“THE CHURCH AND LABOR.”

Evening Star, Issue 12603, 7 September 1905, Page 2

“THE CHURCH AND LABOR.”

TO THE BDrrOB. Sir, —Your leading article on the above subject will no donbt have been read with deep interest by all who are anxious to arrive at some definite understanding on this momentous problem. Yon do not. however, state definitely the position of the Church and its relation to the charges made against it. 13 bile you say “ that many and good reasons could, when and where necessary, be brought forward by members of the Church in proof of the contention that the work of the Church is not primarily to become a society for the cure of social evils,” you admit by this very statement that the Church, after all, has something to do with the cure of social evils, and this admission is sufficient to establish the ground upon widen the charge is made. The Church, beyond a donbt, has everything to do with the cure of social evils, because its primary mission in this world is the regeneration of man, by which is implied the whole of society. Its methods of regeneration are primarily by the expositions of Christian morals, a function which solely belongs to the realm of the Christian hierarchy and their delegated teachers. Further, it does not require very profound understanding to see that as ail evil arises from a violation of God’s laws by man’s activities, so all evil can only be removed by bringing man’s activities into a harmonious relation with God’s laws. It is on this very question that the Church fails. The Church cannot pronounce a verdict upon any given economic question, for the reason that it has never made economics a subject of her curriculum.

Its method has been confined to an abstract statement of the moral code, with the result that those who seriously contemplate the adoption of Christian ethics and applying them to modem business constantly feel themselves in danger of becoming bankrupt, a fact which led the late Archbtshop Magee to express the opinion that the Sermon on the Mount was impractical of realisation until society had been reconstructed on a Christian basis. The question then is : Who is to reconstruct society on a “Christian basis, the Church or the Labor party ?—I am, etc., * W. SIVXBXSBN. September 6.