The herald., 1895-12-24
Is The Church Delinquent :?

eral years past. II. Nj. WIDNEY.
Is The Church Delinquent
EDITOR HERALD: One of the most dis
couraging features of our present civilisa-
ton is the indifference, or worse than
childish expedisnts, the so-called higher
classes assume when confronted with the
great social problems about them. You
are told the idle won't work if offered work,
that all their troubles are caused by in
temperance. that their failure to join some
particular church or assent to some special
dogmas are at the bottom of all the trou-
BILE. And yet when you come 10 investi-
gate not one largely settled locality is with
out its quota of unemployed sober, honest
willing workers and distress is each year
becoming more and NOR common.
The church in this country is great Or
ganizaton capable of doing much good and
which actually does some good. In the
striking parable of Dives and Lazarus Dives
was represented by Jesus Christ as letting
a few crumbs fell to the beggar at his
gates. 1t would be. wrong to assert that
our churches of these latter days do not
drop at least some crumbs where the un-
fortunate. starving multitude can get them.
The crumbs are largely composed of faith
and good advice, but still little actual
bodily nutriment is from time to time con-
tributed. No thousand or five thousand
are fed in these days as Jesus
is said to have fed such multitude. but
that is easily eXplained-the age of mira
cles is past. Empty stomachs continue, to
be sure; that is not now the concern OF
many of our modern Christians.
Lately our clerical friends have shown
great disposition to go into politics. Dr.
Parkhurst set the example and for time
each city and town in the United States
had follower of the Madison avenue
preacher. There was, and still is. plenty
Of and o,porftrnitu for THAR nnnd
works. Bribery, corruption and wholesale
stealing is to be found everywhere. Giant
corporations are robbing the people. Sew
eral million fellow beings only ask their
"fellow worms for leave to toll" Practi-
cal schemes for lard and money reform
are before the public. Jails are over
crowded with men and women almost
forced by their bitter circumstances to be
come criminals. Has any plan to aid
these reforms occurred to our amiable
clerical friends? With few honorable
exceptions, like, for instance, in ,he case
York of the Parkhurstian order was to
compel the citizens to buy their beer Satur-
day night or go without beer one day in the
week and make up for it the other Six.
Also. as the New York World showed, peo-
pie we're arrested for buying ice in
the heat of summer on Sunday, for
selling umbrellas in a rainstorm,
Sunday, for working in their gardens Sum
day. Even few children were arrested
and jailed for selling gum in the parks
Sunday. The list of arrests for alleged
breaking of Sunday laws was enormous
and hardly any other reform was at
tempted by the Parkhurst-Roosevelt re
gime. New Workers may have been dis
affected with Tammany but between Park
hurst, Roosevelt and Tammany the tiger
was, last month, the decided choice of a
majority of the electors. And all the way
to the Pacific the same disposition may be
noticed. People are beginning to weary of
the everlasting din about trivial questions
of Sunday observance and crusades against
the unfortunates of the lower classes. while
the sleek well fed, we'll clothed rascals
escape any mention. And then why leave
the work of rescue of the fallen to the Sal
vation Army and one or two other obscure
organizations? Why should any sincere
Christian be content with long face and
a droning sermon once week when a
world with its multitudinous needs is all
around him: If our good friends of the
church smile at little zeal on the part of
the writer in the interest of poor, hungry,
homeless wanderers it may be we'll to
remind them that the head of their
church, and, as most of them claim, the
Deity himself said, referring to his sojourn
among people of their class: THE foxes
have holes and the birds of the air have
nests, but the Son of Man has not where
to lay his head.'
What a power the church might be to
right the world of many grievous wrongs!
How little it actually does for the great
struggling mass of uDfortunates. Indeed,
it is hard to say it, but it almost seems as
if it showed less of the Christ-like mercy to
the downfallen than those who never enter
it's sanctuaries. But history repeats itself,
and the story of the priest, the Levite and
the Good Samaritan is often repeated in
these days. w. B. J.