The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-07-16
STRIKES AND THE REMEDY
THE RECESTsTRIKE DISCUSSED hf
 RET. JOHN If. MASON.

Not Thing of the Past put of the Future
 Social and Industrial cohditiohs-hun
 the Foe of the workihgman - The
 Churoh's Opportunity.
 Rev. John II. Mason. pastor Of the First Baptist church. preached a most interesting and thoughtful sermon be- fore a large congregation yesterday morning on the subject Labor Strikes and Gospel Remedies" He took as his texts: Thy will be done. as in heavsn so on Earth" Luke ii:2: and There fore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you. do ye even 80 them." Matthew 7:i2.
 His difcourse was in the main as foi- lows:
 Here are two texts, one for prayer and one for practice. Neither the need of the prayer nor the need of the prac- tice has been outgrown. The move- ment which has suddenly lifted It's hand to throttle the industry of this country and to paralyze all its business activi- ties has a profounder significance than any event in our recent history. Mill Hons of property have been destroyed, Law had been thrust aside as if it were an insolent intruder. Human life has been stamped out as If it were the life of scorpion. Now they tell us that the strike Is a thing of the U,,t ha t..,ts t, af the past. It is a thing of the present and especially of the future. Very likely this particular event may be over. But the fact Is this Is only the outbreaking symptomof a disease and the disease Is not cured when it pleases the complacent president of the American Railway union to declare the strike off, Four years ago the West minister Review" said: Tt is felt by every student and every statesman that some movement vast and momentous though indefinite. Is passing like a great wave over the civilized world" Perhaps that vast and indefinite move- ment Is taking shape. It is safe to pre- dict that whatever may be its final form 1t will have to do with social and industrial conditions and thus will have enormous meaning for the labor ing man.
 It is the business of the church to consider existing conditions, for if the religion of Jesus Christ is not adequate to the settlement of these problems, there is no remedy. In times like these every Christian soul ought to be large enough to hold some sympathy with labor and a profound sympathy with law. Let us listen to some suggestions from the strike.
 WHERE WAS GOD?
 Because God does not interpose and by His own omnipotence overcome the mad wrath of men, some lose faith But if we demand this interference here we must demand His interference every where. and then your man has become simply cog in a machine, and the in- comparable destiny for which a free human being was created and toward which with Gods help he is working his tsway, is. cancelled and becomes a hopeless i'm possibility forevermore. God assures men that His eye is upon them and His hand is ready to aid. and that ulti. mately only righteousness can be tri- umphant; His time of settlement is not here and now. Man created for heaven and surrounded with a thousand help ful influences may yet make his cove nant with hell and may sell his soul to the devil for less than a handful of silver. In the best sense, life is a bat tlefield and every man a soldier; and the reward crown of life. But let us draw nearer to the heart of our sub- ject.
 THE GREED OF CAPITAL.
 Where capital is there greed is likely to be, man being what he is. The world has never supplied such 8 field for money-making as is furnished in this land to our generation. Moreover there Is no land where the false and silly standards for estimating men accord ing to their money prevail as they do here. No wonder we have the appetite for gold. And the difficulty is, that this appetite which becomes a passion, is never satisfied. Men reach their standards and pass them, and set their standards higher, and are as little sat- isfied as they were in their poverty. The struggle becomes more strenuous; the competition ever fiercer. Of course greed can take advantage If it chooses of the working man, for labor has its ceaseless competition, too. Often it does take advantage of him. The tendency in this country is to combination and consolidation of capital And when you put the corporation in the place of the individual you somehow seem to elimi- nate the heart. The voice of the stock holder, clamorous for dividends, drowns all other voices. And when, as is often the case, the company by an interesting modern process doubles its stock with out the payment of dollar, and ex- poets its workingmen to earn the same 6 or 10 per cent. for the stockholders which they earned before, heavy in- justice falls upon the workingman who ought not to be heavily taxed in order to earn large dividends on fictitious wealth. In many cases there is heart less greed for capital. The man who works is part of the machine. The em- ployer too often forgets that his work man is, a creature, of the same God to whom he bows the knee; that he has human sensibilities and heart which can ache and break as his own. In short, he forgets Christ's golden rule. If he should consider that the chief end of man in this world is not to make money, but that he was put here in order that he might know God and