before the man who has much, simply because he has much; there are those who let their tongues flatter the greedy, and too many preachers of the word and of the example of Christ deem it just for them to revel in the pomp and honors attending on riches, to cleave with their souls to the luxury riches bring. Father, exhort the clergy to show those greedy for gain, be they rich or poor, more of that charity which admonishes, which threatens, which rebukes. Holy Father!----"

Benedetto ceased speaking. There was an expression of fervent appeal in the gaze fixed upon the Pope.

"Well?" the Pontiff murmured.

Benedetto spread wide his arms, and continued:

"The Spirit urges me to say more. It is not the work of a day, but let us prepare for the day--not leaving this task to the enemies of God and of the Church--let us prepare for the day on which the priests of Christ shall set the example of true poverty; when it shall be their duty to live in poverty, as it is their duty to live in chastity; and let the words of Christ to the Seventy-two serve them as a guide in this. Then the Lord will surround the least of them with such honors, with such reverence as does not to-day exist in the hearts of the people for the princes of the Church. They will be few in number, but they will be the light of the world. Holy Father, are they that to-day? Some among them are, but the majority shed neither light nor darkness."

At this point the Pontiff for the first time bowed his head in sorrowful acquiescence.

The New Rome

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN

(See page 367)

A thousand starve, a few are fed, Legions of robbers rack the poor, The rich man steals the widow's bread, And Lazarus dies at Dives' door; The Lawyer and the Priest adjust The claims of Luxury and Lust To seize the earth and hold the soil, To store the grain they never reap; Under their heels the white slaves toil, While children wail and women weep!-- The gods are dead, but in their name Humanity is sold to shame, While (then as now!) the tinsel'd Priest Sitteth with robbers at the feast, Blesses the laden blood-stain'd board, Weaves garlands round the butcher's sword, And poureth freely (now as then) The sacramental blood of Men!

The Priest and the Devil

BY FÉODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

(The Russian realist, 1821-1881, wrote this little story upon the wall of his Siberian prison)

"Hello, you little fat father!" the devil said to the priest. "What made you lie so to those poor, misled people? What tortures of hell did you depict? Don't you know they are already suffering the tortures of hell in their earthly lives? Don't you know that you and the authorities of the State are my representatives on earth? It is you that make them suffer the pains of hell with which you threaten them. Don't you know this? Well, then, come with me!"

The devil grabbed the priest by the collar, lifted him high in the air, and carried him to a factory, to an iron foundry. He saw the workmen there running and hurrying to and fro, and toiling in the scorching heat. Very soon the thick, heavy air and the heat are too much for the priest. With tears in his eyes, he pleads with the devil: "Let me go! Let me leave this hell!"

"Oh, my dear friend, I must show you many more places." The devil gets hold of him again and drags him off to a farm. There he sees workmen threshing the grain. The dust and heat are insufferable. The overseer carries a knout, and unmercifully beats anyone who falls to the ground overcome by hard toil or hunger.

Next the priest is taken to the huts where these same workers live with their families--dirty, cold, smoky, ill-smelling holes. The devil grins. He points out the poverty and hardships which are at home here.

"Well, isn't this enough?" he asks. And it seems as if even he, the devil, pities the people. The pious servant of God can hardly bear it. With uplifted hands he begs: "Let me go away from here. Yes, yes! This is hell on earth!"

"Well, then, you see. And you still promise them another hell. You torment them, torture them to death mentally when they are already all but dead physically. Come on! I will show you one more hell--one more, the very worst."

He took him to a prison and showed him a dungeon, with its foul air and the many human forms, robbed of all health and energy, lying on the floor, covered with vermin that were devouring their poor, naked, emaciated bodies.

"Take off your silken clothes," said the devil to the priest, "put on your ankles heavy chains such as these poor unfortunates wear; lie down on the cold and filthy floor--and then talk to them about a hell that still awaits them!"

"No, no!" answered the priest, "I cannot think of anything more dreadful than this. I entreat you, let me go away from here!"

"Yes, this is hell. There can be no worse hell than this. Did you not know it? Did you not know that these men and women whom you are frightening with the picture of a hell hereafter--did you not know that they are in hell right here, before they die?"

Work According to the Bible

(A pamphlet written by T. M. Bondareff, a Siberian peasant and ex-serf, at the age of sixty-seven)

They often arrest thieves in the world; but these culprits are rather rogues than thieves. I have laid hands on the real thief, who has robbed God and the church. He has stolen the primal commandment which belongs to us who till the fields. I will point him out. It is he who does not produce his bread with his own hands, but eats the fruit of others' toil. Seize him and lead him away to judgment. All crimes such as robberies, murders, frauds and the like arise from the fact that this commandment is hidden from man. The rich do all they can to avoid working with their hands, and the poor to rid themselves of the necessity. The poor man says, "There are people who can live on others' labor; why should not I?" and he kills, steals and cheats in consequence. Behold now what harm can be done by white hands, more than all that good grimy hands can repair upon the earth! You spread out before the laborer the idleness of your life, and thus take away the force from his hands. Your way of living is for us the most cruel of offences, and a shame withal. You are a hundred-fold more wise and learned than I am, and for that reason you take my bread. But because you are wise you ought rather to have pity on me who am weak. It is said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." I am your neighbor, and you are mine. Why are we coarse and untaught? Because we produce our own bread, and yours too! Have we any time to study and educate ourselves? You have stolen our brains as well as our bread by trickery and violence.

How blind thou art, O wise man; thou that readest the scriptures, and seest not the way in which thou mightest free thyself, and the flock committed to thee, from the burden of sin! Thy blindness is like unto that of Balaam, who, astride his ass, saw not the angel of God armed with a sword of fire standing in the way before him. Thou art Balaam, I am the ass, and thou hast ridden upon my back from childhood!

Resurrection

BY LEO TOLSTOY

(In this novel the greatest of modern religious teachers has presented his indictment of the government and church of his country. The hero is a Russian prince who in early youth seduces a peasant girl, and in after life meets her, a prostitute on trial for murder. He follows her to Siberia, in an effort to reclaim her. Near the end of his story Tolstoi introduces this scene. The Englishman may be said to represent modern science, which asks questions and accumulates futile statistics; while the old man voices the peculiar Christian Anarchism of the author, who at the age of eighty-two left his home and wandered out into the steppes to die)

In one of the exiles' wards, Nehlúdof [the prince] recognized the strange old man he had seen crossing the ferry that morning. This tattered and wrinkled old man was sitting on the floor by the beds, barefooted, wearing only a dirty cinder-colored shirt, torn on one shoulder, and similar trousers. He looked severely and inquiringly at the new-comers. His emaciated body, visible through the holes in his dirty shirt, looked miserably weak, but in his face was more concentrated seriousness and animation than even when Nehlúdof saw him crossing the ferry. As in all the other wards, so here also the prisoners jumped up and stood erect when the official entered; but the old man remained sitting. His eyes glittered and his brow frowned wrathfully.

"Get up!" the inspector called out to him.

The old man did not rise, but only smiled contemptuously.

"Thy servants are standing before thee, I am not thy servant. Thou bearest the seal...." said the old man, pointing to the inspector's forehead.

"Wha--a--t?" said the inspector threateningly, and made a step towards him.

"I know this man," said Nehlúdof. "What is he imprisoned for?"

"The police have sent him here because he has no passport. We ask them not to send such, but they will do it," said the inspector, casting an angry side glance at the old man.

"And so it seems thou, too, art one of Antichrist's army?" said the old man to Nehlúdof.

"No, I am a visitor," said Nehlúdof.

"What, hast thou come to see how Antichrist tortures men? Here, see. He has locked them up in a cage, a whole army of them. Men should eat bread in the sweat of their brow. But He has locked them up with no work to do, and feeds them like swine, so that they should turn into beasts."

"What is he saying?" asked the Englishman.

Nehlúdof told him the old man was blaming the inspector for keeping men imprisoned.

"Ask him how he thinks one should treat those who do not keep the laws," said the Englishman.

Nehlúdof translated the question.

The old man laughed strangely, showing his regular teeth.

"The laws?" he repeated with contempt. "First Antichrist robbed everybody, took all the earth, and all rights away from them--took them all for himself--killed all those who were against him--and then He wrote laws forbidding to rob and to kill. He should have written those laws sooner."

Nehlúdof translated. The Englishman smiled.

"Well, anyhow, ask him how one should treat thieves and murderers now?"

Nehlúdof again translated the question.

"Tell him he should take the seal of Antichrist off from himself," the old man said, frowning severely; "then he will know neither thieves nor murderers. Tell him so."

"He is crazy," said the Englishman, when Nehlúdof had translated the old man's words; and shrugging his shoulders he left the cell.

"Do thine own task and leave others alone. Every one for himself. God knows whom to execute, whom to pardon, but we do not know," said the old man. "Be your own chief, then chiefs will not be wanted. Go, go," he added, frowning angrily, and looking with glittering eyes at Nehlúdof, who lingered in the ward. "Hast thou not gazed enough on how the servants of Antichrist feed lice on men? Go! Go!"

Sunday

(From "Challenge")

BY LOUIS UNTERMEYER

(See pages 42, 418)

It was Sunday-- Eleven in the morning; people were at church-- Prayers were in the making; God was near at hand-- Down the cramped and narrow streets of quiet Lawrence Came the tramp of workers marching in their hundreds; Marching in the morning, marching to the grave-yard, Where, no longer fiery, underneath the grasses, Callous and uncaring, lay their friend and sister. In their hands they carried wreaths and drooping flowers, Overhead their banners dipped and soared like eagles-- Aye, but eagles bleeding, stained with their own heart's blood-- Red, but not for glory--red, with wounds and travail, Red, the buoyant symbol of the blood of all the world. So they bore their banners, singing toward the grave-yard, So they marched and chanted, mingling tears and tributes, So, with flowers, the dying went to deck the dead.

Within the churches people heard The sound, and much concern was theirs-- God might not hear the Sacred Word-- God might not hear their prayers!

_Should such things be allowed these slaves-- To vex the Sabbath peace with Song, To come with chants, like marching waves, That proudly swept along._

_Suppose God turned to these--and heard! Suppose He listened unawares-- God might forget the Sacred Word, God might forget their prayers!_

And so (the tragic irony) The blue-clad Guardians of the Peace Were sent to sweep them back--to see The ribald Song should cease;

To scatter those who came and vexed God with their troubled cries and cares. Quiet--so God might hear the text; The sleek and unctuous prayers!

Up the rapt and singing streets of little Lawrence Came the stolid soldiers; and, behind the bluecoats, Grinning and invisible, bearing unseen torches, Rode red hordes of anger, sweeping all before them. Lust and Evil joined them--Terror rode among them; Fury fired its pistols; Madness stabbed and yelled. Through the wild and bleeding streets of shuddering Lawrence, Raged the heedless panic, hour-long and bitter. Passion tore and trampled; men once mild and peaceful, Fought with savage hatred in the name of Law and Order. And, below the outcry, like the sea beneath the breakers, Mingling with the anguish, rolled the solemn organ....

Eleven in the morning--people were at church-- Prayers were in the making--God was near at hand-- It was Sunday!

BY ISAIAH

Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord.... Bring no more vain oblations.... When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea when ye make many prayers I will not hear; your hands are full of blood.

To the Preacher

(From "In This Our World")

BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

(See pages 200, 209)

Preach about yesterday, Preacher! The time so far away: When the hand of Deity smote and slew, And the heathen plagued the stiff-necked Jew; Or when the Man of Sorrow came, And blessed the people who cursed his name-- Preach about yesterday, Preacher, Not about today!

Preach about tomorrow, Preacher! Beyond this world's decay: Of the sheepfold Paradise we priced When we pinned our faith to Jesus Christ; Of those hot depths that shall receive The goats who would not so believe-- Preach about tomorrow, Preacher, Not about today!

Preach about the old sins, Preacher! And the old virtues, too: You must not steal nor take man's life, You must not covet your neighbor's wife, And woman must cling at every cost To her one virtue, or she is lost-- Preach about the old sins, Preacher! Not about the new!

Preach about the other man, Preacher! The man we all can see! The man of oaths, the man of strife, The man who drinks and beats his wife, Who helps his mates to fret and shirk When all they need is to keep at work-- Preach about the other man, Preacher! Not about me!

The Reluctant Briber

BY LINCOLN STEFFENS

(The president of a powerful public service corporation has become disturbed in conscience, and calls in a student of social conditions)

"You're unhappy because you are bribing and corrupting, and you ask my advice. Why? I'm no ethical teacher. You're a churchman. Why don't you go to your pastor?"

"Pastor!" he exclaimed, and he laughed. The scorn of that laugh! "Pastor!"

He turned and walked away, to get control, no doubt. I kept after him.

"Yes," I insisted, "you should go to the head of your church for moral counsel, and--for economic advice you should go to the professor of economics in----"

He stopped me, facing about. "Professor!" he echoed, and he didn't reflect my tone.

I was serious. I wanted to get something from him. I wanted to know why our practical men do not go to these professions for help, as they go to lawyers and engineers. And this man had given time and money to the university in his town and to his church, as I reminded him.

"You support colleges and churches, you and your kind do," I said. "What for?"

"For women and children," he snapped from his distance.

BY SAVONAROLA

(Italian religious reformer, 1452-1498; hanged and burned by his enemies)

But dost thou know what I would tell thee? In the primitive church, the chalices were of wood, the prelates of gold. In these days the church hath chalices of gold and prelates of wood.

The Preacher

(From "The Canterbury Tales")

BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER

(Early English poet, 1340-1400)

Than peyne I me to strecche forth my necke, And est and west upon the people I bekke, As doth a pigeon, syttyng on a loft; Myn hondes and my tonge move so oft, That it is joye to see my busynesse. Of avarice and of suche cursedness Is al my preching, for to make hem free To give their pence, and namely unto me.... Therfor my theem is yit, and ever was, The root of evils is cupidity. Thus can I preche agayn the same vice Which that I use, and that is avarice. But though myself be gilty in the same, Yit can I maken other folks to blame.

Twentieth Century Socialism

BY EDMOND KELLY

(American lawyer and Socialist, 1851-1909)

It seems inconceivable that the same civilization should include two bodies of men living in apparent harmony and yet holding such opposite and inconsistent views of man as economists on the one hand and theologians on the other. To these last, man has no economic needs; this world does not count; it is merely a place of probation, mitigated sometimes, it is true, by ecclesiastical pomp and episcopal palaces; but serving for the most part as a mere preparation for a future existence which will satisfy the aspirations of the human soul--the only thing that does count, in this world or the next. So while to the economist man is all hog, to the theologian he is all soul; and between the two the devil secures the vast majority.

The True Faith

(From "A Lay Sermon to Preachers")

BY HENRY ARTHUR JONES

(English dramatist, born 1851)

I believe--I stand accountant for the words to That which gave me the power of thinking and writing them--I believe that if the time and money and thought now given in England to the propagation of wholly incredible doctrines, which are no sooner uttered in one pulpit than they are repudiated in another--if this time and money and thought were given to the understanding and scattering abroad of the simplest laws of national economy, of physiology, of health and beauty, in another generation our England would be greater and mightier than she has ever been. I believe a knowledge of the necessity of fresh air, of the value of beauty, of the certain disease and national corruption and deathfulness hidden in our present commercial system, to be worth far more than all the books on theology ever written. I believe faith in constant ventilation and constant outdoor exercise to be a greater religious necessity than faith in any doctrine of any sect in England today.

God in the World

(From "Gitanjali")

BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

(Most popular of Hindoo poets, who recently achieved international fame, and received the Nobel prize)

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.

Priests

(From "Songs for the New Age")

BY JAMES OPPENHEIM

(See pages 45, 129, 147)

Priests are in bad odor, And yet there shall be no lack of them. The skies shall not lack a spokesman, Nor the spirit of man a voice and a gesture.

Not garbed nor churched, Yet, as of old, in loneliness and anguish, They shall come eating and drinking among us, With scourge, pity, and prayer.

Brotherhood

(From "The Book of The People")

BY ROBERT DE LAMENNAIS

(French philosopher and religious reformer, 1782-1854)

Your task is to form the universal family, to build the City of God, and by a continuous labor gradually to translate His work in Humanity into fact.

When you love one another as brothers, and treat each other reciprocally as such; when each one, seeking his own good in the good of all, shall identify his own life with the life of all, his own interests with the interests of all, and shall be always ready to sacrifice himself for all the members of the common family--then most of the ills which weigh upon the human race will vanish, as thick mists gathered upon the horizon vanish at the rising of the sun.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Book IX

The Voice of the Ages

Records from all the past history of mankind from twenty-five different races; the earliest being about 3500 B. C.

The Suppressions of History

(From "The Ancient Lowly")

BY C. OSBORNE WARD

(American historian, who was forced to publish at his own expense the results of his life-time researches into the early history of the working class)

The great strikes and uprisings of the working people of the ancient world are almost unknown to the living age. It matters little how accounts of five immense strike-wars, involving destruction of property and mutual slaughter of millions of people, have been suppressed, or have otherwise failed to reach us; the fact remains that people are absolutely ignorant of these great events. A meagre sketch of Spartacus may be seen in the encyclopedias, but it is always ruined and its interest pinched and blighted by being classed with crime, its heroes with criminals, its theme with desecration. Yet Spartacus was one of the great generals of history; fully equal to Hannibal and Napoleon, while his cause was much more just and infinitely nobler, his life a model of the beautiful and virtuous, his death an episode of surpassing grandeur.

Still more strange is it, that the great ten-years' war of Eunus should be unknown. He marshalled at one time an army of two hundred thousand soldiers. He manœuvered them and fought for ten full years for liberty, defeating army after army of Rome. Why is the world ignorant of this fierce, epochal rebellion? Almost the whole matter is passed over in silence by our histories of Rome. In these pages it will be read as news, yet should a similar war rage in our day, against a similar condition of slavery, its cause would not only be considered just, but the combatants would have the sympathy and support of the civilized world.

The great system of labor organization explained in these pages must likewise be regarded as a chapter of news. The portentous fact has lain in abeyance century after century, with the human family in profound ignorance of an organization of trades and other labor unions so powerful that for hundreds of years they undertook and successfully conducted the business of manufacture, of distribution, of purveying provisions to armies, of feeding the inhabitants of the largest cities in the world, of inventing, supplying and working the huge engines of war, and of collecting customs and taxes--tasks confided to their care by the state.

Our civilization has a blushingly poor excuse for its profound ignorance of these facts; for the evidences have existed from much before the beginning of our era.... They are growing fewer and dimmer as their value rises higher in the estimation of a thinking, appreciative, gradually awakening world.

Agis

BY PLUTARCH

(Greek historian, A. D. 50-120; author of numerous biographical sketches. It has been said: He stands before us as the legate, the ambassador, and the orator on behalf of those institutions whereby the old-time men were rendered wise and virtuous)

When the love of gold and silver had once gained admittance into the Lacedæmonian commonwealth, it was quickly followed by avarice and baseness of spirit in the pursuit of it, and by luxury, effeminacy and prodigality in the use. Then Sparta fell from almost all her former virtue and repute....

For the rich men without scruple drew the estate into their own hands, excluding the rightful heirs from their succession; and all the wealth being centered upon the few, the generality were poor and miserable. Honorable pursuits, for which there was no longer leisure, were neglected; the state was filled with sordid business, and with hatred and envy of the rich....

Agis, therefore, believing it a glorious action, as in truth it was, to equalize and repeople the state, began to sound the inclinations of the citizens. He found the young men disposed beyond his expectation; they were eager to enter with him upon the contest in the cause of virtue, and to fling aside, for freedom's sake, their old manner of life, as readily as the wrestler does his garment. But the old men, habituated and confirmed in their vices, were most of them alarmed. These men could not endure to hear Agis continually deploring the present state of Sparta, and wishing she might be restored to her ancient glory....

Agis, nevertheless, little regarding these rumours, took the first occasion of proposing his measure to the council, the chief articles of which were these: That every one should be free from their debts; all the lands to be divided into equal portions....

The people were transported with admiration of the young man's generosity, and with joy that, after three hundred years' interval, at last there had appeared a king worthy of Sparta. But, on the other side, Leonidas was now more than ever averse, being sensible that he and his friends would be obliged to contribute with their riches, and yet all the honour and obligation would redound to Agis. [Sparta had two kings, Leonidas and Agis.]

From this time forward, as the common people followed Agis, so the rich men adhered to Leonidas. They besought him not to forsake their cause; and with persuasions and entreaties so far prevailed with the council of Elders, whose power consisted in preparing all laws before they were proposed to the people, that the designed measure was rejected, though but by one vote.

[Attacked by his enemies, Agis sought refuge in a temple.] Leonidas proceeded also to displace the ephors, and to choose others in their stead; then he began to consider how he might entrap Agis. At first, he endeavored by fair means to persuade him to leave the sanctuary, and partake with him in the kingdom. The people, he said, would easily pardon the errors of a young man, ambitious of glory. But finding Agis was suspicious, and not to be prevailed with to quit his sanctuary, he gave up that design; yet what could not then be effected by the dissimulation of an enemy, was soon after brought to pass by the treachery of friends.

Amphares, Damochares, and Arcesilaus often visited Agis, and he was so confident of their fidelity that after a while he was prevailed on to accompany them to the baths, which were not far distant, they constantly returning to see him safe again in the temple. They were all three his familiars; and Amphares had borrowed a great deal of plate and rich household stuff from the mother of Agis, and hoped if he could destroy her and the whole family, he might peaceably enjoy those goods. And he, it is said, was the readiest of all to serve the purposes of Leonidas, and being one of the ephors, did all he could to incense the rest of his colleagues against Agis. These men, therefore, finding that Agis would not quit his sanctuary, but on occasion would venture from it to go to the bath, resolved to seize him on the opportunity thus given them. And one day as he was returning, they met and saluted him as formerly, conversing pleasantly by the way, and jesting, as youthful friends might, till coming to the turning of the street which led to the prison, Amphares, by virtue of his office, laid his hand on Agis, and told him, "You must go with me, Agis, before the other ephors, to answer for your misdemeanors." At the same time Damochares, who was a tall, strong man, drew his cloak tight around his neck, and dragged him after by it, whilst the others went behind to thrust him on. So that none of Agis' friends being near to assist him, nor any one by, they easily got him into the prison, where Leonidas was already arrived, with a company of soldiers, who strongly guarded all the avenues; the ephors also came in, with as many of the Elders as they knew to be true to their party, being desirous to proceed with some semblance of justice. And thus they bade him give an account of his actions. To which Agis, smiling at their dissimulation, answered not a word. Amphares told him it was more seasonable for him to weep, for now the time was come in which he should be punished for his presumption. Another of the ephors, as though he would be more favorable, and offering as it were an excuse, asked him whether he was not forced to what he did by Agesilaus and Lysander. But Agis answered, he had not been constrained by any man, nor had any other intent in what he did but to follow the example of Lycurgus, and to govern conformably to his laws. The same ephor asked him whether now at least he did not repent his rashness. To which the young man answered that though he were to suffer the extremest penalty for it, yet he could never repent of so just and glorious a design. Upon this they passed sentence of death on him, and bade the officers carry him to the Dechas, as it is called, a place in the prison where they strangle malefactors. And when the officers would not venture to lay hands on him, and the very mercenary soldiers declined it, believing it an illegal and a wicked act to lay violent hands on a king, Damochares, threatening and reviling them for it, himself thrust him into the room.

For by this time the news of his being seized had reached many parts of the city, and there was a concourse of people with lights and torches about the prison gates, and in the midst of them the mother and the grandmother of Agis, crying out with a loud voice that their king ought to appear, and to be heard and judged by the people. But this clamour, instead of preventing, hastened his death; his enemies fearing, if the tumult should increase, he might be rescued during the night out of their hands.

Agis, being now at the point to die, perceived one of the officers bitterly bewailing his misfortune. "Weep not, friend," said he, "for me, who die innocent, by the lawless act of wicked men. My condition is much better than theirs." As soon as he had spoken these words, not showing the least sign of fear, he offered his neck to the noose.

The Labor Problem in Egypt

(From the Book of Exodus)

(Hebrew, B. C. Fourteenth Century; a record of one of the earliest of labor disputes)

Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord, that I should hearken unto his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go.... Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, loose the people from their work? get you unto your burdens.... Let heavier work be laid upon the men, that they may labour therein; and let them not regard lying words.... Ye are idle, ye are idle; therefore ye say, Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks."

And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, when it was said, "Ye shall not minish aught from your bricks, your daily task."

And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh: and they said unto them, "The Lord look upon you and judge; because you have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us."

And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, "Lord, wherefore hast thou evil entreated this people? Why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath evil entreated this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all."

Then the Lord said unto Moses, "Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land."

The People

BY TOMMASO CAMPANELLA

(Italian philosopher, 1568-1639. Translation by John Addington Symonds)

The people is a beast of muddy brain That knows not its own strength, and therefore stands Loaded with wood and stone; the powerless hands Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein; One kick would be enough to break the chain, But the beast fears, and what the child demands It does; nor its own terror understands, Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain. Most wonderful! With its own hand it ties And gags itself--gives itself death and war For pence doled out by kings from its own store. Its own are all things between earth and heaven; But this it knows not; and if one arise To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven.

FROM ECCLESIASTES

(Hebrew, B.C. 200)

Then I returned and saw all oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive; yea, better than them both did I esteem him which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

Tiberius Gracchus

(Tribune of the Roman People)

BY PLUTARCH

(Greek, A.D. 50-120)

Tiberius, maintaining an honorable and just cause, and possessed of eloquence sufficient to have made a less creditable action appear plausible, was no safe or easy antagonist, when, with the people crowding around the hustings, he took his place and spoke in behalf of the poor. "The savage beasts," said he, "in Italy, have their particular dens, they have their places of repose and refuge; but the men who bear arms, and expose their lives for the safety of their country, enjoy in the meantime nothing in it but the air and light; and, having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained to wander from place to place with their wives and children." He told them that the commanders were guilty of a ridiculous error, when, at the head of their armies, they exhorted the common soldiers to fight for their sepulchers and altars; when not any amongst so many Romans is possessed of either altar or monument, neither have they any houses of their own, or hearths of their ancestors to defend. They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men. They were styled the masters of the world, but had not one foot of ground they could call their own.

Captive Good Attending Captain Ill

BY EURIPIDES

(Athenian tragic poet, B.C. 480-406; the most modern of ancient writers. Translation by John Addington Symonds)

Doth some one say that there be gods above? There are not; no, there are not. Let no fool, Led by the old false fable, thus deceive you. Look at the facts themselves, yielding my words No undue credence; for I say that kings Kill, rob, break oaths, lay cities waste by fraud, And doing thus are happier than those Who live calm pious lives day after day. How many little states that serve the gods Are subject to the godless but more strong, Made slaves by might of a superior army!

Poverty

BY ALCAEUS

(Greek lyric poet, B.C. 611-580; banished for his resistance to tyrants. Translation by Sir William Jones)

The worst of ills, and hardest to endure, Past hope, past cure, Is Penury, who, with her sister-mate Disorder, soon brings down the loftiest state, And makes it desolate. This truth the sage of Sparta told, Aristodemus old,-- "Wealth makes the man." On him that's poor Proud Worth looks down, and Honor shuts the door.

The Beggar's Complaint

(Ancient Japanese classic)

The heaven and earth they call so great, For me are very small; The sun and moon they call so bright, For me ne'er shine at all.

Are all men sad, or only I? And what have I obtained-- What good the gift of mortal life, That prize so rarely gained--

If nought my chilly back protects But one thin grass-cloth coat, In tatters hanging like the weeds That on the billows float?

If here in smoke-stained, darksome hut, Upon the bare cold ground, I make my wretched bed of straw, And hear the mournful sound--

Hear how mine aged parents groan, And wife and children cry, Father and mother, children, wife, Huddling in misery--

If in the rice-pan, nigh forgot, The spider hangs its nest, And from the hearth no smoke goes up Where all is so unblest?

Shame and despair are mine from day to day, But, being no bird, I cannot fly away.

Free Labor

BY HAGGAI

(Hebrew prophet, B.C. 515)

He that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

Plutus

BY ARISTOPHANES

(Greek comedy writer and satirist; B.C. 450-380. There is probably not a Socialist in the world who has not been asked the question: "Who will do the dirty work?" It is interesting to see this difficulty set forth in a comedy which was staged in Athens in the year 408 B.C. Chremylus and Blepsidemus, two citizens, have taken in charge Plutus, the god of wealth, who is blind. They have undertaken to cure him of his blindness; but an old hag by the name of Poverty appears, and offers to convince them that their success would mean a calamity to the human race)

CHREMYLUS:--As matters now stand (who will dare contradict it?) the life of us men is compos'd Of a system where folly, absurdity, madness, ay, raving downright is disclosed; Since, how many a knave we see revel in wealth--the rich heap of his ill-gotten store-- And how many a good man, by fortune unblest, with thee begging bread at the door! (Turns to Poverty.) I say, then, there is but one thing to be done, and if we succeed, what a prize Will we bring to mankind! That thing it will be--to give Plutus the use of his eyes.

POVERTY:--A pest on your prate, and palavering stuff! back! begone with ye, blockheads, to school! You pair of old dotards, you drivelling comrades in trifling and playing the fool! If the plan ye propose be accomplish'd at last nothing worse could mankind e'er befall, Than that Plutus should have the full use of his eyes, and bestow himself equal on all! See you not, that at once, to all arts there would be, to each craft that you reckon, an end? If these were exploded (so much to your joy), say who then should there be, who would lend To the forge, to the hammer, the adze or the loom--to the rule or the mallet--his hand? Not a soul! The mechanic, the carpenter, shipwright--would all be expelled from the land. Where would tailor, or cobbler, or dyer of leather, or bricklay'r, or tanner be found? Who would e'er condescend in this golden vacation, to till, for his bread's sake, the ground?

BLEPSIDEMUS:--Hold, hold, jade! Whatever essentials of life in your catalogue's column you string, Our servants, of course, shall provide us.

POVERTY:--Your servants? and whence do you think they shall spring?

BLEPSIDEMUS:--We shall buy them with cash--

POVERTY:--But with cash all the world as well as yourself is supplied! Who will care about selling?

BLEPSIDEMUS:--Some dealer, no doubt, coming down from the Thessaly side, (A rare kidnapping nest) who may wish to secure a good bargain to profit the trade.

POVERTY (impatiently):--You will not understand! In the lots of mankind when this grand revolution is made 'Twill at once put an end to all wants--and of course then, the kidnapper's business will cease: For who will court danger, and hazard his life, when, grown rich, he may live at his ease? Thus each for himself will be forced to turn plowman, to dig and to delve and to sweat; Wearing out an existence more grievous by far than he ever experienced yet.

CHREMYLUS:--Curses on you!

POVERTY:--You'll not have a bed to lie down on--no goods of the sort will be seen! Not a carpet to tread on--for who, pray, will weave one, when well stock'd his coffers have been? Farewell to your essences, perfumes, pastilles! When you lead to the altar your bride Farewell to your roseate veil's drooping folds, the bright hues of its glittering pride! Yet forsooth "to be rich"--say what is it, without all these gew-gaws to swell the detail? Now with me, every item that wish can suggest springs abundant and never can fail; For who, but myself, urges on to his toil, like a mistress, and drives the mechanic? If he flags, I but show him my face at the door, and he hies to his work in a panic!

CHREMYLUS:--Pshaw! What good can you bring but sores, blisters and blains, on the wretch as he shivering goes From the baths' genial clime driv'n forth to the cold, at the certain expense of his toes? What, but poor little urchins, whose stomachs are craving, and little old beldames in shoals; And lice by the thousand, mosquitoes and flies? (I can't count you the cloud as it rolls!) Which keep humming and buzzing about one, a language denying the respite of sleep, In a strain thus consoling--"Poor starveling, awake, tho to hunger!"--yet up you must leap! Add to this, that you treat us with rags to our backs and a bundle of straw for a bed (Woe betide the poor wretch on whose carcass the bugs of that ravenous pallet have fed!) For a carpet, a rotten old mat--for a pillow, a great stone picked out of the street-- And for porridge, or bread, a mere leaf of radish, or stem of a mallow, to eat. The head that remains of some wreck of a pitcher, by way of a seat you provide; For the trough we make use of in kneading, we're driven to shift with a wine barrel's side,-- And this, too, all broken and split:--in a word, your magnificent gifts to conclude, (Ironically) To mankind you indeed are a blessed dispenser of mighty and manifold good!... On my word, dame, your fav'rites are happily off, after striving and toiling to save, If at last they are able to levy enough to procure them a cheque to the grave!

The Lawyer and the Farmer

(Egyptian; B.C. 1400, or earlier. A letter from a father to his son, exhorting him to stick to the study of his profession)

It is told to me that thou hast cast aside learning, and givest thyself to dancing; thou turnest thy face to the work in the fields, and castest the divine words behind thee.

Behold, thou rememberest not the condition of the fellah (farmer) when the harvest is taken over. The worms carry off half the corn, and the hippopotamus devours the rest; mice abound in the fields, and locusts arrive; the cattle devour, the sparrows steal. How miserable is the lot of the fellah! What remains on the threshing-floor, robbers finish it up. The bronze ... are worn out, the horses die with threshing and plowing. Then the scribe (lawyer) moors at the bank, who is to take over the harvest for the government; the attendants bear staves, the negroes carry palm sticks. They say, "Give corn!" But there is none. They beat the fellah prostrate; they bind him and cast him into the canal, throwing him headlong. His wife is bound before him, his children are swung off; his neighbors let them go, and flee to look after their corn.

But the scribe is the leader of labor for all; he reckons to himself the produce in winter, and there is none that appoints him his tale of produce. Behold, now thou knowest!

Farmer and Lawyer Again

(From "The Vision of Piers Plowman")

BY WILLIAM LANGLAND

(One of the earliest of English social protests, a picture of the misery of the workers of the fourteenth century)

Some were for ploughing, and played full seldom, Set their seed and sowed their seed and sweated hard, To win what wastrels with gluttony destroy.... There wandered a hundred in hoods of silk, Serjeants they seemed, and served at the Bar, Pleading the Law for pennies and for pounds, Unlocking their lips never for love of our Lord. Thou mightest better mete the mist on Malvern hills Than get a mutter from their mouths--save thou show thy money!

The Agitator

BY ISAIAH

(Hebrew prophet, B.C. 740)

For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, And for Jerusalem's sake will I not rest, Until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, And the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, have I set watchmen, Who shall never hold their peace, day and night. Go through, go through the gates; Prepare ye the way of the people! Lift up a standard to the peoples!

The Muckraker in Persia

BY NIZAMI

(Persian poet, A.D. 1200)

There was a king who oppressed his subjects. An informer came to him, and said, "A certain old man has in private called thee a tyrant, a disturber, and bloodthirsty." The king, enraged, said, "Even now I put him to death." While the king made preparations for the execution, a youth ran to the old man, and said, "The king is ill-disposed to thee; hasten to assuage his wrath." The sage performed his ablutions, took his shroud, and went to the king. The tyrant, seeing him, clapped his hands together, and with eye hungry for revenge, cried, "I hear thou hast given loose to thy speech; thou hast called me revengeful, an oppressive demon." The sage replied, "I have said worse of thee than what thou repeatest. Old and young are in peril from thy action; town and village are injured by thy ministry. Apply thy understanding, and see if it be true; if it be not, slay me on a gibbet. I am holding a mirror before thee; when it shows thy blemishes truly, it is a folly to break the mirror. Break thyself!"

The king saw the rectitude of the sage, and his own crookedness. He said, "Remove his burial spices, and his shroud; bring to him sweet perfumes, and the robe of honor." He became a just prince, cherishing his subjects. Bring forward thy rough truth; truth from thee is victory; it shall shine as a pearl.

The System

BY JEREMIAH

(Hebrew prophet, B.C. 630)

For among my people are found wicked men; they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit; therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they shine; yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked; they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the Lord; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so; and what will ye do in the end thereof?

Grafters in Athens

(From "The Frogs")

BY ARISTOPHANES

(Greek comedy, produced B.C. 405)

Keep silence--keep peace--and let all the profane From our holy solemnity duly refrain; Whose souls unenlightened by taste, are obscure; Whose poetical notions are dark and impure; Whose theatrical conscience Is sullied by nonsense; Who never were train'd by the mighty Cratinus In mystical orgies poetic and vinous; Who delight in buffooning and jests out of season; Who promote the designs of oppression and treason; Who foster sedition, and strife, and debate; All traitors, in short, to the stage and the state; Who surrender a fort, or in private, export To places and harbors of hostile resort, Clandestine consignments of cables and pitch; In the way the Thorycion grew to be rich From a scoundrelly dirty collector of tribute! All such we reject and severely prohibit: All statesmen retrenching the fees and the salaries Of theatrical bards, in revenge for the railleries, And jests, and lampoons, of this holy solemnity, Profanely pursuing their personal enmity, For having been flouted, and scoff'd, and scorn'd, All such are admonish'd and heartily warn'd! We warn them once, We warn them twice, We warn and admonish--we warn them thrice, To conform to the law, To retire and withdraw-- While the Chorus again with the formal saw (Fixt and assign'd to the festive day) Move to the measure and march away!

Pure Food Agitation

BY MARTIN LUTHER

(German religious reformer, 1483-1564)

They have learned the trick of placing such commodities as pepper, ginger, saffron, in damp vaults or cellars in order to increase the weight.... Nor is there a single article of trade whatever out of which they cannot make unfair profit by false measuring, counting or weighing. They produce artificial colors, or they put the pretty things at the top and bottom and the ugly ones in the middle; and indeed there is no end to their trickery, and no one tradesman will trust another, for they know each other's ways.

Wall Street

BY HABAKKUK

(Hebrew prophet. B.C. 600)

They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag; therefore they sacrifice unto their nets, and burn incense unto their drags; because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.

BY MARTIAL

(Latin poet, A.D. 43-104)

If you are a poor man now, Aemilianus, a poor man you will always be. Nowadays, riches are bestowed on no one but the rich.

BY CATO, THE CENSOR

(Latin, B.C. 234-149)

Small thieves lie in towers fastened to wooden blocks; big ones strut about in gold and silver.

Prosperity

(From the Book of Job)

(Hebrew, B.C. Fourth Century)

Thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. But as for the mighty man, he had the earth; and the honourable man, he dwelt in it. Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.

The Leading Citizen

BY HORACE

(Latin poet, B.C. 65-8. Translation by John Milton)

Whom do we count a good man? Whom but he Who keeps the laws and statutes of the senate, Who judges in great suits and controversies, Whose witness and opinion wins the cause? But his own house, and the whole neighborhood, Sees his foul inside through his whited skin.

Hong's Experiences in Hades

BY IM BANG

(Korean poet, 1640-1722)

The next hell had inscribed on it, "Deceivers." I saw in it many scores of people, with ogres that cut the flesh from their bodies, and fed it to starving demons. These ate and ate, and the flesh was cut and cut till only the bones remained. When the winds of hell blew, then flesh returned to them; then metal snakes and copper dogs crowded in to bite them and suck their blood. Their screams of pain made the earth to tremble. The guides said to me, "When these offenders were on earth they held high office, and while they pretended to be true and good they received bribes in secret and were doers of all evil. As Ministers of State they ate the fat of the land and sucked the blood of the people, and yet advertised themselves as benefactors and were highly applauded. While in reality they lived as thieves, they pretended to be holy, as Confucius and Mencius were holy. They were deceivers of the world, and robbers, and so are punished thus."

Monopolies

BY MARTIN LUTHER

(A picture of the conditions which brought on the Peasants' War in Germany, 1525)

Before all, if the princes and lords wish to fulfill the duties of their office they must prohibit and banish the vicious system of monopolies, which is altogether unendurable in town or country. As for the trading companies, they are thoroughly corrupt and made up of great injustices. They have every sort of commodity in their own power and they do with them just as they please, raise or lower the prices at their own convenience and crush and ruin all the small shop people--just as the pike does with the small fish in the water--as if they were lords over God's creatures and exempt from all laws of authority and religion.... How can it be godly and just that in so short a time a man should grow so rich that he can outbid kings and emperors? They have brought things to such a pass that all the rest of the world must carry on business with risk and damage, gaining today, losing tomorrow, while they continually grow richer and richer, and make up for their losses by higher profits; so it is no wonder that they are appropriating to themselves the riches of the whole world.

Intemperate Speech

(From the Epistle of James)

(A.D. 100 to 120)

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just: and he doth not resist you. Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

Government

BY MARCUS AURELIUS

(Roman emperor and philosopher, A.D. 121-180)

And these your professed politicians, the only true practical philosophers of the world (as they think themselves) so full of affected gravity, or such professed lovers of virtue and honesty, what wretches be they in very deed; how vile and contemptible in themselves! O man, what ado dost thou make!

Murder by Statute

(From "The Sayings of Mencius")

(Chinese classic, B.C. 300)

King Hwuy of Leang said, "I wish quietly to receive your instructions." Mencius replied, "Is there any difference between killing a man with a stick, and with a sword?" "There is not," was the answer.

Mencius continued, "Is there any difference between doing it with a sword and with government measures?" "There is not," was the answer again.

Mencius then said, "In your stalls there are fat beasts; in your stables there are fat horses. But your people have the look of hunger, and in the fields are those who have died of famine. This is leading on beasts to devour men. Beasts devour one another, and men hate them for doing so. When he who is called the parent of the people conducts his government so as to be chargeable with leading on beasts to devour men, where is that parental relation to the people?"

Rebuking a Tyrant

BY SADI

(Persian poet, A.D. 1200)

In a certain year I was sitting retired in the great mosque at Damascus, at the head of the tomb of Yahiya the prophet (on whom be peace!). One of the kings of Arabia, who was notorious for his injustice, happened to come on a pilgrimage, and having performed his devotions, he uttered the following words: "The poor and the rich are servants of this earth, and those who are richest have the greatest wants." He then looked towards me, and said, "Because dervishes are strenuous and sincere in their commerce with heaven, unite your prayers with mine, for I am in dread of a powerful enemy."

I replied, "Show mercy to the weak peasant, that you may not experience difficulty from a strong enemy. It is criminal to crush the poor and defenceless subjects with the arm of power. He liveth in dread who befriendeth not the poor; for should his foot slip, no one layeth hold of his hand. Whosoever soweth bad seed, and looketh for good fruit, tortureth his imagination in vain, making a false judgment of things. Take the cotton out of thine ear, and distribute justice to mankind; for if thou refusest justice, there will be a day of retribution.

"The children of Adam are limbs of one another, and are all produced from the same substance; when the world gives pain to one member, the others also suffer uneasiness. Thou who art indifferent to the sufferings of others deservest not to be called a man."

The Eloquent Peasant

(Egyptian, B.C. 2000 or earlier)

An interesting primitive protest against injustice is the story of the Eloquent Peasant, which was one of the most popular of ancient Egyptian tales, and is found in scores of different papyri. The story narrates how a peasant named Rensi was robbed of his asses by the henchmen of a certain grand steward. In spite of all threats the peasant persisted in appealing against the robber to the grand steward himself. The scene is described in "Social Forces and Religion in Ancient Egypt," by James Henry Breasted, as follows:

"It is a tableau which epitomizes ages of social history in the East: on the one hand, the brilliant group of the great man's sleek and subservient suite, the universal type of the official class; and, on the other, the friendless and forlorn figure of the despoiled peasant, the pathetic personification of the cry for social justice. This scene is one of the earliest examples of that Oriental skill in setting forth abstract principles, so wonderfully illustrated later in the parables of Jesus. Seeing that the grand steward makes no reply, the peasant makes another effort to save his family and himself from the starvation which threatens them. He steps forward and with amazing eloquence addresses the great man in whose hands his case now rests, promising him a fair voyage as he embarks on the canal, and voicing the fame of the grand steward's benevolence, on which he had reckoned. 'For thou art the father of the orphan, the husband of the widow, the brother of the forsaken, the kilt of the motherless. Let me put thy name in this land above every good law, O leader free from avarice, great man free from littleness, who destroys falsehood and brings about truth. Respond to the cry which my mouth utters; when I speak, hear thou. Do justice, thou who art praised, whom the praised praise. Relieve my misery. Behold me, I am heavy laden; prove me, lo I am in sorrow.'"

To follow the account of the incident in other records, the grand steward is so much pleased with the peasant's eloquence that he goes to the king and tells him about it. "My Lord, I have found one of these peasants, excellent of speech, in very truth; stolen are his goods, and he has come to complain to me of the matter."

His majesty says, "As thou wishest that I may see health, lengthen out his complaint, without reply to any of his speeches! He who desireth him to continue speaking should be silent; behold, bring us his words in writing that we may listen to them."

So he keeps the peasant pleading for many days. The story quotes nine separate speeches, of constantly increasing bitterness and pathos. The peasant is beaten by the servants of the grand steward, but still he comes. "Thou art appointed to hear causes, to judge two litigants, to ward off the robber. But thou makest common cause with the thief.... Thou art instructed, thou art educated, thou art taught--but not for robbery. Thou art accustomed to do like all men, and thy kin are likewise ensnared. Thou the rectitude of all men, art the chief transgressor of the whole land. The gardener of evil waters his domain with iniquity that his domain may bring forth falsehood, in order to flood the estate with wickedness."

In spite of his eloquence, the grand steward remains unmoved. The peasant appeals to the gods of Justice; and in the ninth address he threatens to make his plea to the god Anubis, who is the god of the dead--meaning thereby that he will commit suicide. None of the extant papyri informs us as to the outcome of the whole proceedings.

Prayers Without Answer

(From The Iliad)

BY HOMER

(Greek epic poet, B.C. 700?)

Prayers are Jove's daughters of celestial race, Lame are their feet, and wrinkled is their face; With homely mien and with dejected eyes, Constant they follow where injustice flies. Injustice, suave, erect, and unconfined, Sweeps the wide earth, and tramples o'er mankind-- While prayers to heal her wrongs move slow behind.

The Suffering of Women

BY HERBERT SPENCER

(English philosopher, 1820-1903)

In the history of humanity as written, the saddest part concerns the treatment of women; and had we before us its unwritten history we should find this part still sadder. I say the saddest part because there have been many things more conspicuously dreadful--cannibalism, the torturing of prisoners, the sacrifice of victims to ghosts and gods--these have been but occasionally; whereas the brutal treatment of woman has been universal and constant. If looking first at their state of subjection among the semi-civilized we pass to the uncivilized, and observe the lives of hardship borne by nearly all of them; if we then think what must have gone on among those still ruder peoples who, for so many thousands of years roamed over the uncultivated earth; we shall infer that the amount of suffering which has been and is borne by women is utterly beyond imagination.

Divorce in Ancient Babylon

(From the Code of Hammurabi)

(B.C. 2250)

Anu and Baal called me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, the worshipper of the gods, to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, to enlighten the land and to further the welfare of the people. Hammurabi, the governor named by Baal am I, who brought about plenty and abundance.

§ 142: If a woman shall hate her husband and say: "Thou shalt not have me," they shall inquire into her antecedents for her defects.... If she have not been a careful mistress, have gadded about, have neglected her house and have belittled her husband, they shall throw that woman into the water.

The Parable of the Hungry Dog

(From the Gospel of Buddha)

(Hindu Bible, B.C. 600)

There was a wicked tyrant; and the god Indra, assuming the shape of a hunter, came down upon earth with the demon Matali, the latter appearing as a dog of enormous size. Hunter and dog entered the palace, and the dog howled so woefully that the royal buildings shook with the sound to their very foundations. The tyrant had the awe-inspiring hunter brought before his throne and inquired after the cause of the terrible bark. The hunter said, "The dog is hungry," whereupon the frightened king ordered food for him. All the food prepared at the royal banquet disappeared rapidly in the dog's jaws, and still he howled with portentous significance. More food was sent for, and all the royal store-houses were emptied, but in vain. Then the tyrant grew desperate and asked: "Will nothing satisfy the cravings of that woeful beast?" "Nothing," replied the hunter, "nothing except perhaps the flesh of all his enemies." "And who are his enemies?" anxiously asked the tyrant. The hunter replied: "The dog will howl as long as there are people hungry in the kingdom, and his enemies are those that practice injustice and oppress the poor." The oppressor of the people, remembering his evil deeds, was seized with remorse, and for the first time in his life he began to listen to the teachings of righteousness.

The Nature of Kings

(From the First Book of Samuel)

(Hebrew, B.C. Eleventh Century)

And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said: "This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep; and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day."

King Yu's Misgovernment

(From the She-ching)

(Chinese classic, B.C. 1000)

A fish in some translucent lake Must ever live to fear a prey He cannot hide himself away From those who come the fish to take. I, too, may not escape the eyes Of those who cause these miseries; My sorrowing heart must grieve to know My country's deep distress and woe.

Slavery

(From the Edda)

(Scandinavian legends of great antiquity, collected, A.D. 1100, by Saemund)

King Frothi called his slaves renowned for strength, Fenia and Menia, and bade them grind for gold. The maidens ground through many years, they ground endless treasures; but at last they grew weary. Then Frothi said, "Grind on! Rest ye not, sleep ye not, longer than the cuckoo is silent, or a verse can be sung." The weary slaves ground on, till lo! from the mighty mill is poured forth an army of men. Now lies Frothi slain amid his gold. Now is Frothi's peace forever ended.

The Power of Justice

BY MANU

(Hindu poet, B.C. 1200)

Iniquity, committed in this world, produces not fruit immediately, but, like the earth, in due season, and advancing by little and little, it eradicates the man who committed it.

He grows rich for a while through unrighteousness; then he beholds good things; then it is that he vanquishes his foes; but he perishes at length from his whole root upwards.

Justice, being destroyed, will destroy; being preserved, will preserve; it must never therefore be violated. Beware, O judge! lest justice, being overturned, overturn both us and thyself.

Legislators

BY ISAIAH

(Hebrew prophet, B.C. 740)

Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory? Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Concerning Wealth

HESIOD

(Greek poet, B.C. 650)

Who, or by open force, or secret stealth, Or perjured wiles, amasses wealth, (Such many are, whom thirst of gain betrays) The gods, all seeing, shall o'ercloud his days; His wife, his children, and his friends shall die, And, like a dream, his ill-got riches fly.

(From the Instructions of Ptah-Hotep)

(Egyptian, B.C. 3550; the oldest book in the world)

If thou be great, after being of no account, and hast gotten riches after squalor, being foremost in these in the city, and hast knowledge concerning useful matters, so that promotion is come unto thee; then swathe not thine heart in thine hoard, for thou art become a steward of the endowment of the God. Thou art not the last, others shall be thine equal, and to them shall come what has come to thee.

(From the Icelandic, Eleventh Century)

I saw the well-filled barns Of the child of wealth; Now leans he on the staff of the beggar. Thus are riches, As the glance of an eye, They are an inconstant friend.

BY VIRGIL

(Latin epic poet, B.C. 70-19)

Curst greed of gold, what crimes thy tyrant power has caused!

(From the "Antigone" of Sophocles)

(Greek tragic poet, B.C. 440)

No such ill device Ever appeared, as money to mankind: This is it that sacks cities, this routs out Men from their homes, and trains and turns astray The minds of honest mortals, setting them Upon base actions; this revealed to men Habits of all misdoing, and cognizance Of every work of wickedness.

(From the Book of Good Counsels)

(Sanscrit, B.C. 300)

Wealth is friends, home, father, brother, title to respect, and fame; Yea, and wealth is held for wisdom--that it should be so is shame.

(From the "Medea" of Euripides)

(Greek tragic poet, B.C. 431)

Speak not so hastily: the gods themselves By gifts are swayed, as fame relates; and gold Hath a far greater influence o'er the souls Of mortals than the most persuasive words.

(From "The Convivio" of Dante Alighieri)

(Italian epic poet, 1265-1321)

I affirm that gain is precisely that which comes oftener to the bad than to the good; for illegitimate gains never come to the good at all, because they reject them. And lawful gains rarely come to the good, because, since much anxious care is needful thereto, and the anxious care of the good man is directed to weightier matters, rarely does the good man give sufficient attention thereto. Wherefore it is clear that in every way the advent of these riches is iniquitous....

Let us give heed to the life of them who chase riches, and see in what security they live when they have gathered of them, how content they are, how reposeful! And what else, day by day, imperils and slays cities, countries and single persons so much as the new amassing of wealth by anyone? Which amassing reveals new longings, the goal of which may not be reached without wrong to someone....

Wherefore the baseness of riches is manifest enough by reason of all their characteristics, and so a man of right appetite and of true knowledge never loves them; and not loving them does not unite himself to them, but ever wishes them to be far removed from him, save as they be ordained to some necessary service....

The Perfect City

(From "The Republic" of Plato)

(Greek philosopher, B.C. 429-347)

We have, it seems, discovered other things, which our guardians must by all means watch against, that they may nowise escape their notice and steal into the city.

What kinds of things are these?

Riches, said I, and poverty.

Concerning Independence

BY LUCRETIUS

(Latin poet, B.C. 95-52)

But if men would live up to reason's rules, They would not bow and scrape to wealthy fools.

(From The Hitopadesa)

(Hindu religious work, B.C. 250)

It is better to abandon life than flatter the base. Impoverishment is better than luxury through another's wealth. Not to attend at the door of the wealthy, and not to use the voice of petition, these imply the best life of a man.

BY XENOPHON

(Greek historian, B.C. Fourth Century)

If you perfume a slave and a freeman, the difference of their birth produces none in the smell; and the scent is perceived as soon in the one as the other; but the odor of honorable toil, as it is acquired with great pains and application, is ever sweet and worthy of a brave man.

BY DANTE ALIGHIERI

(Italian epic poet, 1265-1321)

What! You say a horse is noble because it is good in itself, and the same you say of a falcon or a pearl; but a man shall be called noble because his ancestors were so? Not with words, but with knives must one answer such a beastly notion.

BY OMAR KHAYYAM

(Persian poet, Eleventh Century)

In this world he who possesses a morsel of bread, and some nest in which to shelter himself, who is master or slave of no man, tell that man to live content; he possesses a very sweet existence.

Oh! Freedom

(Negro Slave Song)

Oh! Freedom, oh! Freedom, Oh! Freedom, over me; And before I'll be a slave I'll be buried in my grave, And go home to my God And be free.

Fredome

BY JOHN BARBOUR

(English poet, Fourteenth Century)

A! fredome is a nobill thing! Fredome mayse man to haiff liking! Fredome all solace to man giffis: He levys at ese that frely levys; A noble hart may haiff nane ease, Na ellys nocht that may him plese, Gyff fredome failythe: for fre liking Is yearnyt ow'r all othir thing Na he, that ay hase levyt fre, May nocht knaw weill the propyrte, The angry, na the wretchyt dome, That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome. Bot gyff he had assayit it, Than all perquer he suld it wyt; And suld think fredome mar to pryse Than all the gold in warld that is.

A Home of Righteousness

(Ancient Greek Inscription)

Piety has raised this house from the first foundation even to the lofty roof; for Macedonius fashioned not his wealth by heaping up from the possessions of others with plundering sword, nor has any poor man here wept over his vain and profitless toil, being robbed of just hire; and as rest from labor is kept inviolate by the just man, so let the works of pious mortals endure.

Palaces

(From the Book of Enoch)

(Hebrew work of the Second Century, B.C., preserved only in the Ethiopic tongue)

Woe unto you who despise the humble dwelling and inheritance of your fathers! Woe unto you who build your palaces with the sweat of others! Each stone, each brick of which it is built, is a sin!

Pride in Poverty

BY CONFUCIUS

(Chinese philosopher, B. C. 500)

Riches and honor are what men desire; but if they attain to them by improper ways, they should not continue to hold them. Poverty and low estate are what men dislike; but if they are brought to such condition by improper ways, they should not feel shame for it.

Millionaires in Rome

BY CICERO

(Latin statesman and orator, B. C. 106-43)

As to their money, and their splendid mansions, and their wealth, and their lordship, and the delights by which they are chiefly attracted, never in truth have I ranked them amongst things good or desirable; inasmuch as I saw for a certainty that in the abundance of these things men longed most for the very things wherein they abounded. For never is the thirst of cupidity filled nor sated. And not only are they tortured by the longing to increase their possessions, but they are also tortured by fear of losing them.

The Ruling Classes

BY EZEKIEL

(Hebrew prophet, B. C. 600)

The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds: Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd.... My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill; yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. Therefore ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord; as I live, saith the Lord God, ... Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand.... I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down.... And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.

Ladies of Fashion

BY ISAIAH

(Hebrew prophet, B.C. 740)

The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof; for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of Hosts. Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet; therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, the rings, and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils. And it shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.

Concerning Justice

(Ancient Hindu Proverb)

Justice is so dear to the heart of Nature, that if in the last day one atom of injustice were found, the universe would shrivel like a snake-skin to cast it off forever.

BY MARCUS AURELIUS

(Roman emperor, A.D. 121-180)

In the whole constitution of man, I see not any virtue contrary to justice, whereby it may be resisted and opposed.

BY SADI

(Persian poet, A.D. 1200)

Take heed that he weep not; for the throne of the Almighty is shaken to and fro when the orphan sets a-crying. Beware of the groans of the wounded souls, since the hidden sore will at length break out; oppress not to the utmost a single heart, for a single sigh has power to overset a whole world.

(From "The Koran")

(Bible of Mohammedanism; Arabic, A.D. 600)

Justice is an unassailable fortress, built on the brow of a mountain which cannot be overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor demolished by the force of armies.

"Do you desire," said Abdallah, "to bring the praise of mankind upon your action? Then desire not unjustly, or even by your right, to grasp that which belongs to another."

(Arabian proverb, Sixteenth Century)

The exercise of equity for one day is equal to sixty years spent in prayer.

BY NINTOKU

(Japanese emperor, Fourth Century)

If the people are poor, I am the poorest.

Solon

BY PLUTARCH

(Greek historian, A.D. 50-120)

The Athenians fell into their old quarrels about the government, there being as many different parties as there were diversities in the country. The Hill quarter favoured democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and those that lived by the Seaside stood for a mixed sort of government, and so hindered either of the other parties from prevailing. And the disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor at that time also reached its height; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous condition, and there appeared no other means for freeing it from disturbances and settling it but a despotic power. All the people were indebted to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase, or else they engaged their body for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home, or sold to strangers; some (for no law forbade it) were forced to sell their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their creditors; but the most part and the bravest of them began to combine together and encourage one another to stand it, to choose a leader, to liberate the condemned debtors, divide the land, and change the government.

Then the wisest of the Athenians, perceiving Solon was of all men the only one not implicated in the troubles, that he had not joined in the exactions of the rich, and was not involved in the necessities of the poor, pressed him to succour the commonwealth and compose the differences....

The first thing which he settled was, that what debts remained should be forgiven, and no man, for the future, should engage the body of his debtor for security.

Concerning Land

BY SOLON

(Greek lawgiver, B.C. 639-559)

The mortgage stones that covered her, by me Removed, the land that was a slave is free.

DEUTERONOMY

(Hebrew, B.C. 700?)

These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.... At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbor shall release it, he shall not exact it of his neighbor, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release.

LEVITICUS

(Hebrew law-book, B.C. 700?)

And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying: ... "The land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me."

(From, "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality")

BY JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

(French novelist and philosopher, 1712-1778; father of the French Revolution)

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

Radicalism

BY CONFUCIUS

(Chinese philosopher, B.C. 500)

Things have their root and their completion. It cannot be that when the root is neglected, what springs from it will be well ordered.

Seeking Causes

BY PLATO

(Greek philosopher and poet, B.C. 428-347)

Neither drugs nor charms nor burnings will touch a deep-lying political sore any more than a deep bodily one; but only right and utter change of constitution; and they do but lose their labor who think that by any tricks of law they can get the better of those mischiefs of commerce, and see not that they hew at a hydra.

Concerning Usury[A]

[A] As used in the Bible, and other ancient writings, the word usury means, not excessive interest-taking, but all interest-taking whatever.

(From "The Koran")

(Arabic, A.D. 600)

To him who is of kin to thee give his due, and to the poor and to the wayfarer: this will be best for those who seek the face of God; and with them it shall be well.

Whatever ye put out at usury to increase it with the substance of others shall have no increase from God: but whatever ye shall give in alms, as seeking the face of God, shall be doubled to you.

(From the Psalms)

(Hebrew, B.C. 200)

Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart....

He that putteth his money not out to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

BY ARISTOTLE

(Greek philosopher, B.C. Fourth Century)

Usury is the most reasonably detested of all forms of money-making; it is most against nature.

(From "Essay on Riches")

BY FRANCIS BACON, LORD VERULAM

(English philosopher and statesman, 1561-1626)

The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul....

Usury is the certainest means of gain, though one of the worst; as that whereby a man doth eat his bread with sweat of another's face, and besides, doth plough upon Sundays.

Solidarity

BY MARCUS AURELIUS

(Roman emperor, A.D. 121-180)

As thou thyself, whoever thou art, wert made for the perfection and consummation of a common society; so must every action of thine tend to the perfection and consummation of a life that is truly sociable. Whatever action of thine that, either immediately or afar off, hath not reference to the common good, that is an exorbitant and disorderly action; yea, it is seditious; as one among the people who from a general consent and unity should factiously divide and separate himself.

Socialism

BY WANG-AN-SHIH

(Chinese statesman, Eleventh Century)

The State should take the entire management of commerce, industry, and agriculture into its own hands, with a view to succoring the working classes and preventing their being ground to the dust by the rich.

The Promise

(From the Psalms)

(Hebrew, B.C. 200)

The Lord shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence; and precious shall their blood be in his sight.

The Co-operative Commonwealth

BY ISAIAH II, THE PROPHET OF THE EXILE

(B.C. 550)

And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

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