Thomas County cat., 1886-11-18
THE LABORiNG MAN.

The Christian Religion His Best Friend
1.-The Bible the HIch Mans Warnin.
and the Poor Mans Comfort"
There is an impression among the
discontented laboring classes that the
Christian religion is in its teaching and
its tendency hostile to their interests;
az a consequence it is quite common
thing to find the laboring man an inf
del. Doubtless this is in part occa-
stoned by the fact that those whom he
looks upon as his OppressorS are some
times, as he himself may think often,
Brofessed Christians, while Christianity
itself is main part of that settled or
der of things which he has been led 10
believe is in spirit and form wholly
against him. 1t is a pity that he can
not more often be made to see his mis-
take in this, and a pity also that there
should be so much seeming occasion
for him to look upon 1t as one part of
his battle for his rights to assail that
religion which. OF all things in this
world, is in reality most the laboring
mans friend.
UProf. X. Z. Ely, of Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, has just pub
lisLed book in which what is termed
- the labor question" is discussed from
the point of view of one whose busi-
ness is to teach, and of course under
stand, political economy. In his pre-
face he has some words addressed ITO
Working-men," in one part of which
the point we here make is judiciously
touched. All the several points of ad-
vice are SO excellent that we feel con-
strained to copy at least the leading
sentence under each:
himself more Indispensable i'll his place. q
better workman and Il better man. (2j There
Is no atom OF help oyOu or to any IN drink.
81 Beware of deInagOguery, especially poIit-
ical partyism, which will give IllusOry tri-
umphs. but leave To yOu only wretched fail
ure. ~ 1t cuts me To the heart when labor
ing men are shot down in the streets. :.
1m:tafe no Oience. Your triumph
can only come 10y peace. % There is much
that is bad in existing sOca, arrangements
but there Is also much that is good: and this
pOod has been procured by the struggle of
centuries. ID, Cast aside envy. one OF your
most treacherous foes. "a If your demands
are right II they are reasonable. then you will
Wn and hold your gain. tS Christ and All
Christly people are with you for the ght
In connection with this last point
Prot. Ely quotes the saying of Charles
Kingsley: The Bible is the rich man 5
warning and the poor mans comfort. :"
W here" he says, Twill you find a
more terrible indictment of the rich
oppresSor than in these verses from
the Epistle of James:
Go to now. We rich men. weep and howl
Lor your miSeries that shall come upon you.
Your riches are corrupted and your gar
mcnis are moth-eaten iour gold and silver
rs cankered: and the rust OF them shall be q
witness against you. AID shall eat Your flesh
2s IL wers fire Ye have heaped treasure to-
Ieiher :or the last days behold. the hire of
Your la5orers who have rcaped down your
Heids which is OF you kept back of fraud.
crieth: and the cries OF them wh,ch have
reaped are entered into the ears OF the Lord
OF Sabaoth.'
As far back as the time of the old
Hebrews he shows that the utterances
of Divine inspiration are on the side
of the poor, and against the grasping,
the hard-hearted and the Unsuitable.
He quotes this from the plain-speak-
ing prophet Isaiah: "Woe unto them
that join house to house, that lay field
TO field, till there be no room and We
may be made to dwell alone in the
midst of the land"'-a denunciation
OF those who. in violation of the
salutary laws of the old Hebrew econ
omy which protected the birthright Of
even the poorest of the people, by
courses of grasping injustice, plum
dered the small proprietOrs in order to
make their own possessions the more
princely. 1t is, indeed. wonderful how
the Bible, from its first word to its
last, maintains the cause OF the poor,
and how, while inculcating for them
all those virtues which promise
ultimate coed to the individual, and
ut the same time insure the peace of
society, it breathes not one word of
when the poor are oppressed by the
rich.
The irreligious and above all the
Htheistic element in socialistic teaching
Is especially criminal misleading Of
those who confide in the teacher. And
such teaching is as sophistical in the
evidence it produces as it is false in its
reasoning. 1t may be said with truth
that the instances of Christian people,
even nominally Christian people, who
are unkind to the poor. and especially
of rich men who, while protesting
Christianity. are hard of heart, exact
ing, avaricious and cruel-such in
stances are wholly exceptional. The
ariful socialistic speciai-pleader treats
them as if they were the rule. Those
of whom the laboring man has most
reason to complain are as a rule
not Christians at all; do not even pro-
fess to be. Most of them are as indif-
ferent to religion. perhaps as thorough
ly infidel, as the Socialist demagogue
himself. Not in any singular particu-