Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1907-09-17
CHURCH NEGLECTS POOR.
so DECLARES BISHOP HENRY c.
POTTER OF NEW YORK.
Get Into Touch With Their Physical
Needs, He urges-Abuse of Wealth
Causes the Masses Unrest-Modern
Life Makes Average Workman
Bondsman to Machinery.

Needs, He Urges-Abuse of Wealth
Causes the Masses unrest-Modern
| Life Makes Average Workman a
| Bondsman to Machinery.
Caustic criticism of the Church for
| Indifference TO the mental, physical
and social needs of the masses was
made by Bishop Henry C. Potter. OF
New York, in an address on the IRE
lation of the Church to Social Unrest. /"
at the Chautauqua On. Y.) assembly.
What is the relation of the Church
OF God to the social unrest of the
country" he asked There is no
more righteous arraignment of the
Church of our time than its indiffer-
ence to the social conditions of the
classes made up of less favored men
and women down In the gutter.
The task of the church is to trans
late the mind of Christ, first by sym
pathy, then by painstaking curiosity
This sympathetic curiosity would lead
men into the Church to know some.
thing of those strata OF life below that
in which we are wont to move. Such
sympathetic curiosity will sooner or
later lead to the only hope for the
social unrest of our time, and that is
personal service.
Mechanical Age to Be Feared.
The trend of our generation to me-
chanical devices and the elimination
of the personality of the workman.
however clever and valuable in it's
material results, is trend to be
afraid of. The modern tendency to
institutionalism is destroying the habit
and instinct of personal service. 1t
is only by personal service that we
can lift the man in the gutter.
What is the relation of the Church
of God to these facts? First of all it
should be a profoundly sympathetic
relation. In our ecclesiastical rela-
tons we have been inundated from
translating our relation to the world
into human sympathy, for fear of
dropping into what has been called
the institutional Church
'sBut if an institutional Church be
q A1(lAo VI GtlhS1lG I4S SluICu lulO
profound sympathy with human life,
then the founder of our religion insti-
tuted the institutional Church
When Christ found the hungry He
fed them; when He saw the diseased
He healed them; when He found the
blind He made them to see. Note
how invariably He did this Himself,
how often He illustrated the prin-
ciples of the human hand.
"The Church should take active
steps to cure the physical and mental
as well as the religious ills of the peo-
pie. The Churchs neglect of this
vital work cannot be remedied too
soon. 1t has neglected its most i'm
portant functions.
As to DESTINATIONS Wealth.
CAS- a further and great cause of
social unrest, there comes that mon.
strous profusion and extravaganza of
expenditure which ! am at times in
clined to consider the worst note of
our American civilization.
"a friend of mine, a lawyer of New
York, went into the Mayors office
during Tweed's administration A
large diamond stud dropped on the
floor and rolled toward him. He
picked it up and turned to one of the
gentlemen in the room-it would be
invidious to mention their names, they
are all dead-'Did one of you drop
this@ No. was the reply, but one of
them, hitching up his vest, said Yes,
it was one of my suspender buttons
This was twenty-five years ago, and
conditions are worse instead of bet
ter. In such conditions of social life
you have come very close to the orr
gin of great deal of social unrest.
"As l grow older / am more and
more profoundly convinced that the
impotence of the masses comes more
from the abuse of wealth than from
any other cause. Many of us who
claim to be Christ's disciples are
guilty in this particular We fail to
set the pace for the community in
which we live by our own habits.
"The presence of luxury in the
midst of tenement life has become to
the average worker source of irrita-
ton. He sees wealth open lavishly
around him, while he struggles in mis-
cry. Is it any wonder he becomes
wrought up at what he considers the
great injustice of society?
Then again, as a cause of social
| unrest, we are bound to recognize the
! enormous rauo1u4;op tbo+ 49, 49,.
| place in our life because of industrial
| change. A physician friend of mine
| told me recently of a mechanical
trained nurse, which is soon to be ex-
pected, wound like music box and
which will battle the brow and admin.
lister the medicine according to the
will of the physician. The human ele-
ment is increasingly being eliminated.
THE conditions of modern life are
making the average workman bonds
man to machinery When you have re-
| duced a man to mere machine, it is
impossible for him to sustain life ex-
cept by artificial methods more de-
structive even than the industries in
which he is employed
Every gain in the way of strength
and cheapness is bought at the price
of the individuality of the workman.
The result is that the modern work
! nan is most infiammable material for
social unrest. The wonder is not that
we have produced such results, but
that those results have not been in
/ finitely worse"