The Progress., 1893-04-08

.,r.rence to Christianity but Tempo
The Church Must Take Hold.
NV YORK. April 9.-Mr. Dixon an.
.oad this morning that until next
IN ,be usual review of current events
'a ',,ld he omitted, as the special series OF
.s,nons TO be begun next Sunday morn
,sn wouId occupy the full morning hour.
-. ~ sornou this morning was discourse
In the needs Of the ignorant and help
W masses The text was taken from
Matthew TX. 80, "But when he saw the
.s,t;tudes he was moved with compas-
~, because they were distressed and
Uttered ', as sheep not having shep
herd
And vet this same crowd-this vast
latitude of distressed and scattered
..o,le that so moved Jesus with pain
Yr..bored at last round his cross and
scined with the proud and the rich in
nochng asd laughing at his agony.
Tbose that did not join in the mocling
..ood beholding in silence. Hegel has
assned a mob TO be that force in ma
Am which acts without or apart from
Az organization of the whole. There
nav be thus an ignorant or a learned
,rob a mob Of men of fashion or of men
dletters But the spirit is the same,
and IN its severance from the organic
neople there is the same essential vulgar.
itv We must remember, in any discus.
s;on Of the problem of the mob, that it is
canable of this wider definition. The
church that seeks its own good as against
The good of the community would be it
self mob. The class or clique or fac
ton. educated or uneducated. that blind
" seeks It's own interests as against the
communal interests is animated by the
spirit Of the mob.
When the leaders of study join with
these factions in sympathy or in action,
they have abdicated the throne and joined
the mob. When all England, and in fact
al the world, with uncovered head
mourned the death of Tennyson as he
was laid to rest in Westminster abbey,
the Prince of Wales preferred to go to
the race track and bet rather than to pay
homage TO the immortal eulogist of his
father and the laureate of the English
nation. In that act the Prince of Wales
was no better than the dirty leader of
the anarchist mob that must be driven
into corner. dubbed into submission
and dragged to the penitentiary
THE FIGHT OF LABOR AND CAPITAL.
But IL Is not of this larger view of the
spirit Of the mob that wish to speak
this morning. Il is rather the cry of
need from the dark, vulgar mass, which
the world has misnamed the mob. that ]
wish you to hear today. We are in the
midst Of labor wars, and one miserable
faction springs upon the throat of an
other faction, and they fight each other TO
the death They call each other traitors,
liars, thieves, and while they destroy one
another their common enemy laughs at
their calamity and mocl1s at their weak
ness We see the pitiable spectacle of
the Knights of Labor In one hostile
camp. the Federation of Labor in an
other. the employers fighting both, and
the wretched people ground to death be
tween the three. Do the masses need a
gospel Thousands and hundreds Of
thousands of them are apparently alienat-
cd from Christianity. Does this aliena-
ton mean real clash between the needs
OF the people and the ideal of Christian
ity' Far from it. The opposition is sim
ply upon the surface. II is a temporary
misunderstanding. 1t must pass as the
veil of ignorance is lifted. Hundreds of
thousands of the masses are in heart
longing and praying for light, for guild
snce and salvation.
The problem Of the mob is the problem
Of the race.
Frst-It must be so because Of the
transcendent sacrifice made for the com
mon people in the life and the death of
Jesus Jesus Christ spent his life with
the poor, ,laboring for them, leading them,
teaching them, healing them. We are told
that God so loved the world that he gave
ne only begotten Son that this world
might've. He gave himself. God was in
Vnrist reconciling the world unto him
eslf The world here referred to is this
dark, restless throng, distressed and
scattered as sheep having no shepherd.
u was unto this mob. lost in the wilder
nsss Of self and sin and ignorance, that
Jesus came He said that he came not
% call the righteous, but sinners. Sc
psat q sacrifice as his life and death
could not have been made had not the
need been commensurate with the deed.
Love measures its work by needs, not by
osoertA So God measured his sacrifice,
nos By what the mob deserved, but by
What IL needed.
IkuE HISTORY OF THE COMMON PEOPLE.
Second-The history Of the world, sc
~ - 1t has been written at all, is the
S9y Of the needs Of this great multitude
Un the record Of their sorrows set to Q
universal music. Il is the story Of theil
sopes, or It is the sad record Of theii
SsePair. Real history tells the story o.
- dumb and bitter struggle with tn
saaswfA forces of the universe. How
0oy wrostled with famine and hunQe,