Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-01-03
CHRISTIANITY AND L,AROR
Christians Should Have Sympathetic At
tltude Toward Labor.

ing away from all forms of organized
Christianity. In Europe the movement
| mas gone much farther than in this conn
| try. In the great cities over there the
| vast majority of men who work with
I1elf hands never go to any church.
MANY OF the social and political organi-
Zdtlohs among the working classes are
Waglng bitter war against the church
| 1hey say the church is on the side of the
! capitalists. The same thing is becoming
more and moro the rule in this country,
! W ofklngmen are falling away from the
churches in hordes
This Is a Recent Development.
This falling away of the workingmen
from the churches is very modern
movement. 1t dates from the introduction
VI tne factory system at the beginning
OF the Nmteenth century. Before that,
When every man worked at his trade in
MS nome or i'll his private shop, the
| WORKING classes were the backbone of
the Christian body. The craft and mel.
chant guilds Of the middle ages were ami
mated by very religious spirit. They
! were almost religious organizations.
Nth the coming III of the modern fac
tory and wage system, the conditions of
the working classes speedily deteriorated.
They were herded together in large
cities; they worked twe:ve and fourteen
hours day, in inhuman surroundings,
at starvation wages. Women and chll-
dren were pressed into the service of the
greedy manufacturers and mine owners
and treated like beasts of burden The
conditions in England, before the fac
tory laws were passed to prevent this
tyranny, seem almost incredible.
Our modern industrial system then
seems to me mainly responsible for the
loss of the working classes to Chris
tianity.
Christians Must Face the Issue.
This loss of the working classes ought
to make all Christians ponder. When we
recollect that the Founder of our re-
lIglons was Galilean workingman, and
that His twelve apostles were all Sc
lected from the working classes, and that
for the first three centuries the Christian
church consisted mostly of slaves, we
must admit that there is something
wrong today if our religion no longer
appeals to the very classes who were
once its support and strength.
Surely here is missionary work worthy
OF our highest endeavOr. We must win
back the WOrklngmen. We cannot rest
content while so many of our brethren
dwelling in our midst are deprived of the
spiritual blessings and helps of our re-
HglOn. 1t is an axiom of Christianity
that one cannot keep ones religion to
oneself. 1t will vanish as surely as a
snoWfoke you try to hold in the palm
of your hand. We must be filled with
missionary zeal. or we are no true Chris
tianS. 1t is not then as much our duty
to try to win to Christ our brothers the
WOrklngmen, as to try to win our dis
tant brothers in China and Japan?
How then shall we go about this
task of winning the working classes to
Christianity, and preventing the further
alienation of workingmen that are al
ready Christians?
The Study of Conditions
Our first duty is to get acquainted with
the facts. The average Christian of the
richer or the middle classes is appalling
ly ignorant of the way the other half
lives and works. Let them visit twenty
or thirty workingmen in their homes and
in their places of labor. and they will
be astOunded. Or still better, let them
read the conclusions of expert investiga-
tors in such books as Hunters "Pov-
erty;" Riis' How the Other Half Lives,
or Spargo's Bitter Cry of the Children
Sympathetic Attitude Toward Labor.
If we learn something of the griev-
anceS of WOrkingmen, we will find it is
not hard to have sympathy for them.
Yet we ought to try more than we do to
see things from their point of view. L
have heard people who pretended to be
Christians break out in the most bitter
and unchristian attacks on their breth-
rem of the prOletariat, giving utterance to
such inaccuracies as that they We're bet
ter off than anybody else and had no
real grievances at ALL Such an attitude
as that will never win labor to Christ,
nor will it ever get the one who main
tains it into heaven.
They Do Not Want Our Charity.
Those who speak for the working
al nd CrlI
that they do not want our charity; they
want justice. Why not credit them with
knowing what they want? An unem-
ployed man wants work; he does not
want some one who has money to flip
coin at him. A man working on starva-
ton wages wants a living wage; he does
not want a check from one who is rich
from the dividends produced by his star
walton wages.
The church ought to be especially care
full as to the sources of its charities and
the manner in which it gives them to the
poor. 1t is doubtful if any church can
win the working people which allows it.
self to be an agent to distribute con-
science money from rich thieves among
the poor they have robbed.
They Want Us to
Remedy Unjust Conditions.
The only way the working classes can
be won or held to Christianity is through
an earnest effort on the part of the
churches and individual Christians to
correct the conditions which are now
keeping them away from Christianity
The length of the working day is so
great in mainy cases that the working
man is exhausted at the end of every
day. When Sunday comes, if he does
not have to work, at least he is too tired
to go to church. At middle age his
health breaks down. and he must yield
his place to a younger man.
Many of the dwellings of the working
classes are unsanitary, dark. damp,
dingy. and cramped. Their large taml-
lies. crowded into one or two rooms;
make anything but a happy home; ana
the workingman withdraws to the saloon
for peace and comfort,
The widespread evil of child d, ; Labor
70 DOT any education worthy of the name.
and they grow up. to be the ignorant
workingmen of the future
The low wages, in comparison with the
high cost of living, and the loss OF en-
ployment in hard times like the present