The Profits of Religion, Fifth EditionSinclair, Upton
Religion
The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition
Sinclair, Upton
Christianity -- Controversial literature
And again, the Rev. W. Sanday, D.D., an especially popular clerical
author, gives us this sublime utterance of religion on wage-slavery:
The world is full of mysteries, but some clear lines run
through them, of which this is one. Where God has been so
patient, it is not for us to be impatient.
And again, Professor Robert Flint, of Edinburgh University, a
clergyman, author of a big book attacking Socialism, and bringing us
back to the faith of our fathers:
The great bulk of human misery is due, not to social
arrangements, but to personal vices.
I study Professor Flint's volume in the effort to find just what, if
anything, he would have the church do about the evils of our time. I
find him praising the sermons of Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, as
being the proper sort for clergymen to preach. Bishop Westcott,
whether he is talking to a high society congregation, or to one of
workingmen, shows "an exquisite sense of knowing always where to
stop." So I consulted the Bishop's volume, "The Social Aspects of
Christianity" and I see at once why he is popular with the
anti-Socialist propagandists--neither I or any other man can possibly
discover what he really means, or what he really wants done.
I was fascinated by this Westcott problem; I thought maybe if I kept
on the good Bishop's trail, I might in the end find something a plain
man could understand; so I got the beautiful two-volume "Life of
Brooke Westcott, by his Son"--and there I found an exposition of the
social purposes of bishops! In the year 1892 there was a strike in
Durham, which is in the coal country; the employers tried to make a
cut in wages, and some ten thousand men walked out, and there was a
long and bitter struggle, which wrung the episcopal heart. There was
much consultation and correspondence on episcopal stationery, and at
last the masters and men were got together, with the Bishop as
arbitrator, and the dispute was triumphantly settled--how do you
suppose? On the basis of a ten per cent reduction in wages!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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