Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1910-12-08

this is obvious if we will anly pause
to consider it. Modern Socialism
dates from the miGIle of the nine
teenth century, from the renasence of
science. Who is there that does not
know of the great movement of ra-
tionalism which the new scientific
spirit inspired all over the world ?
Who that does not know the trench
dous conflict which the theories of
Darwin, for example, produced2 1t
was a conflict into which practically
every educated and intelligent person
was drawn. On both sides of the con-
tYoversy 1t was taken for granted
that the new science and the old re-
Iigion could never be harmonized, that
the triumph of the one necessarily in
volved the destruction of the other.
What epithets and curses we're heap
ed upon the heads of Darwin and his
disciples! And what contempt the
followers of Darwin had for, those who
chung to their belief in Divine In
telligence!
The founders of modern scientific
Socialism were of the new school and
their contempt for the old was youth
full, enthusiastic and unbounded. They
thought of religion as a, static thing,
just as religious believers themselves
did. They took the dogmas of Chris
iianity at that time and held them up
10 intellectual ScOrn-a task by no
means arduous. The cruel hell Of
birthstone and the unSpeakably i'm
moral doctrine of eternal punishment
were assailed by men who had no idea
that they were thus liberating religion
from the throttling grasp of dogma,
giving it life and freedom and not de-
stroying it. They had no idea of the
great fact that~they were splendidly
religious in their irreligfon. The YER
bal inspiration of the Scriptures, with
the Mosaic account of creation, and
Jonah's voyage in the whales belly,
were believed as literal facts and as
such were relentlessly challenged by
the cold, literal spirit of the new
scientific movement. Both believers
and critics thought that the destruc-
ton of these dogmas was equivalent
co the destruction of Christianity it.
self They did not and could not real
ize that SO far as religion is an effort
of man to relate himself to the uni
verse and to interpret it's forces, it
must be forever changing as human
knowledge increases. There was the
same spirit behind the crude religions
of primitive man as that which IN
spires the Christian religion in the
twentieth century but the centuries
of growth and intellectual progress
are reflected in the form Of the latter.
AS a result of the criticism whichg
the new science produced the religious
concept had to be changed, the new
knowledge had to be applied to the
Interpretation of the universe, and
nose who denounced Darwin's
theories because they believed them
to be destructive of their religion
came to embrace them. They united
to their belief in a Divine Intelligence
an acceptance of the facts of ETolu-
ton. Whether or not we understand
the mental processes which made this
POSSIBLE is a matter of no concern
oere and now. 1t is enough for us
that they did it; that they accepted
che new theories and reconciled them
TO their belief in God, saying, in the
language of the old hymn
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform. .5
The association of Socialism with
dogmatic Atheism was an accidental
result of the confluence of two
streams of nineteenth century thought
as natural, in itself, as the fact that
in Japan today the terms of Socialism
and Christianity are PRACTICAL" inter-
.hangeable and synonymous because
of the confluence of the two main
streams of modern Japanese thought.
is not at all strange, but perfectly
natural, that the great founders Of
modern Socialism should have allied
themselves with the scientific move
ment of their time and its rationalistic
criticism of religion. It is not strange,
but perfectly natural, that they should
have looked upon religious belief as