The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-01-03
THE SPIRIT or THE AGE.
| Upon It Rests the System Of Commercial
Individuallsm and Laissex Faire.


Upon It Rests tho System Of Commercial
Individualism and Laissex Faire.
At st. Paul's church, Boston, recent
~ Rev. Charles Ferguson of Cohasset
preached an interesting sermon upon
1.-THE Industrial Crisis-Work for the
Voorhees," He said:
We are standing in the presence of a
great absurdity-nOt amusing, but trag-
ic-the spectacle of million working
men compulsorily idle in country Ca
pable by nature Of giving work and bread
to ten times the earth's population, a
country wherein everybody admits and
asserts the common duty and the COM
mon right to labor.
The causes of this phenomena are not
local and not transient. We are APP.
preaching the climax of the nineteenth
century in nearly even pace with all the
great nations of the world. The root of
the whole worldwide trouble is a Pc
culiar and modern quality of our old
primal selfishness permeating society
from top to Observation-Disclosures for the
first time in the worlds history formu-
lated into creed and erected into sys-
tem-the system of commercial individ-
ualism and laissez faire, out Of which
has sprung this infidel disbelief of man
in man and the consequent failure of
commercial credit.
You cannot love and trust your neigh
Dor if you find in him only an intelli-
gent apparatus for the calculation of his
own ''enlightened self interest" The
nations are weary of this profane gospel
of greed. God is about to change all
that. The spirit of the age is more than
the body of the age-it rises to do the
work of the Holy Ghost. Men must
soon be found who are willing to do
business that does not pay. I.think
that is the precise specific. It is not
nOstrum. There is no patent on it. 1t
is the open secret of Christ. The bust
ness of Jesus did not pay, neither did
the business of the prophets and apos-
ties, and no genuine and noble work of
painter, poet, soldier or craftsman, no
true labor and pain of good worker or
good fighter was ever done and suffered
since the world began-for mere pay.
There is no need to argue the immoral
ity of this utter commercial selfshness.
We have before our eyes the demonstra-
ton of its entire folly and impracticabil-
ity. 1t is not merely desirable that men
be found who are willing to do business
that does not pay. It is absolutely neces-
sary. Thirty years ago there were found
men who offered their lives to their coun-
try. We shall find men now who will
offer their dividends, though indeed this
latter be somehow a more difficult sacri-
fee.
The plain way to find work for tbs.
voorhees, is that they who have land ana
capital shall go on with useful enter
prises or embark in new ones straight
way, being principally careful that their
enterprises shall be useful andshelpful,
and only secondarily careful that they
shall yield rent, interest or profit. There
is not the slightest danger Of overproduc-
ton of the common necessaries and de-
cencies of life. There are not good houses
enough; there are not warm coats enough:
there is not bread and butter enough;
there are not well cleared fields enough
in Massachusetts. There are roads to be
made, swamps to be drained, wells to be
dug, dikes to be built-and every stroke
of the work shall permanently enrich
the commonwealth yet l suppose
it will not pay.
But America has right to expect
something from this quarter. If the
heart is the seat of the passions of love
and honor and self devotion, then Boston
is the heart of America. Here, then, if
anywhere in America, shall be formed
that generous syndicate of capitalists to
put down capitalism. Here, if anywhere,
shall be found men brave enough to defy
the law of the market in order to keep
the law of God.