The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-20

We are organizing societies to pre- ment child labor. We have been though I am sorry to say the Church did not lead in this matter, but would you have child labor if the parents did not feel the necessity of putting the child to work in order to get enough money to live decently? You have the question of the work of wo- men, especially married women. Why eo the married women have to work? Because their husbands cannot earn Q sufficient wage to support them and to support the children.
 These are the problems the labor unions are taking up. And labor un- i1ns complain, and complain rightly. these questions which are vital to welfare, morally as well as mentally and physically, of the masses of the people. The people do not hear about these problems which concern their lives and well-being when they attend the churches. They do not find the Church protesting against injustice or unfsirness toward them. These great moral issues of their lives are outside Q, the sphere of the Church. Hence, their alienation from the Church:
 Now. in these problems, the clergy are, on the whole, more progressive than the laity in the Church. A great many clergy are stirred with a sense of the injustice of present social con- ditions. They are full of zeal to amend them, and anxious for church activity in doing so, but they find the laymen uninterested. When they present from the pulpit problems of this description the men and women whom these problems especially con-
 
 the women-and particularly the lat ter-who are present, are not inter- ested in them. These problems are quite outside of their sphere; these problems do not touch them, and they object to these problems being intrud- cd upon them.
 "Very likely, they will say: We came here to hear the Gospel preach ed. This is not the Gospel They absolutely do not see the relation of those things to Christianity. Their Christianity is matter of what they call personal religion-going to church saying their prayers when they get up and when they go to bed, giving to the support of the church and to missions belonging to an industrial society, missionary society, etc., and attending meetings of these societies once in so often, subscribing to cer- tain charities, and perhops being on SOlHS DOdTO OF
 Some of the men are apt to oppose the clergy's treatment of these mat ters from the pulpit on another ground. The clergy do not know any, think about business; when they talk about these things they are talking nonsense; such things might very we'll be done in heaven, but they can- not be done here on earth.
 Tt is rather discouraging to a we'll meaning, if not always thoroughly informed clergyman to meet with just these conditions. It is going to take a good deal of time and good deal of patience to awake those that are in the Church to the duties and ob- legations of the Church, and to con- ought to be inside of it, that the Church really does stand for one right ing of wrongs, for peace and goodwill among men, for the Kingdom of God here upon earth.
 'In the early Middle Ages it was the Church which was the protector of the poor and oppressed. The mon- asteries were the homes of industry, asylums for the poor against the rob- Der barons. We are in a condition in this country curiously parallel to those ancient conditions, where many strong men are seizing each what he may for himself with or without law. 5 huge areas of lands, forests, mines. controlling the lines of transporta- tion, precisely as the old barons' cas- ties used to dominate the lines of transportation in the old world, and levy toll on all passers. And even the organs of publicity are passing into the hands of the modern robber barons, so that it is becoming increas- ingly difficult to present before the public facts which are prejudicial to great interests. The papers and the magazines are coming increasingly un- der their control.
 We have these bloated fortunes immense power amassed in the hands of a relatively few-and the enormous majority live on the edge of want always dependent. so that even if they are now we'll fed, we'll clothed, well housed, they stand in dread of loss of employment through oncoming old age or through sickness, which will reduce them and those dependent upon them to poverty and misery.
 'The Church needs to become again the champion of the poor and needy under these new and changed condi- tions, precisely as she was in the olden times. The conditions are chang ed, and the work has to be done in somewhat different way.
 But at the present time the Church is, on the whole, allied with the great interests. It is their ally and not the defender and protector of the poor.
 "So far as the lay management of our churches is concerned, it is in the hands of the well-to-do classes. The voice and wish of the men of large means is potent in the management of the affairs of the Church, because we need money. We must have it for cathedrals, churches, parish hous- es, missions, and all those activities which cannot be conducted without Therefore money speaks powerfully in the management of the affairs of the Church. To very considerable extent the Church finds itself allied with the money interests Precisely in proportion as this is the case has it heen alienated from the la