The advocate., 1894-03-14
[COPYR1GHT.l>
The Dead Line.
~ GIDEON LANVB. DID.
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CHAPTER XVII.
ARE THE RICH ALL WICKED

social chasm for all who feel its thrill = = =
Caste can no more survive the awakening Of
the spirit OF universal brotherhood than
night can outlive sunrise."-REv. JOSIAH
STRONG, D. ID.
"Let us next turn our attention to very
different class of society-the rich and great.
And here in the first place 1t may be remarked,
that 1t is very false calculation that leads US
universally to despair OF having these for the
advocates Of edualitY"-GoDwIN.
When we recall Emerson, Wendell
Phillips, Stephen Pearl Andrews,
Carlyle, Ruskin, William Morris and
Michel Elise, Reclus, Prince Krapot-
kline, Count Tolstoi, and the host of
men and women who have abandoned
wealth and ease and rejected ambitions
proffered rewards to become despised
apostles of new world for the poor,
we cannot agree with reformers who
turn to the hovel alone and deem it
hopeless to preach to the palace.
Whence came the movement which,
on two continents to-day, stirs man
kind with a newborn hope of better
things for the world? Let the truth
be told-it did not originate with the
common people nor with their "lead-
ers." We cannot, if we would, avert
our eyes from humanity's heroes en-
shrined in the history Of the struggle
Of the centuries to awaken a sleeping
world. Jesus Of Nazareth, the first
great social refOrmer devoted to the
cause Of the poor, was, it is said, of
royal lineage. Wycliffe, the fourteenth
century socialist who gave the English
people in their own tongue that most
socialistic Of books the New Testa-
ment, was among the greatest men Of
his time and the cherished friend of
members of the royal household itself.
Victor Hugo, peer of France, dared
death and suffered long years Of exile
as the champion of the miserable. The
great social revolution which now nears
its CensummatiOn has not been fed by
politicians. These have divided the
spois of victories achieved by the
martyrdom Of nobler men and women
who have become odious in their day
that such victories might be. Constan-
tine welded the sceptre made possible
by the anguish Of quite another on the
cross. Cromwell thriyed on the ashes
of Wyclitfe and of John Ball. Wash
ington first and Napoleon afterWard
wore the laurels of Rosseau, Voltaire,
Diderot and Thomas Paine. Lincoln
issued the emancipation proclamation
which the devotion of Garrison, Phillips
and Sumner and Harriet Beecher Stowe
had written. Benjamin Harrison and
John Sherman would be in merited OBJ
hvion to-day but that a foolish people
have suffered politicians to make mer-
chandise of the scaffold agonies of
John Brown. Genius has furnished
the world with reformers whom the
common people have helped slay, and
have erected upon the graves Of their
crucifed friends thrones upon which
selfish, ambitious stupidity sits and is
adored. The farmers are aWaking,
but through no efforts of their own.
The trades unions are awake at last,
but they did not themselves sound the
resurrection horn. Men and women
who could have enjoyed all this world |
affords of luxury and of power, have |
aroused the drowsy masses at last, |
while the "leaders" of the people have
been busy hurting prosecutions stones !
in frantic efforts to stop the noise, | |
must affirm that the farmers and the
workingmen, with noble but rare ex-
ceptions, have rejected their prophets
untilapproved of by the" upper classes"
and socialism grows popular on the
farm and in the factory to-day largely
because good words have been spoken
for it of late by "the respectable" The
despised bringers of glad tidings to the
poor have been first heard by quite
other ears.
No, the new gospel is not to the poor
alone, although it is for them it is
preached. We should despair of no