Clergy -- Canada -- Fiction; Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905 -- Fiction
After his ordination the new preacher took his place in the pulpit once
every Sunday, and being now a close student of theology as well as of
other subjects, he soon became an eloquent and powerful speaker, and
the entire congregation was delighted with him. The last Sunday of the
national year, Mr. Melvin announced a sermon on "The Ideal Relationship
of Capital and Labor," prompted by the recent trouble at the foundry
between employers and their hands. The preacher of the day said:
"Beware of so-called socialism, for it trenches very closely on the
borderland of anarchism, and after having listened to lectures and
sermons an hour long and read many books upon that much-abused topic, I
am constrained to turn to the teaching of the Man of Nazareth, and find
in that teaching something more rational and common-sense than
elsewhere. In the first place our Saviour recognized property rights
when he said, 'Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto
God the things which are God's.' This doctrine is for the workingman
as well as for his employer, and enables both to procure homes for
themselves and hold them in their own right.
"We cannot fail to recognize the fatherhood of God, and if so then we
must recognize the brotherhood of man, for all men truly should be
such. If you and I have come to that point where we regard every man
as our brother, on the authority of Jesus Christ, the social problem
will be solved, and the capitalist will regard and treat the man who
toils for him as the son of his Father God, and the toiler will regard
the employer as not only his brother, but co-heir with himself to an
incorruptible inheritance. Much depends, brethren, on the exercise of
that charity which translates love. Love one another and you will use
one another aright. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
and there was life as the wounded Israelites looked upon it, so there
is life in a look at the crucified One, and there is more than that,
there is adjustment of relationships between husband and wife, between
pastor and people, between citizens and their chief magistrate, between
capital and labor. I can do no better than lift my hand toward the sky
and utter that little classic, '_Ecce Homo_,' and He is the Man of
Sorrow."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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