The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-12-27
"THY KINGDOM COME"

Leading Ministers Of tho Gospel Begin to
Sec That tho Cooperative Common.
wealth La Gods Kingdom.
The Osborne County Kan Farmer,
in the course of lengthy article in a
recent issue, says that 1.-The Farmer
and what help it will have will be
amply able to turn back the tide of So
cialism' in this country as long as the
leaders of that movement rest their
cause on materialism so rank that it
would destroy Christianity, and thus
deprive the world of the great vitaliz-
ing influence underlying the latest and
grandest civilizations"
Socialism may be defined as being
the common, or collective ownership
OF all capital mot property, including
tools OF production and means of dis
tribution; and national, or govern
mental operation of all productive and
distributive industries More simply, it
may be said to be system of govern
ment under which every man and wom-
an shall be guaranteed an opportunity
to earn a comfortable living by honest
labor: Mr.. ingalls, is socialist. In
his great speech at Kansas City he said:
''The trouble has been, not in over
production, but under-consumption.
While am not believer in the forci-
BILE distribution of the assets of society,
yet lay down the axiom that our in
stitutions must be SO modified that any
citizen able and willing to work should
have the opportunity"
The editor of the Osborne County
Farmer must be strangely behind the
times and woefully ignorant of the
trend of current events if he is not
aware of the fact that everywhere, in
all parts of the United States, minis
ters of the gospel are beginning to see
that the Inauguration of the cooper
alive or socialistic commonwealth
would be the actual realization of the
teachings of Christianity and the ad-
vent of the kingdom for which Christ
taught His disciples to pray.
In paper recently read at a meeting
of Baptist ministers, entitled Back to
Christ" Prof. Andrews, president Of
Brown university, gave as significant
phenomenon the fact that a "large and
increasing number of people who pre-
tend to be in some sort believers in
Christ and well-wishers to His truth,
refuse to recognize the church as any
longer a bearer of essential Christiani-
ty. They berate the church for its
apathy, touching social and moral
usages in general just as the aboli-
tionists were wont to denounce it for
tolerating slavery. Most that Christ
was interested in, they allege, the lat
ter-day church, as seen in its public and
official acts, cares nothing about; while
most that seems dear to the church is
what Christ either ignored or con-
demned."
After thus stating the charges that
are so often made against the church,
Prof. Andrews said:
''In its official acts and utterances
the church almost always emphasizes
doctrine as compared with life, saliva
ton and good works.
Concerning the trinity, concerning
regenera ton, concerning future retri-
button, the church manages to express
itself forcibly and solemnly before the
public; but upon such numerous i'm
pOrtant matters as the wrongs con-
nected with corporations, with the
massing of capital, with taxation, with
our bad system of money, with venal
legislation and courts, and the special
wrongs. suffered and complained of by
the laboring masses-matters all high
ly vital in a moral point of view, caus-
ing many times more loss of veal every
decade than slavery, wars or intern
perance ever did in the same time. it is
silent.
ut is no excuse for our apathy in
these matters that we are very igno-
rant touching them, and that there is
much uncertainty as to the cure even
among the wisest 1t is part of our
criminality that we are so ignorant"
In late sermon, Rev. George Bene-
dict, pastor of the Congregational
church, of Haverhill, said:
''Our present danger is from plutoc-
racy, or the money power, and it is as
great a tyrant as the British king or
the slaveholding oligarchy. And go
on to say that the emissaries of plutoc-
racy are as present to-day all over this
country as ever redcoats or slavehold-
ers were present in the streets of Bos-
WILL MY al q ~ CoCAC AOC Ou1y LII UuC
shape of headers at the polls, lobbyists
in the halls of legislation, bribers in
executive chambers and judicial courts,
but also in guises which this foolish peo-
pie has not as yet unitedly condemned
-manipulators in the money market,
spectators in the stock exchange,
trusted heads of corporations and syn
dicates, honored officers in the church
of God. When we go to buy our coal
or our groceries, when we get a rail
road ticket or telegraph message,
then we feel the foot of monopoly upon
our neck. If the extra dollar that we
pay for a ton of coal, or barrel of
flour wen to the miner, or farmer, or
grocer, we shouldn't mind it, but it
does not. 1t goes to the coal baron or
wheat Spectator. Sin, l know, pro-
duces poverty, but it is also true that
poverty produces sin, and 1 trace the
bulk of the sin that blights this nation
to-day to the oppression of the masses
by the millionaires."
Rev. George D. Heron, D. D., pro-
fessor of applied Christianity in Iowa
college, has recently published book
entitled THE New Redemption, Call
to the Church to Reconstruct Society