The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-04-01

those countries.
It was in order to send her legions to various
centers of uprising in the least possible time that
the famous Roman highways were built and it
was to have force always on hands sufficient
to quell any such uprising that the Roman army
was organized.
Inasnuch as the custom was to throw debt
ors into slavery, when they failed to meet their
obligations, the slave class was constantly grow
ing and millions of free manual laborers were al
ways hanging over the brink of serfdon. White
depicts the abject conditions of these slaves and
near-slaves in a very mastery fashion.
1t was in the class of near-slaves, White
claims, that Jesus lived. He even hazards guess
that Joseph was sold into slavery at the time he
disappears from the New Testament record. But
whether that is so or not, White believes that
Jesus tasted of the bitterness and saw something
of the degradation of the slave conditions.
So deeply did these injustices rankle in his
soul, the author holds Jesus meditated many
years plan for freeing the entire class. At
last, White ayers, he determined to organize
the slaves and workers of the world into an inter-
national union with the intent ultimately to
make an armed attack on Caesars empire.
The chapters in which White describes how
Jesus set about organizing the working class are
as thrilling detective tale. He declares that
iSlIlCe CIe slaves ana workers ndQ Deon maSneQ
into whining servility by the heel of the Romans
Jesus first task was to undertake to arouse in
them "self-respect." To bring this about, he
went among them persuading them that they
were not members of a less than human race, as
the master class had always told them, but that
they were the children of the same Creator who
had brought the Romans themselves into exist
ence. White describes this society which Jesus
had in mind Kingdom of self-respect"
At the very time this movement was getting
most under way Jesus surprised one night
and was murdered by the plutocratic clique in
Jerusalem before his fellow workmen and the
populace knew what was taking place.
1t goes without saying such book as this
has met with determined opposition comparable
only to the enthusiasm with which the working
CLASSES have welcomed it. Historians have de-
clared it absurd, political economists find it full
! of fallacies, while the theologians damn it out
fright most dangerous book
| The working classes, however, are not entire
!ly alone in it's praise. One eminent librarian
claims it lone of the seven epoch making
books of the time Of it the Rev. John Howard
Melish wrote, 'The aim of the book is to make
Jesus the most interesting person in the world
and it succeeds splendidly" while Charles Ram
Kennedy, author of 'The Servant in the House"
is still more emphatic in his approval :" The Call
OF the Carpenter ought to be put into the hands
rather the heart and head-of every laborer
upon the face of the EARTH The critic ought to
find it blasphemous and intolerable God will be
glad, though. He is big man, this Bouck White
prophet of the truth of things"
White himself is quite as interesting as his
book. He was born in a Dutch village among the
Catskils in 1874 and is a graduate of Harvard.
After serving reporter on the SPRINGFIELD
| (Mass) "Republican" he passed through the
Union Theological Seminary into the Congrega-
tional Church where he was ordained Later he
went into settlement work and ultimately became
head resident of Trinity House, New York
We cannot believe that 1.-THE Call of the Car
penter' is an adequate Interpretation of Jesus of
Nazareth. Had he been nothing more than such
labor leader as White depicts him he never
could have launched the movement which we
know as Christianity. Whites Jesus is not ade
quate to have done what history plainly shows
Jesus did do Nevertheless, Whites volume has
done much to stem the tide of materialism in the
working classes and to show that Christianity in
Its essence has thousand things in common
with the labor movement. For that he deserves
! much credit
! He deserves credit also for having develoned
a fresh, new literary STYLE His pages are 50
vivid so thrilling, we warn our readers AGAINST
undertaking the book at any time when thew
have not sufficient leisure to complete it at q
s'ttlng. When once it gets grip on a man.
mind, he is helpless until he has completed it.
bread in the kingdom of God" and
WHAT is It's bleSSedness?