The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-07-12
A CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST.
What Charles Kingsley Did For the Adj
vancement Of the Masses.

CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST.
What Charles Kingsley Did For the Adj
vancement Of the Masses.
|. Today the Christian socialist move
ment inspires such universal interest that
It is difficult to understand how little the
people Of the early part of the nineteenth
century realized the misery and need
which was manifested in every quarter
of their great cities. Carlyle saw with q
prophets eye that great need and the
question that it involved. Kingsley and
his friend Maurice went step beyond
Carlyle in that they aroused men to this
need not only by means Of literary eff
forts, but by their practical exertions in
behalf of the poor.
To understand the work which Kings
ley did we must get glimpse Of Eng
lands condition in his day. In the spring
Of 184S, amid widespread distress, the
cloud of discomfort grew ever blacker
and more threatening until at last it
broke into the storm of the Chartist up
rising. The breaking out Of the revolu-
ton in France intensified the danger,
and riots were proclaimed in London,
Edinburgh and Liverpool. Finally when
the rupture came in the rising Of tho
Chartists the government was obliged to
fill London with troops in order to re-
store peace.
When the monetary crisis had passed,
the Chartists being completely discour-
aged and the upper and middle classes
beginning to recover from their alarm
and to wonder whether, after all, the
trouble had ever been below the surface,
aseries of articles appeared in The Morn
ing Chronicle on "London Labor and
London Poor" which caused all serious
minded people to wonder not that Lon
don had witnessed riots, but that she
had escaped revolution equal to that
raging on the continent.
Parson Lot was the name signed to
these articles, and it was the name I'M
der which Kingsley did most Of his
work in connection with Christian social
ism. This name was made famous in
Politics For the People, Christian Social
ism and The Journal of Association,
three periodicals which extended from
the year 1848 to the year 1862, also by
"Alton Locke" and numerous tracts and
pamphlets, the best known Of which is
"Cheap Clothes and Nasty"
Kingsley's character eminently fitted
him for the work with which the name
of Parson Lot is associated. It present
ed a contrast of humility and audacity,
of distrust in himself and confidence in
himself, which gave him peculiar
power for his work. The intensity Of his
nature was one of his most telling char
acteristics, for it enabled him to do with
all his might whatever he had under
taken. He speaks Of it as that ''blessed
habit of intensity"
So Kingsley entered into the Christian
socialist movement with his whole
heart and brought all the strength of
his powerful personality to act upon the
work. The movement probably meant
more to him than to any man at that
time, for he felt it's sacredness and look
ed upon it as Gods cause. He says:
Gear mott He will be with us, and if
he is with us, who shall be against us?'
This hope and reverence characterized
all his work, even in the darkest days.
In his position as country parson
Kingsley came into close contact with
the agricultural poor, and Yeast"
which appeared in Fraser's Magazine,
shows how deeply he sympathized with
them and how keenly he felt the pas
sonate and restless sadness of the times.
A longing to do something for the
cause, to take his part in the active
work, drove him to London Here. with
the help of his friend Maurice, he got
out poster to the Chartists, which.
though earnest and intense, was too lit
erary in tone to arouse the attention of
the average Chartist.
While in London Kingsley saw the
disadvantage under which he and his
friends were laboring, for the Chartists
regarded with suspicion any outsider
who appeared interested in their affairs.
To do away with this difficulty Kings
ley put himself into communication with
the leaders Of the Chartists, attended
their meetings and addressed them as a
Church of England parson and Chart
ist." But while he gradually won the
favor Of the working classes he was mis-
understood and severely criticised by the
aristocracy. With his intense sympathy
for the Chartists, he was quick to see
the weakness of their policy. He felt
that their strength lay in association.
and this he advocates with vehemence
He says: 1--WE must touch the working.
man at all his points of interest-frst and
foremost at association, but also at DO
itical rights as grounded both on Chris
tian ideal of church and on historic fact.
of the Anglo-Saxon race Then national
education, sanitary and dwelling house
reform, the sale Of land laws, moral i'm
provements of the family relation, public
places OF recreation-on which point I
am very earnest-and, think, a set Of
hints from history and the savings Of
great men,"
The question of starting associations
OF working people was at length anx-
iously debated, and it was resolved to
make the effort and to identify new
journal with the movement, and a new
set OF tracts was published, of which
Cheap Clothes and Nasty" was the first.
Cheap Clothes and Nasty" exposed the
slop selling system, which was at the
root of some of the distress in London