Article October 20, 1906 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from Charles Francis Nesbit, Hiram Vrooman

The first five books of the Old Testament tell of the great economic struggle and spiritual awakening of the Jewish people, in bondage and slavery and sorely oppressed, in Egypt. Moses we see in outline, one of the great figures of history, the leader of this revolt and exodus. And in these five books, in the Mosaic code, we get the outlines of the government of Righteousness, Justice, and Peace, which became the ideal of the Jewish people. ... When we take up the first five books of the New Testament, we come to a startling discovery; namely, that the great spiritual awakening which we know as primitive Christianity was almost entirely economic and ethical. And for three hundred years the Christians and their thoughts were chiefly concerned with what we might call right living—righteousness. ... We thus see in the beginning of both these great religions the predominance of the economic and ethical element, with little or nothing in the way of theology or formulated creed. It would not be unreasonable, then, that the great spiritual awakening that every good man in the world would like to see should come as these came, chiefly in the form of economics and ethics. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God:" that is a righteous social order and its right doing, and all necessary things will be given you.

Charles Francis Nesbit.

The Outlook.

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