The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1886-05-21
Bishop Rulison on Socialism.


Bishop Rulison recently preached a
sermon in Trinity Episcopal church at
South Bethlehem, the concluding por.
ton of which was as follows;
There ought to be change in the
popular idea of the purpose and mean
ing of the Church. IL the Church be,
as it is popularity supposed, society
of people claiming to be perfect, it is
the most superfluous society on the
earth. There are no such people, and
if there were, they would not need
such place. A hospital is for sick,
not we'll folk. A school is for learners,
not the learned. The Church is hos
pital for people who are sick and want
to be well. 1t is a school, where we
are all learners, though placed in diff
ferent classes and forms, where all are
striving to get for them the mind that
was in Christ Jesus. Just in proper
tion as we have this mind the spirit of
brotherhood will be developed, and we
shall become one in Christ, and by
reason of our unity become a mighty
power in the world.
But there are powerful influences
working against this spirit of true
brotherhood, and they are not at all
without the Church. Some of them
are within. The Church itself needs
to be reused and renewed, and the
great world-saving spirit of brother
hood needs to be revived
We are not obligated to denouuce
governments - to cry out against
money-making and preach communism.
So long as society exists there will con.
tinue in spite of all that can be done
to get rid of them, whether by social
ism, terrorism, nihilism or Brook Farm
experiments.
Divide the wealth of the world
equally to night, and tomorrow morn
ing it will be unequally divided, so
different are men in mental power and
the ability to transact business. God
has not made men equal in mental force
and we cannot. Intellectual power,
strong will and persevering industry
will gain money and rule the world SO
long as the world lasts, aud they ought.
But they ought to rule in love. This
is the teaching OF Christianity. This
is the law of brotherhood. But if we
apply it, we shall sometimes have to
stand bravely before some social and
business customs that are unlovely and
unfair, and cry aloud. We shall have
to defy some of society's verdicts, de-
fend some of its outcasts, shame some
ct its misscalled honor, and rebuke it in
the name of honest manhood and in
the name of God. If we shall bring
order out OF the chaos of modern life
we must go into the empire of the dis
contented and proclaim the larger en-
pire of loving Heavenly Father. and
then live ourselves in the spirit of the
divine love-law, the life of true Chris
tian socialism. For after all is is
life-not talking, nor praying, nor sing
ing-that tells on the world. You can
not cure nihilism by proclaiming the
eternity of the autocracy; you cannot
cure communism by an act of congress;
you cannot legislate love into human
hearts nor drive hatred and discomfort
out of them by gifts of old clothes and
remnants and Thanksgiving dinners.
If the Church shall gain the love of the
poor and win the respect and loyalty of
skeptics and infidels, she must live in
the sight of men a life of righteous
ness and love. She must stand forth
in the breadth of the world and feel
the worlds wants, and realizing her
mission to supply them she must show
by her own life that she has passed
beyond the Jewish thought of narrow
neighborhood and that arms of her
love are like the arms that hung upon
the cross-wide open to embrace the
world.