Opening the text

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

(Italian religious reformer, 1452-1498; hanged and burned by
his enemies)

But dost thou know what I would tell thee? In the primitive
church, the chalices were of wood, the prelates of gold. In
these days the church hath chalices of gold and prelates of
wood.


The Preacher

(_From "The Canterbury Tales"_)

BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER

(Early English poet, 1340-1400)

    Than peyne I me to strecche forth my necke,
    And est and west upon the people I bekke,
    As doth a pigeon, syttyng on a loft;
    Myn hondes and my tonge move so oft,
    That it is joye to see my busynesse.
    Of avarice and of suche cursedness
    Is al my preching, for to make hem free
    To give their pence, and namely unto me....
    Therfor my theem is yit, and ever was,
    The root of evils is cupidity.
    Thus can I preche agayn the same vice
    Which that I use, and that is avarice.
    But though myself be gilty in the same,
    Yit can I maken other folks to blame.


Twentieth Century Socialism

BY EDMOND KELLY

(American lawyer and Socialist, 1851-1909)

It seems inconceivable that the same civilization should
include two bodies of men living in apparent harmony and
yet holding such opposite and inconsistent views of man as
economists on the one hand and theologians on the other. To
these last, man has no economic needs; this world does not
count; it is merely a place of probation, mitigated sometimes,
it is true, by ecclesiastical pomp and episcopal palaces;
but serving for the most part as a mere preparation for a
future existence which will satisfy the aspirations of the
human soul--the only thing that does count, in this world
or the next. So while to the economist man is all hog, to
the theologian he is all soul; and between the two the devil
secures the vast majority.


The True Faith

(_From "A Lay Sermon to Preachers"_)

BY HENRY ARTHUR JONES

(English dramatist, born 1851)

I believe--I stand accountant for the words to That which gave
me the power of thinking and writing them--I believe that if
the time and money and thought now given in England to the
propagation of wholly incredible doctrines, which are no sooner
uttered in one pulpit than they are repudiated in another--if
this time and money and thought were given to the understanding
and scattering abroad of the simplest laws of national economy,
of physiology, of health and beauty, in another generation our
England would be greater and mightier than she has ever been.
I believe a knowledge of the necessity of fresh air, of the
value of beauty, of the certain disease and national corruption
and deathfulness hidden in our present commercial system, to
be worth far more than all the books on theology ever written.
I believe faith in constant ventilation and constant outdoor
exercise to be a greater religious necessity than faith in any
doctrine of any sect in England today.


God in the World

(_From "Gitanjali"_)

BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

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

(Italian religious reformer, 1452-1498; hanged and burned by
his enemies)

But dost thou know what I would tell thee? In the primitive
church, the chalices were of wood, the prelates of gold. In
these days the church hath chalices of gold and prelates of
wood.


The Preacher

(_From "The Canterbury Tales"_)

BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER

(Early English poet, 1340-1400)

    Than peyne I me to strecche forth my necke,
    And est and west upon the people I bekke,
    As doth a pigeon, syttyng on a loft;
    Myn hondes and my tonge move so oft,
    That it is joye to see my busynesse.
    Of avarice and of suche cursedness
    Is al my preching, for to make hem free
    To give their pence, and namely unto me....
    Therfor my theem is yit, and ever was,
    The root of evils is cupidity.
    Thus can I preche agayn the same vice
    Which that I use, and that is avarice.
    But though myself be gilty in the same,
    Yit can I maken other folks to blame.


Twentieth Century Socialism

BY EDMOND KELLY

(American lawyer and Socialist, 1851-1909)

It seems inconceivable that the same civilization should
include two bodies of men living in apparent harmony and
yet holding such opposite and inconsistent views of man as
economists on the one hand and theologians on the other. To
these last, man has no economic needs; this world does not
count; it is merely a place of probation, mitigated sometimes,
it is true, by ecclesiastical pomp and episcopal palaces;
but serving for the most part as a mere preparation for a
future existence which will satisfy the aspirations of the
human soul--the only thing that does count, in this world
or the next. So while to the economist man is all hog, to
the theologian he is all soul; and between the two the devil
secures the vast majority.


The True Faith

(_From "A Lay Sermon to Preachers"_)

BY HENRY ARTHUR JONES

(English dramatist, born 1851)

I believe--I stand accountant for the words to That which gave
me the power of thinking and writing them--I believe that if
the time and money and thought now given in England to the
propagation of wholly incredible doctrines, which are no sooner
uttered in one pulpit than they are repudiated in another--if
this time and money and thought were given to the understanding
and scattering abroad of the simplest laws of national economy,
of physiology, of health and beauty, in another generation our
England would be greater and mightier than she has ever been.
I believe a knowledge of the necessity of fresh air, of the
value of beauty, of the certain disease and national corruption
and deathfulness hidden in our present commercial system, to
be worth far more than all the books on theology ever written.
I believe faith in constant ventilation and constant outdoor
exercise to be a greater religious necessity than faith in any
doctrine of any sect in England today.


God in the World

(_From "Gitanjali"_)

BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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

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

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