The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1900-06-25
CHURCH'S DUTY TO LABOR.
REV. C. II STRONG DISCUSSED AN
IMPORTANT QUESTION.

The Work of the Recent Conference
at Washington of the Church As
ISOLATION for the Arrangement of
the Interests of Labor Reviewed
and ApprOved-The Church and
LabOring Men Must Get Closer To-
Rether aud Understand Each
Othcr-Humnnitaria Work ana
Not EccIesinsticIsm Is What Is De-
mnnded of the Church.
Rev. Charles II. Strong gave his congre-
cation an interesting discourse at St.
Johns Church yesterday upon the c. A. L.
L., or the Church Association for the Ad-
vancement Of the interests of Labor. 3"
Properly speaking, Mr.. strong's discourse
was an argument in behalf of the need
of more humanitarian work on the part
of the church, particularly as applied 10
labor The work being done by the c. A,
l. L. in the North and West furnished a
strong Illustration of the need and value
of such a movement.
Mr. Strong dwelt especially upon the
recent convention of the c. A. I. L. in
Washington, which was not only attend
ed by Bishops Satterlee and Huntington
and other prominent divines of the Epis-
copal Church, but by leaders of labor
throughout the country, including Presi-
dent Gompers of the Federation of La
Dor. President Parsons of the Knights of
Labor, Frederick Warde the celebrated
actor, and numbers of clergynten. repre-
sentetives OF labor and others interested
in the work.
The purpose of the c. A. l. L., Mr.
Strong explained, is to bring the church
der that a better understanding of the
purposes of one and the conditions of the
other may be reached. To show the prac-
tical nature of the work he briefly re-
viewed the subjects considered at the
conference, among them the needs of mo-
tormen, child labor i'm the factories the
industrial organization of women, the
condition of the sweatshop workers, life
in the dark allies of the cities, department
store employees, compulsory arbitration of
labor troubles, and factory life in the
small cities.
All of these topics were gone into and
fully discussed and an account given of
each line. One of the most eloquent
speeches at the conference was delivered
by President Parsons of the Knights of
Labor, who created something of a SEN
sation by declaring that 1t was the church
which had grown away from the laboring
men and not the laboring men who had
grown away from the church. Mr.. F'reder-
lex Warde in an eloquent speech, discussed
the near approach of the church to the
stage and of the stage to the church and
showed that the actors are not so devoid
of religion as the public has been led to
believe.
Mr.. Strong dwelt upon this conference
and the good work which has already
been accomplished by the association for
the purpose Of bringing out the idea that
the work of the church for the coming
century must be along humanitarian lines
The world is weary of ecclesiasticism and
UNCONVENTIONAL differences, he said, and
the true expression of Christ is TO be found
in effors for the ameliorati%n of the con-
diton of all mankind He related the incl
dent of Leo XIII and the monk, in which
His Holiness is represented as remarking
to the monk, who had called to receive
his blessing, that it could no longer be
truly said of the church Silver and gold
have 1 none" to which the monk replied
Neither can it any longer say Take up
thy bed and walk
The position of the church in this day.
Mr.. Strong said should be that it both
possesses the material. wealth needed for
its work and also the readiness and the
ability to ameliorate the condition of the
weak and the suffering. The great ad-
vantage of such an organization as the
c. A. l. l., ne said, was in the bringing
the church and The laboring man face
to face and in enabling them TO understand
the TRUE conditions of each.