SOAP BOX TO PULPIT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 128, 6 July 1914, Page 9

SOAP BOX TO PULPIT.

CHURCH AND SOCIETY. AN INDICTMENT BY DAN SULLIVAN. Mr Dan Sullivan is one of this fair city's best known Labour leaders. He has spoken from many platforms, from the dizzy eminence of soap-boxes, and from improvised al fresco stands at the street corners. Yesterday Mr Sullivan was in a pulpit. It in the Grand Theatre, where pleasant Sunday afternoon services are held. He spoke on the "Influence of the Church on Society." Perhaps the novelty of his position (in a pulpit) caused- Mr Sullivan to be less fluent than usual. At the same time he got | in a few digs at Capitalism, cheered for Labour, and gave the Church a shake up. THE GREAT STRUGGLE. Mr Sullivan said that all over the civilised world a great struggle .was proceeding between the massed forces of Labour on the one hand, and the massed forces of Capital on the other. The struggle had attained such tremendous proportions as to constitute it the outstanding feature of the age, and it entered into the economic life of every individual. He wanted to ask whether the Church had any rights, any duties, any part to play in the discussion of this great social question. GOSPEL TRUTH. Mr Sullivan supplied his answer. So long as the Church continued to preach the Gospel, so long must it intimately concern itself with social questions. Every student of history knew that the Church had played an important part in the development of Western civilisation. He proceeded to throw a few bouquets of appreciation at the Ancient Church J of the first few centuries of the Christian era. At a time when the work of the world was almost entirely done i by chattel slaves, the Christian Church! was the first to tell these oppressed creatures that they had souls, to "breathe into the poor twisted and tortured soul of the slave the glad news that '' in Christ there was -neither bondman nor free-1 man, yet all are one in Christ." The services of the ancient Church to Labour had been just as distinguished as its services to society in general. DECADENCE. Mr Sullivan's quarrel with the Christian Church to-day was that it had not displayed the same spirit in modern times that it had displayed in the past. During the past century trade unionism/ and trade unionism almost alone, had been the friend of the working man. The trade union rescued him from degradation and slavery, from what was known as the Golden Era of Capitalism, when 14 ? 16, and 18 hours per day was not thought too much for the worker. That was when little children of five years were relentlessly ground under the profit-making system. The Church should have spoken out, it should have condemned in no uncertain terms the outrages inflicted 011 the unorganised and unprotected workers of Great Britain. He did not ask the Church to become a Revolutionary Socialist, a Single Taxer, Liberal, or Labourite. DUTY. It was the duty of the Church to take its stand upon the i|uest.ion of moral- ; ity, ami condemn wrong-doing whoreever it found it. When the Church saw , men being over-worked, underpaid, monopolies combining to artificially in- ! crease the cost, of necessaries, men and ■ women forced to work in unhealthy and j unhygienic surroundings, it was the; Church's boundeu duty to fulfil its mis- ' sion and condemn these wrongs. The J amount of work before the Church was infinitely greater than the amount it had accomplished. OFF TO AMERICA. Mr Sullivan went off to America for his i ' horrible examples,'' instancing the

over-crowding in the 300,000 one-roomed hovels in New York, and the employment at industries of 2,000,000 little children in'the United States —children 1 who should be playing in the green fields or learning at school. They werer being exploited by_the capitalist class. Was there anything there for the ' Church to do"? These things were charac- - teristic of the big cities of the world. . , If the Church would condemn these things, irrespective of the social position of the offender, it would do much to f ♦*> solve the social problem of to-day. The . Church should also seek to protect the working class, which was the least jible to protect itself. It would thereby assist to bring about peace and goodwill on earth, which was one of the objects of the great Founder of the Church. : STRENUOUS CRITICS. The speaker had not seriously hurt the susceptibilities of: any of the regUT lar church-going audience, but he had been far too mild for some of the casual attenders who had dropped in «.to hear his Views. One very earnest gentleman • rose and assured the audienee that unless the Church got down to bedrock and preached Socialism it would avail the worker nothing. A mild gentleman from Sydney suggested that the remedy for the whole trouble was "to do unto others as you would others do to you,'' but this was fractured sadly by the assurance of a militant looking young man that as the workers had nothing they could not do to the capitalistic class what they would like the capital- ... ists to do to them. Others bemoaned the alleged fact that the worker of to- • day is no better off than the worker of thirty years ago, but those who bemoaned did not appear to be thirty years old. The Rev. J. Cocker, who presided, smote these pessimists hip and thigh with an epitome of his own career as a worker, which included ten years manual toil in a place which must have resembled Hades. He also vigorously defended the Church from the expressed and implied criticisms, pointing out that leaders of Labour sentiment at Home were sons of the Church. Mi Cocker was very vigorous, but he expected too much if he hoped to convince the critics that the workers of the world can look to the Church as an active and effective ally for the achievement of their aspirations.