The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1908-04-18
Honesty Preached by Christ Eas-
lily Distinguished from the
Modern Article.


for over 20 years. The essence of that
condensation in the Literary Digest
is as follows: 'Multitudes of Chris
tians inside and outside the churches
fail to stand by the religion of Christ
and is teachings. They belong to
world of follies and sins, when they
don't happen to be very crude or re-
pulsive to our present responsibility
and conventionalities.'
Preliminary Thoughts.
Before we analyze the saying of
our friend, let us jump to the New
York Tribune, February 20, reporting
the chatter Of convention Of bankers
in Brooklyn, N. Y. The friend above
quoted happened to be there. When
the bankers had exhausted their de-
bate about how to improve our glo:-
ious banking system by simply max
ing it more adapted to all gambling
combinations, as it can be easily
proved if that assertion is challenged,
our friend, the religious editor, said:
"A man who honestly earns and keeps
ten million of dollars is worthy OF
respect"
Zone of the great drawbacks in
criminate between the kind of hon
esy preached by Christ, and the kind
we sc fit to fix up in our magnificent
laws, by which we determine the
quality of the life we all shall have
to live, whether we like it or not.
When shall we stop talking foolish
thoughts as often as we try to dis
cuss human life. And still we have
no trouble in the honest discussion Of
any subject outside of human life
Missionary Orators.
Let us take another jump and
transfer ourselves to Philadelphia,
where, on the first section of the
middle of February, large confer
ence was held to discuss foreign mis-
sions. About 1000 ministers were
there from all over the nation, with
several eloquent orators. One of them
said: We cannot serve God and Mann
mon but we can serve God through
Mammon." That the conference con-
sidered as a marvellous mountain Of
human wisdom.
Now let us notice that our good
friends in =. that conference forgot to
have proper apprehension Of the
word Mammon, as used by Christ.
We plain people, without any wisdom
to speak Of, we feel in our bones that
the word Mammon can. only mean,
the god of dishonest wealth produce
ton and distribution, sanctified by
our distorted laws in defiance of all
divine law. The wealthy God and
glorious Father of all Of us. so beau
tifully revealed to US by that sub
lime and touching Christ of ours, has
fixed all things for all men to have
plenty Of wealth through the simple
adjustment of equity and sense in our
Industrial qualifications, but we still
prefer wealth through laws of sin,
when almost all wealth becomes
tainted wealth, Mammon's' wealth.
Christ gave considerable value to the
mite the poor widow gave in charity,
and very little value to the large
sums given in charity by other people,
Why then, to have so much faith in
the Improvement Of humanity through
large sums Of charity blended with
legalized universal injustice What
miserable failure that combination has"
been along the march of history!
Mental Peculiarities.
Even when not totally materialized,
the human mind is subject to two
distinct spiritual attitudes, the sur
face and the bottom one, or the posi-
tive and the negative, or the rela-
lively passive and the fundamentally
active. The latter goes down to- a
scientific conception and line Of ac-
ton adapted to a rapid reconstruct
ton in all human development, men
individually, men collectively, grouped
IN nations and religious organizations,
SO that to actualize, with the mini
mum effort and time, the-'Thy King
dom Come which simply means
the kingdom of common honesty and
common sense. The spiritual attitude
thus far, in relation to humanity at
| large, under the leadership. of the Sc
lect classes of all times, has been 20
march towards the Thy Kingdom
Come as slowly as we can, by the
prolongation of all possible localized
sins in each national compact, never
| even trying to grasp the intense folly
and barbarism of keeping alive the
most fundamental and fatal social
| wrong at the inception of each ma
| tional group, thus far in all human
historical evolution, a senseless evo-
luton.
Such a conception of : slow, inter-
minable progress has been gladly &C.
copied by all the worst ~despots the
earth ever had. The prince of dark
ness itself could not conceive worse
philosophy, because no mixture Of
right and wrong can last forever. and
1t is only through some mixture OF
god and evil that the triumph of the
truth can be delayed. ~.
We may now have explained the
why Of all past and present spiritual
poverty, as indicated in the quotation
mentioned at the last part Of the
first paragraph, condensing the say
ings Of that brilliant religious editor,
although he did not dare to give Us
the cause Of the sad picture 81 mod
Tern life he gives us, about the very
classes that could soundly reconstruct
civilization in "a short time. ID .35
i