Article November 30, 1912 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from R. J. Campbell, Edward Arthur Wicher, Philip Moxom

[Christian World.]

Charles Booth, in his "Life and Labor in London," shows how Free Church religion thrives best in the middle-class districts. When a certain line of poverty has been passed, the churches lose their hold almost completely, in spite of the most heroic efforts of Christian workers. Does that mean that God's Spirit is powerless below that line? Does it not mean rather that His Spirit is by these failures calling to our notice His violated laws, and insisting on our obedience to them as the condition of His working?

We are under a regime which is creating enormous fortunes for the few with a dead level of poverty for the many. The rich few live in one world, and the impecunious many in another. These worlds scarcely touch. If this is a right, a normal condition, then Christianity, which calls for a brotherly fellowship, a loving amity which expresses itself in a generous sharing of both the inner and the outer life, is clearly wrong. We do not think it is Christianity that is wrong, but something else. Shall the church acquiesce in all this; submit to be financed by millionaires, and in return accept and preach the millionaire social view; or will it have the wisdom to see that its finance, with every other portion of its scheme, can only be healthy as it comes from the free universal offerings of an equalized, industrious community; none so rich as to be separated from their neighbors, none so poor as to have nothing to spare for the ideal, spiritual interests?

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