Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-06-05


The pastoral letter of Bishop Henry
d. Potter, on the relations Of rich and
poor to the clergy of the Protestant
Episcopal diocese Of New York. is in
effect a plea for Christian socialism,
which is attracting the attention which
such a timely and manly expression of
modern thought deserves. The bishop
draws attention to the early days of
the church, when community OF pos
sessions was the rule among believers,
when 1.-The multitude of them that be-
lieved were of one heart and one soul;
neither said any of them that aught OF
the things which he possessed was his
own. but that they had all things in
common" He says:
Let it be granted without reserve
that such words describe an era Of en-
thusiasm which, with its consequent
community of possessions, could not
last any more thar it would have been
for the greatest good of the greatest
number that it should last. Still, the
fact remains that Christianity brought
into the world a new law Of brother
hood, and both by precept and exam
pie taught men hat they whose was
the stewardship Of exceptional gifts,
cleverness, were not to treat
trust for the whole community.
UVkaN xLo @. ,--r .,.~ liz
employer is fair and fraternal dealing,
not almsgiving, and a recognition Of
the manhood rather than a condescen-
sion to his inferiority. And it is at this
point that the outlook is most dis
couraging. The growth of wealth
among us has issued not in binding
men together, but in driving them
apart. The rich are further from the
poor, the employer from his workmen,
capital from labor, now than aver be-
fore. Too many know less and less
how the poor live. and give little time
or o n at all to efforts to know. Tho
wage OF the laborer may be, doubtless
in most cases 1t is, larger than it was
thirty years ago; but his wants have
grown more rapidly than his wages,
and his opportunities for gratifying
them are not more numerous, but less.
He knows more about decent living,
but his home is more costly. His men,
tai horizon has been widened, but fit
food for il is no more accessible. In
stincts and aspirations have been
awakened in him as in those favor.
ably situated, but wealth does little
either to direct or to satisfy them.
The manners Of the poor, it is
said, r more insolent and u%ngracious
than Of old to the rich, and this dis
courages efforts to know and serve
them. l do not see why poverty
should cringe to wealth, which is as
often as otherwise an accidental dis
tinction, and quite as often a condi-
ton unadorned by any special moral
or intellectual excellence. But we
may be sure that the n Of the
poor. if they be insolent. are learned
from those OF people whose opportuni-
ties should at least have taught them
that no arrogance is more insufferable
or unwarrantable than that Of mere
wealth.
Language such as this from a clergy
man whose life has been principally
passed among the wealthy in the most
fashionable church in New York, is re-
markable. But it comes with all the
more force from a man whose position
has given him the best opportunity for
studying the attitude Of the
rich towards the poor in the
largest organized community of
American society. Bishop Potter
ees clearly that what is needed is
not so much laws regulating strikes
and iniicting penalties on those who
organize resistance to individual lib
erty. drilling regiments and perfecting
police. These are temporary remedies
to check outbreaks of disease which
cannot eradicate the evil itself. He
urges, and rightly urges, that such
steps do not make the state secure. Its
safety and welfare are not in these
things. lit is the contentment and 10y
atty Of its people," and these must
come by a far different path. A new
gospel must be preached. and this is
the message which the bishop desires
that his clergy shall bring to his hear
ers:
When capitalists and employers of
labor have forever dismissed the fall
lacy, which may be true enough in
the domain of political economy. but
Is essentially false in the domain of
religion, that labor and laborer are
alike a commodity, to be bought and
sold, employed OF dismissed, paid or
underpaid as the market shall decree;
when the interest OF workman and
master shall have been owned by both
as one, and the share of the laboring
a shall be something more than a
mere wage; when the principle of a
joint interest in what is produced Of
all the brains and hands that 90 TO
produce it is wisely and generously
recognized; when the we'll being of our
fellow men, their homes and food. their
pleasures and their higher moral and
spiritual necessities. shall be seen to be
-~-kA--- -lsI -