The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest: The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years
General
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest: The writings of philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have voiced the struggle against social injustice; selected from twenty-five languages; covering a period of five thousand years
Social justice; Social problems
They often arrest thieves in the world; but these culprits
are rather rogues than thieves. I have laid hands on the real
thief, who has robbed God and the church. He has stolen the
primal commandment which belongs to us who till the fields. I
will point him out. It is he who does not produce his bread
with his own hands, but eats the fruit of others' toil.
Seize him and lead him away to judgment. All crimes such as
robberies, murders, frauds and the like arise from the fact
that this commandment is hidden from man. The rich do all they
can to avoid working with their hands, and the poor to rid
themselves of the necessity. The poor man says, "There are
people who can live on others' labor; why should not I?" and
he kills, steals and cheats in consequence. Behold now what
harm can be done by white hands, more than all that good grimy
hands can repair upon the earth! You spread out before the
laborer the idleness of your life, and thus take away the force
from his hands. Your way of living is for us the most cruel
of offences, and a shame withal. You are a hundred-fold more
wise and learned than I am, and for that reason you take my
bread. But because you are wise you ought rather to have pity
on me who am weak. It is said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
I am your neighbor, and you are mine. Why are we coarse and
untaught? Because we produce our own bread, and yours too! Have
we any time to study and educate ourselves? You have stolen our
brains as well as our bread by trickery and violence.
How blind thou art, O wise man; thou that readest the
scriptures, and seest not the way in which thou mightest free
thyself, and the flock committed to thee, from the burden of
sin! Thy blindness is like unto that of Balaam, who, astride
his ass, saw not the angel of God armed with a sword of fire
standing in the way before him. Thou art Balaam, I am the ass,
and thou hast ridden upon my back from childhood!
Resurrection
BY LEO TOLSTOY
(In this novel the greatest of modern religious teachers has presented
his indictment of the government and church of his country. The hero
is a Russian prince who in early youth seduces a peasant girl, and in
after life meets her, a prostitute on trial for murder. He follows
her to Siberia, in an effort to reclaim her. Near the end of his
story Tolstoi introduces this scene. The Englishman may be said to
represent modern science, which asks questions and accumulates futile
statistics; while the old man voices the peculiar Christian Anarchism
of the author, who at the age of eighty-two left his home and wandered
out into the steppes to die)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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