Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1910-12-08
SPARG0 THRILLS
Continued from first page)

brave clergyman, named Hancock,
preached in St. Paul's cathedral, Lon
don, a sermon entitled s"The Banner Of
Christ in the Hands of the Socialists.'
This audacity-for SO it was counted
shocked many an English xChristian
How could it be possible for Social
ism to carry the banner of Christ?
Yet l venture to say that IF by the
"Danner" of Christ we mean the
great principles of Righteousness and
Brotherhood which he advocated, the
Socialists are the only people in the
worlu today who, as an organized body
are striving to incorporate them into
the social system and the political life
of the nations Of the world.
With notable exceptions, the
5 churches give them only balf-heart-
ed assent. They accept theIn-as
beautiful, but unattainable, ideals. As
texts for platitudinous and ineffectual
sermons they accept the ethical pre-
cepts of Jesus and his predecessors
the older Hebrew prophets, but NOT in
a vital sense as laws of life. lnfidelity,
on the part OF his followers to the.
essential principles of Christ's teach
ing raised Dogma in the churches to a
position of prominence over Religion.
Except in those churches where the
leaven of social unrest has been work
ing, know of no place whre the vital
4 teachings of Jesus are more persistent
ly discounted than in the temples
where his name is oftenest heard
From time to time there are outcries
concerning the hostile attitude Of pro
gressiveT workers to Christianity, but
there is indeed no such hostility. So
icalist and other agitators hurl thun-
derbolts of superbly passionate invec-
tive against Churchianity, against
what they feel to be an organized
masquerade. but there is ever rever-
ence and love for Jesus. They resent
the perversion of his teaching by the
churches and cherish in their hearts
the pictures of the New Testament in
which Christ's humanity is portrayed.
They think of the homeless proletar-
ian, less fortunate than the. foxes and
the birds, with no resting place for his
weary head. They think Of the COM
passionate Christ. too big in his .hu-
mainly to judge the woman at the we'll
tender in his love for the little chill
dren; whitening in his scorn and con-
tempt for an unfaithful and corrupt
priesthood; sublime in his denuncia-
ton of an empty creedal caricature of
religion; heroic and majestic in his
anger at Mammon's desecration of the
= temple. This Christ, the Christ OF the
the Gospels, they revere as a great
comrade.
The contempt for ogranized Chris
tianity, the whitening scorn heaped
upon it by impassioned Socialists, is
by no means q new phenomenon The
glory of the prophetic literature of the
Bible Is the ever recurring rebuke to
an unfaithful priesthood. No modern
Socialist agitator has eQualled Hosea
in denunciation Of priestly infidelity.
Micah's assault puon priests that teach
for money, Zephaniah's cry e. Woe to
$the priests that shave profaneds the
sanctuary" and Malachi's terrible M
peachment of the priests, making
them contemplate and base before all
the people, are echoed in these days
by Socialists and other radical think
ers. Let those who are shocked by the
bitter invective of the modern prophets
social revolt against Churchianity ne
member that, like the earlier prophets,
Jesus himself spared not the priests
and elders. THE publicans and har-
lots go into the kingdom before You! "
he declared. How often do We read
that the chief priests and elders took
counsel how to destroy him! Nothing
could b further from the tUnth than to
regard ctttieinm "a N4onNnclAtlo1 os