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' 10 (590) THE 3
the thing to which you are now a willing prisoner.
The fame you covet will pass away. If it
outlives you still in time it will be crowded out
of the world to make room for the fresher praise
of living men, maybe not one whit more useful
to their day than you to yours, but newer men
living in a present age.
So the sorrows the world inflicts will pass
away. You will outlive them all.
T>iUa ilinf 1 iA fKn v?oonVi Af
DHL lilt; lllliJgd UiAl lie urjviiu lug ivuvu vx
world and its spirit, these things endure. The
time you spent and the effort you made to conform
yourself more perfectly to the will of God
endure. The cup of cold water given to a disciple
in the name of a disciple will become a river
of blessing. The love for God which fills your
heart and overflows in sunshine and service will
not pass away. Happy are they who see these
things now and shape their lives accordingly.
If one had the power to see at a great distance,
far beyond the ordinary range of human vision,
it would be a wonderful thing and worth much
to him. If he would see what no telescope could
see, and report clearly upon things to others
hidden his fortune would be made. Generals
would want him, captains of great ships would
clamor for him. Kings would outbid each other
to possess his services. Such power is his whose
spiritual eyes are quickened. He not only sees
heavenly things, but the faculty of judging earthly
things in the light of eternal values. He can
do more, and bear more, and see more, and love
more than any man who does not possess his
secret. And he can shed more light on life's dark
ways than a whole battery of arc lamps. May
God grant to us the power of vision.
MODERN SOCIALISM.
The aggression and growth of Socialism is a
fact to be reckoned with and a sign of the times.
It is said that every State in the Union has a
well organized Socialist press and about three
hundred periodical publications are regularly
issued. The leading organ is called 1 tie Appeal,
and during the last year, distributed more than
thirty-one million copies; and the rapid increase
of new socialistic papers has not retarded its
growth of circulation. The organization, or
party, has mayors of about thirty American
cities and fills nearly five hundred elective offices.
Socialism is strong among the Jews who have
a paper published in New York city, with a
circulation of 125,000. This paper Is now
erecting a twelve story building with halls, office-rooms
and general equipment. A new Socialist
organ, The Milwaukee Leader, recently
began its career with a larger circulation than
any of the city dailies. It as published in a
building owned by a corporation of Socialists.
An incorporated publishing house at Findlay,
Ohio, announces that it now publishes weekly
Socialist papers for nearly one hundred cities
and towns of the middle West.
The tenets of Socialism seem hard to define.
Probably they have never been formulated to
an extent which includes all the varying shades
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under that caption. The argument is made that
modern developments and methods of capital
compel the formation of the present socialistic
order of society. The fact of an immense surplus
of wealth in the hands of one class, comparatively
few in number, is taken as proof
that those who labor, the vastly larger class,
are deprived of a fair share of the fruits of their
toil. It is noted that when the capitalist purchases
the strength and skill of the laborer he
nofro loaa fVtan Via n>/>nivog oIsa Vio txrmilfl nnt Viliv
at all. The difference is taken from the laborer
and udded to the surplus of the capitalist.
Thus the producer of values receives less of
value than he (fives and the capitalist receives
1 / " a ii k
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S <
more of value than he gives. The Socialist
claims that because of the universality of this
fact in organized society, therefore society must
be radically reorganized, or else all organization
must be destroyed.
The extremes of Socialism are so great that
that there is tmcompromising warfare between
parties and elements within itself, all insisting
on calling themselves by the one name and being
its true representatives. Rev. Reginald Campbell
of London avows himself a Socialist and
has written a book of sermons, while certain
leaders of German Socialism declare themselves
to be atheists and avow a deadly hatred of
Christianity.
Karl Marx, a German writer, has come nearest
to reducing Socialism to a system, though he
represents the ultra school of anti-Christian Socialists.
The more prominent teachings of Marx
are set forth in a standard work by Professor
Flint and an outline of them may be sketched
as follows: It aims at the complete subversion
of present-day civilization and society; the abolition
of private property, marriage, the family,
the state, religion and proctically all institutions
that mankind havp bppn nppnstnmpd fn
regard as essential to their well-being. These
institutions are to he replaced by a social order
in which all property would he held in common,
family life would cease and children would be
wards of the State. The State would be supreme,
the absolute master of the people, exercising
all political authority, controlling
wealth, directing industry, assigning every
man's vocation, determining his compensation,
and controlling his life in its minute particulars.
Religion would be replaced by hilarity?eating,
drinking, being amused and making merry.
Such is the concept of a brain that has essayed
to represent Socialism in its scientific aspect.
The Gospel of Christ is the bulwark against
this as against the many modern illusions that
would disrupt society, destroy the faith of mankind
in all that is sacred and blast the hopes of
the immortal souls of men who are a*ying out for
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I lie UVlIJg uuu.
A CLOSE CONNECTION.
There is a close connection between the teaching
of broad views of religion and the Bible, on
the one hand, and the present prevalence of disregard
for law and constitutional authority, on
the other. The loose views of supposed leaders
of thought are not limited to these men. They
deal with them as theories, assumptions, possibilities.
The outside world catches them up and
deals with them as applied science. They please
the fancy of the theorists. They become the life
rule of the crowd. They are the mental intoxication
of the liberal thinkers. They are the foo.l
and life of the workers. They are readily and
eagerly caught up because they are in the line,
not of the thinking, but of the willing of the
natural man.
Society ought to lift its voice against theolo gical
liberalism and every other species of teaching
which lets down the bars or loosens the grip
of truth or lowers the spirit of reverence. The
evil is not confined to the thoughts or views
themselves which are the subject of the loosening
process, but extends to everything else in which
man stands under law. Authority is set at
naught or minimized, and the seeds of anarchy
are sown. Let the Bible be understood to be a
book which one may set aside at his own pleasure,
or let its teachings be regarded as of no more
weight than that which mere human and ad
verse interpretation will permit, and it will take
hut little time for the world, which is already too
much inclined that way, to repudiate all authority
and all rule. "Where the Bible is belittled
or condemned, the beginnings of anarchy are
found. It matters little whether this belittling
iliii|y i ii^.
) 0 T H [May 29, 1912
be academic or practical; the result is the same.
The academic here always results iu the practical.
Resolve supematuralism out of the Bible, and
limit the book's inspiration to mere genius, or
confine the inspiration, of whatever nature it
be, to only parts of the Bible, and those parts
at our option and judgment, and the two great
safeguards of constituted authority are gone.
Men despise that to which they cannot look up.
They cannot worship or adore or obey it. A God
whom they can understand is no God to them.
And if they have no God, what care have they
for law? Authority is wrapped up in superiority.
Society is superior to the individual, and
its rights are more important and supreme than
the individuals. But is society looked upon as B
having no rights or powers or dignity, its edicts
will be set aside and anarchy will prevail. It is
for this reason that when the reins of government
are loosely held the evil instincts of humanity
assert themselves and every form of evil
prevails.
It has been claimed by some, not for disinterested
motives, that the whole Protestant movement
is in the direction of anarchy, that it both I
began and persists in a rebellion against law.
This is teased only upon the assumption that the
ehureh from which many revolted was invested
with supreme authority. Such an assumption
itself creates anarchy more than the denial of
it. Tt degrades law by making a human organization
its giver and exponent rather than the
Divine Being. There is no anarchy in getting
away from a lesser authority to a higher, or from
a merely claimed to a real authority, from man
to God. from the edict of a council or a priest
to the direct word of the living God. The anarchy
is in the repudiation of the higher. Therefore
it is that, as a matter of fact, lawlessness
has always prevailed more in Humanized lands,
alone with the other evils of illiteracy, concubinage,
illegitimacy, and the like, than in Protestant
lands. Enthrone the Bible, and the Creator
rather than the creature is adored. Take away
the Bible, whether by the priestly denial of it to
the people or by the processes of minimizing its
supematnralism and inspiration and divine authority,
and yon have taken away the very palladium
of law and liberty.
A FRANK ADMISSION.
Biyfliop Canevin, of Pittsburgh, has been making
wbat the "Roman Catholic press pronounced
"an exhaustive examination, historical and statistical.
into the losses and gains of the ehnrch
in the United States." In his stndy of the emmigration
problem and the loss that comes to his
ehnrch because "the Belgian and Latin race immigrants,
as a body, are lamentably ignorant of
the troths of religion, and utterly devoid of the
zeal and loyalty to the ehnrch which is characteristic
of the hnmble immigrant from other
lands," he says, "The Italians, in particnlar,
from their poverty, lack of religions edneation.
indifference, and apathy toward the church, arc
a favorable field for prose! vters." This is a verv
simple and honest confession, thonsrh not intended
as am oh, that the nearer one sroes to the fountain
head of "Romanism, the jrrosser is the icmorance.
the more laclcincr is the relisrions education,
the more prononnced is the apathy towards the
chureih. How can these thinsrs he if Rome he
ricrhtT No stndent of history, or analyst of human
conditions needs to he told that Romanism
has heen the srreatest foe of liberty, education
and intelligent relicrion. Contrast "Rihle-exclud
M Ttaly, Spain, Portneral, Belcrium, Smith
America, with Bible-mien Oermnnv, Great
Britain nnd. America, and one will see at a crlanec
the effect, of a relief on in which the priests rule
the nermle. think for them, nnd keep the Bible
out of their hands. >
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