The Labor enquirer., 1885-03-28
The Early Christian Church
Based on a Communal
Foundation.
Ecclesiasticism Guilty Of q Great
Error in Ignoring Christian ).
:, ., Communism.
Men Must be Taught That the Rights
: of Labor is the Social Base ai
Of the Gospel.
For The ENQUIRER.

was Burnette g. HaskelD has been send.
ling yonr psserst ts.@i. see several weeks
and / have read it with a great deal ol
interest.
The address of the I. W. A. in No. 1C
is true, temperate, dignifed and noble
tract.
1t is true that 1 am not working
man." but it is also true that [ like
many others who are not workingmen)
have been watching the growth and de-
velopment Of Scientific Socialism" with
the profoundesJ sympathy, and not al
together without hope. Butts it~not
true that every single fright" which
Scientific Socialism claims for working
men on the ground of social and politi-
cal justice and expediency, was claimed
for them, centuries ago, by Jesus Christ
and His apostles, as religion2 Is it not
true that the common church was for
three centuries, land until it was sub
verted by the Emperor Consta ntine)
Just precisely such a social and political
state, based upon faith, as the l. W. A
now propose to base upon justice and
expediency? Is it not true that the
existing ecclesiastlcisms, all of which
Catholic and Protestant alike) are the
offspring of that legal religion which was
established on the ruins of the common
church by the emperor at the first Nicene
council, have been striving for more
than fifteen hundred years to regenerate
human life from the basis of faith only
without the communion of saints "
Community of property and rights, and
that they have proved a dead failure
only because they abandoned commun-
ism of believers, which was the founda-
ton on which Jesus based his kingdom?
Is it not also true that just as the church
| latter the subversion of the essential,
communal basis) has utterly failed in
attem pting toregenerate society by faith
only, without communis N, as every Or
ganization which shall attempt to accom-
plsh the same grand work by Commun-
ism, or Socialism, only, without faith, is
doomed to inevitable failure? Is it not
true that Jesus, whose gospel was 'glad
tidings to the poor" "rest" for "the
weary and heavy laden" Jesus who
was the protomartyr Of labor's cause,
preached, as essential to the salvation of
mankind, both faith and Communism,
and that either half of tile gospel is ut
terlY insufficient to accomplish the re-
generation of society without the other.
You will perceive that my objection
to the l. W. A. is not against any object
which it desires to accomplish (for just
what Christ sought to accomplish by
faith the |. w. A. seeks to accomplish
by other agencies); but the objection
which | deem fatal to success, is that the
|. w. A. makes no account of the religious
sentiment of mankind and this senti-
ment always was, and is to-day, the
deepest, strongest and most permanent
sentiment of human nature. So true Is
this that the usurers, eXtOrtioners, dem
agogues and tyrants who plunder and
Cypress the world, build their infamous
claw and order" systems on this very
sentiment, No organized despotism or
government known to history was ever
founded on the negative of faith, the
denial of religion; but all of them alike
in Europe, Asia, Africa and America,
through all time, were builded on, and
derived their chief power from, the reli-
gious sentiment of mankind. The diff
ference between "all the Kingdoms of
this world" and the single kingdom
which was mot of this world" subsists
in the fact that all worldly kingdoms
use the religious sentiment to maintain
systems that Cypress the many for the
benefit of the few, but Jesus Christ based
on the same sentiment his church,
which was community of property and
rights, Communism, Socialism, the
rights of man." GLAD tidings for the
poor" salvation forthe many in this life,
in this world, not in any misty lntangl-
BILE life to come, concerning which he
had very little to say. For while the
| foundations of this kingdom were laid IN
the law of Moses, and the development
of it was foretold in prophecy, for four
thousand years nothing was ever said
about "the life to come" Even John
the Baptist, who preached throughout
Judea, said nothing.about 1t; even Jesus,
who dictated form of prayer (the Pa
ternoster), omitted therefrom all refer
ence to it. For the Kingdom of God
was always temporal kingdom; and
our present ecclesiastical nation of a
spiritual kingdom was unknown until
after Christ's temporal kingdom was
oyerthrown at Nlcia.
l recognize in the constitution of the
International Workingmen's Association
every social and political principle of
primitive Christianity, and as an humble
but unwavering disciple of Christ look
forward with hope and yearning. too pro-
found for utterance, to the time when the