The weekly examiner., 1901-06-08
SOCIETY'S SEAMS.
PRETENSEs OF MODERN PERFORMERS
 AND RELIGIoNlSTS.

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 1 The Would Re Wealthy Who Stand In the Way of Progress-HOw Those Who Pretend to Be Christians Mis-
 represent the Master.
 Especial Correspondence.l
 A friend of the writer said years
 ago, "The worst enemies of modern progress are not the wealthy as much l as the would be wealthy" By modern progress he did not mean our present industrial system or anything of the kind, but one which should embody radical concepts of freedom and ethics for all, one which should give to every 1 child of God q full opportunity for the development of a full manhood, one which should not keep the bulk of hu- 1 manity in bondage to any set of people, however fine and polished in their per sonal dealings, however honest in their l individual life, because what can be in i Gods eyes the value of individual hon. esty as long as we keep a dishonest in dustrial system in full bloom, pervert- ing the media in which we all have to live? And the larger we make the cir
 cle of honest individual people in
 given nation which refuses to extend honesty to all industrial relations, but prefers to intensity all that is wrong 1 there, the greater the force for evil in
 its most fatal manifestation, in wrong
 enactments, in vicious, selfish legisla- l tion.
 Besides the wealthy and would be ] wealthy as obstacles to all healthy progress we have large number of
 people intensely attached to their little
 patch of wealth or larger wages or salary or somewhat more important position than the many below. They are afraid to lose that, to beSdislodged from their little higher pedestal where they can play the actors on a vaster theater, where they have a few more admirers, where they can pose as fel-
 lows of higher grade, built up with better clay and so with more chances to be prominent in the life beyond, as they have been in the life below. Spir- itual greed on top of material greed! That is perhaps one of the dreadfully low moral ideals that yet pervade hu- manity today inherited from heather
 religions and which actually make
 modern Christianity an out and out
 heathenish Christianity, the antithesis
 of that of Christ, essentially distinct from it in all moral and ethical as- poets anyhow, the most important of any religion that may claim to evolve
 joy and manhood.
 AS a matter of actual fact the bot tom principles of our philosophy of life,
 backed by our choice people, those who have from time immemorial converted nations into dens of iniquity, have al- ways claimed that the perpetuation of evil and hence that of social and in- dividual deformities, is to, be the order Eef the day for long, long period of human growth. That was already the doctrine of the ruling classes in India when Jesus, the grand reformer, told them, Either make the tree good and his fruit good or make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt" Jesus did not accept the diabolic conception of our fine teachers about any social organiza- ton partially good and partially bad deserving some respect from sensible, honest men. Such corrupt social tree as that of today deserves nothing but contempt. It must necessarily be still more corrupt than that of 19 centuries ago repudiated by Jesus because evil is bound to grow ds long as it is al lowed to live, since the law of life, for good or evil, is 3 law of growth. The sins of our old age are more con- temptible than those of youth because of our greater experience, knowledge and opportunities to suppress evil. The same applies to every old organized so- ciety and hence to the organized greed stand by or refuse to attack, to hate, to detest. And we love evil if we don't hate it and fail to do our best to kill it in any form it may appear.
 One of the factors that make our civilization stand self condemned is the existence of classes and masses, as dis tinct as ever, if not more so; also that eternal exclamation of how to save the masses, how to convert them, how to rescue them from their own bad habits, and, as the churches, with all their | wealth and power, acknowledge their incapacity in that direction, we have to have pauper churches, called missions, | and there again we hear of prayers to | God to save and convert the masses! We'll, if the rich churches had at least converted the classes, the masses would have long ago been converted too. Instead of that we find that the classes, with their love for class legis- lation, are the greatest obstacle to the establishment of equity in industrial life and insist upon the worst laws through which most wealth may be rapidly shifted from those who pro- duce it to those who don't.
 All modern ideals rest on the prin- ciple of how to get $5, $1O, $50, $100 from the general fund of wealth for ev- cry dollar we may contribute to that fund. And how often some contribute nothing while getting in five or ten
 Elasat tla1a hoSt 11zcll.o