Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1885-04-30
Social Problems i'm the PULPIT,

Dr. Newman Smyth, OF the First church
of New Haven, Connecticut, has boldly in
troduced the discussion of social problems
into the regular course of his pulpit minis
trations. He has been preaching sermons
with special reference to the claims of labor.
The sermons have been delivered at the morn
ing service of the church. In one word, he
virtually takes up the position that the dis
cpssion of social problems is as germane to
the Christian pulpit as the discussion of doc
trinal problems. And in this he is, we
think, right. We do not see, in point of
fact, how the point can, with any show of
reason, be disputed. Christianity processes
to shed its light into every part of the life of
man. 1t may not be pledged to this solution
or to that solution of a particular social
problem; but it is bound to have something
to say on the subject; for the array of scrip
tural utterances is absolutely overwhelming
by which Christians are enjoined to acknowl-
edge God in all their ways, to be Christian
in all they do, to connect their eating and
drinking with the glory of God; to preach
and teach, and exemplify holiness unto the
Lord, in the very bells that tink1e from the
necks of their horses. The difficulty is not
to find passages of Scripture which permit
Christian ministers to introduce questions of
living Neutrality-suspicious. that move mems
minds-into the pulpit; it is to find any BIZ
BILE verse that mi ght furnish a colorado pre-
text for abstract, theoretic, impractical
preaching, steering clear of the questions of
the day. And if all questions of human in
terest may claim illumination from the
Christian pulpit, as all classes of society
came for a word of monition to John the
Baptist, the question Of the condition of the
laboring population has distinct title to
precedence. ''To the poor the Gospel is
preached" Those words of Christ are indie
structible. They make the cause of the poor
the special cause of his church. Until they
have been wiped out and forgotten, the
Christian preacher is bound to give ear to the
poor man when he says, "What Gospel have
you for me?"
The first of the sermons preached by DR..
Smyth on Social Problems has been printed
in the Andover Review for April Its par
ticular theme is the claims of labor, and its
tone and character justify the hope that the
series will form a really useful contribution
to the literature of the subject. DIR. Smyth
mentions in the outset that, the same day
and by the act by which the church
in which he spoke founded, the ances-
tors of the present worshippers ''abrogated
the English law OF entail, by which the mo-
nopoly of land in England has been main
tanned, and adopted the Hebrew law by
which estates were to be divided among many
heirs, and check was put upon the vast ac-
emulation of property in the hands of a
comprising numbers of workingnen, as we'll
as representatives of capital, he warned the
former against imagining that he meant to
launch into indiscriminate denunciatiens of
''the powers that be-" Seldom have weight
ier words been spoken than those in which
DR.. Smyth tells the working man that, 'sif he
respects his own reason, he should be the
first to resent from any man on his behalf
the easy hypocrisy of Incorporate speech"
We put into italics a phrase which every
workman of sense ought to imprint on his
memory. But DIR. Smyth does not fold up
in generalities the demands which are made, |
in the name and on behalf of workingmen,
by the various Socialistic organizations. He |
quotes a workingman saying, with refer
ence to the service expected by his class |
from Christian ministers, that "the real thing |
to teach is an uprising and demanding of a |
fair share of the products" !"
We believe that what more or less frets all |
those laboring people who are discontented |
with their condition is just a sense of the |
unfairness of their s'share of the products"
On the one hand, the magnificent achieve |
ments of civilization are before their eyes, |
They seem to afford enjoyment, if not exclu- |
sively at least in an overwhelming proper
tion, to the rich. A number of men, CON
siderable in itself, but insignificant in com
parisnn with the millions who work with |
their hands, fare sumptuously every day, live
in handsome houses, wear luXuriously COM
Portable clothing, possess exquisite furniture
and beautiful pictures. All these things,
say the discontented workingmen, are pro
ducts of labor. Even the fine pictures copl1
not be produced if work of a hard apa wear
ing kind were not done in order to provloe
artists witt. colors. In short the products OF
civilization seeAA to be consumed by few, |
while an immense lsa1ltitude call in vain for
a fair division of those products. The word
"fair" is however, unfortunate Everyone
admits it and then asks, What doas ''fair"
share of the products of civilization mean?
It is in attempting to answer this question
that the real difficulty is encountered.
fair share must be q possible share. practi-
cable share. 1t sounds fair that the toiling |
millions should change places with the opu- |
lent few who toll not, neither do they spin. |
But this, fair or unfair, is in the nature of |
things impossible. The wealth of the world, |
in the sense of food, fuel, clothing, is per-
petually being made. If the millions sus-
pended operations the few, merely because
they are few and have not the physical force,
could not take their places; the sole result
would be that the wealth would not be pro
duced. DR.. Smyth says that the world lis
as yet hardly year ahead of the starving
point for all its population should all labor
be interrupted" We do not know what are
the statistics on which he bases his calcula-
ton, and we think he exaggerates the length
of time during which world of idle con-
sumers could exist A vast proportion of ar
t1cleS OF IOOQ, lncluulAS liSu, Iiu11, FoSoGd-
bles, are perishable within few days. Sus-
pend agriculture for three months and the
race would suffer pangs of hunger compare
BILE with which those occasioned by the worst
of remembered famines would be slight. If
the millions who now do the worlds hard
work were not to do it, other millions would
need to be found to do it, or the millions
themselves would be unfed and unclothed
This is sure as arithmetic. Hard work
cannot be dispensed with, and cannot, except
to a very limited extent, be made easy, sweet
and pleasant. But if everyone, doing, first
of all, his own work as well as he can. strives
to alleviate the lot of his neighbor-which is
the Christian rule-the result will probably
come near the best attainable for all. ''God, ;,
says Dr. Smyth, 'shas made all classes OF
men vitality dependent upon one anothers la
| Dor on this earth; and any man who has any
warm blood in his brains, or any baptism of
the spirit of Christ upon his ssul, will ear
| nestly desire to make his own work and his
own prosperity more helpful to all his fell
| lowmen."