Sunday at Home.

Southern Cross, Volume 19, Issue 26, 21 October 1911, Page 2

Sunday at Home.

WHAT JESUS GATE THE WORLD.

A RELIGION OP FRIENDLINESS

WHAT IT MAY DO IN THE INDUS-

TRIAL ARENA.

(From An Article By C. R. Townson In "Association Men," The Organ Of The Y.M.CA. In America).

If there as a real upreach of friendship with Jesus Christ there will be a corresponding' outreach in real friendliness with men The Power of Friendliness May Have Striking' Illustrations in Modern Industry. HERE tile greatest progress and penalties of the day are found. Fortyyears ago the United States was twice as big agriculturally as industrially; to-day this is reversed. She grows rich at the rate of more than seven million dollars a day, principally from industry. But every minute of every day a worker is sent from industry to the hospital or the grave—by accident or occupational disease. Meanwhile those who bear the heaviest penalties do not share the largest profits. The demand that this condition be changed is mighty and insistent. Remedies are proposed—many of them; and some are very radical. There is one that is real as well as radical. It is in harmony with the spirit of the age and is the incarnation of "the Spirit of all the ages." It is friendliness born of the Christ-spirit. This will distribute wealth fairly, prevent two-thirds of the accidents and occupational disease, and place the remainder of the burden where it belongs. This will insure to the employer a fair day's work for a fair day's wage. This will not only close the doors of the factory against thousands of women and children, but will open to them the doors of better home life and education, for it will give the deserving husbands and fathers the economic power to maintain their wives at home and educate their children. This will establish the best insurance, relief, and pension plans, preventing some of the terror that comes when the ambulance stops before the door or when old age lessens earning power. This will drive off some of that everpresent fear in the hearts of workers who live so close to poverty that a few days' sickness or unemployment means actual want. This will bring into industry some relea.se from the hopelessness of the "blind alley" and the deadening monotony of highly specialized industries vhere a single process must be repeated eighteen thousand times a day. And this, by its great get-together impulse, will make the bitterness and cruelties of strikes and lockouts, industrial clynamitings and wars, a mere memory. Only the Christ-spirit in the individual and in individuals who compose organisations can beget the quality of friendliness that is pure and powerful enough to work this miracle. But it is present to-day in many places. One evidence is seen in the great social unrest, which is only a result of the spirit of Friendliness expressing its sympathy for human need. The rising social standard is the fruit of the gospel of goodwill which the Church has always proclaimed sometimes feebly, it is true, but even in her feeblest moments she has proclaimed it more effectively than any other earthly agency. The Association Movement May Have A Place of Power in the Industrial World. It has the message of the Church; its mission is Friendliness; it has won the confidence of employers and employees; the measure of available financial support is large—very large,

limited only by its ability to discover and use effectively the money which individual and corporation employers will provide—not as a charity but as a legitimate operating expense. Capital is calling for efficiency—that an adequate return may be secured. Labour is demanding fraternity—that will share more of life's privileges. The Association relates to both for it affects Character, which is the only true basis of efficiency and real fraternity.