Galatians 6

Galatians 6:2

IS THERE ANY FROM SOCIAL ? Galatians 6:2THESE words of the Apostle Paul can surely receive a natural application to this problem. After all that has been said on this subject of ever increasing interest; after all the philosophies advanced regarding it; after all the proposed solutions of its difficulties, is there a sentence in literature more worthy of application to the problem than this, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ”. That sentence contains the soundest philosophy for both capital and labor, and its hearty adoption would solve at once all the difficulties that beset these powers in their relation to each other. It would end their controversies, and sound the death knell of their battles. We speak to this subject in the hope that what we say may yet be used of God to bring some to correct views of certain questions involved in the controversy between the upper and lower classes, so called, and aid each of us to be a representative of, and a counsellor for, the right. Our interest in labor is mightily influenced by the circumstance that we know, from many years’ experience, what it is to retire after fifteen or sixteen straight hard hours of service with every muscle of the body in sore need of relaxation and rest; and our interest in capital increases as we come to understand what an engine of power it is for good or ill according as it is rightfully or wrongfully used.

To be able to say anything that would induce capital to consecrate itself to the cause of Christ; anything that would tend, in the least, to end the contention between these two, and effect their co-operation, is worth a masterly effort. And yet there are some things involved in this subject that have long burned for expression. We do not believe it will be possible for capital and labor to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ, until each has set itself right. The first condition of doing right is to be right, and so let us consider first of allSOME LESSONS LABOR NEEDS TO LEARN It is not to be supposed that the average laborer imagines himself to be perfect, and therefore we count upon his patient attention to certain suggestions.Labor needs to learn industry. By saying this we do not mean to make the wholesale charge of indolence against labor. It is perhaps safe enough to say that the majority of laboring men are thoroughly energetic. But there is a considerable class in society which is poorly fed, poorly clothed, and poorly housed simply because it is unwilling to do honest, earnest work. Every minister of the Gospel is appealed to by a multitude of men to intercede in securing for them employment, and in a mighty majority of cases we find, upon investigation, that they are out of a job because when they had one they did not work at it.It is reported that Mark Twain had been successful in counselling men on how to get situations.Whenever a man applied to him for assistance in that line he cheerfully responded by saying: “I have a formula here which contains recommendations that never fail. For instance, if you want to work on a newspaper—“(1) You are to apply for work at the office of your choice.“(2) You are to go without recommendations.

You are not to mention my name or any one’s but your own.“(3) You are to say that you want no pay; that all you want is work, any kind of work. You make no stipulation; you are ready to sweep out, point the pencils, replenish the inkstands, hold copy, tidy up, keep the place in order, run errands—anything and everything; you are not particular.

You are so tired of being idle that life is a burden to you; all you want is work and plenty of it. You do not want a pennyworth of remuneration. N.B.—You will get the place whether the man be a generous one or a selfish one.“(4) You must not sit around and wait for the staff to find work for you to do. You must keep watch and find it for yourself. When you can’t find it, invent it. You will be popular there pretty soon, and the boys will do you a good turn whenever they can. When you are on the street, and see a thing that is worth reporting, go to the office and tell about it. By and by you will be allowed to put such things on paper yourself.

In the morning you will notice that they have been edited, and a good many of your words left out—the very strongest and best ones, too. That will teach you to modify yourself. In due course you will drift by natural and sure degrees into daily and regularly reporting, and will find yourself on the city editor’s staff without anyone’s quite knowing how or when you got there.“(5) By this time you have become necessary, possibly even indispensable. Still you are never to mention wages. That is a matter which will care for itself; you must wait. By and by there will be a vacancy on a neighboring paper.

You will know all the reporters in town by this time, and one or another of them will speak of you, and you will report this good fortune to your city editor, and he will offer you the same wages, and you will stay where you are.“(6) Subsequently, whenever higher pay is offered you on another paper, you are not to take the place if your original employer is willing to keep you at a like price.”Doubtless Twain has taken a radical position here, as is his wont; yet on the main proposition he is right. The industrious man may begin without salary, but he is very sure to end in excellent station.

Heated air with which the balloon is filled has no more power to carry it up than industry has to lift the man whose life is possessed by it. The reason still more men only succeed in getting a bare subsistence out of life is often, not always, but often, we say, due to the indolence that wants a living without working for it, or the egotism that imagines itself to be above needful drudgery.In Charlestown, Mass., the head clerk of a large firm was charged with the delivery of a bale of Russian duck to an old and good customer. The time of its delivery was 1 p. m. They hired a truckman to send him over to Boston to bring it. But the man was overcome with heat. This head clerk, having business to Boston, accidentally stumbled upon the exhausted man, and instantly took in the situation.

It was now 12:30. The goods were due at 1:00 and the truckman was in a faint.

Instantly the young man seized a wheel-barrow, and despite heat and dust, and indifferent to his own good clothes, young Wilder pushed that barrow to the place of delivery in good time. A Boston merchant who was acquainted with him passed him on the street and called to him, “How is this, have you turned truckman?” “Yes,” answered the clerk, “these goods were promised for one o’clock, and our truckman was overcome by heat, so I had to take his place in order to keep my word.” The wealthy merchant went straight to the head of Wilder’s firm, and relating what he had seen, said, “When Wilder goes into business you tell him my name is at his service for $30,000.”If it were possible to get at the history of the men who have achieved distinction in the various walks of life, in science, commerce, literature, art, and the church, it would be discovered that the overwhelming majority of them had begun life as common laborers, but through indomitable energy had risen step by step to their positions of eminence and honor. How to work! Oh, it is a great lesson to learn.Labor also needs to learn prudence. We employ this word “prudence” because it expresses two thoughts—economy and foresight. It is a sad fact that no small proportion of the laboring classes practice an intelligent economy.

Haggai, the Prophet, has all too accurately forecast the customs of many of this class when he said: “Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm”, and then he gives the reasons: “He that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes”.One of the needful lessons for him who is to succeed is the lesson of controlling his fleshly appetites for the sake of future good.

We know your men who, their age and attainments considered, are occupying wonderfully good positions now. But, notwithstanding the fact that their salaries are twice as large as their necessary expenses, they come up to the end of every month with a small balance against them. If they were to be taken sick tomorrow they would not have a cent with which to meet the bill at the hospital, or a dime to give the doctor for his services. All has gone into chewing gum, soda water, ice cream, cigars, and cigarettes, and so forth, and so forth, ad nauseum. So they are going their way through the world without education, and without that prudence which would put by the half, or at least a third, of the income against the day when they could get away to college, and by a complete education come to command capital, or at the very least compel its respect. When this lack of prudence involves not alone the interests of the man himself, but also determines the future of a family, the subject becomes more serious.

How often it is that a laboring man, earning a wage out of which a little could be easily saved, and yet leave all in comfort, forgets to make any such provision against the day of non-employment, sickness or death, or the day when his children are larger grown, and should be sent to schools where books and tuition fees demand of the father a bank account.In the city we buried a locomotive engineer who for years had held his position, receiving about $90 a month; and yet, when suddenly the end came, he left the young wife and four children destitute of funds, carrying not even the insurance of the Locomotive Brotherhood, not to speak of the greater amount for which he could easily have provided. Such improvidence is a sin, and if labor is ever to lift itself it must admit the same and make amends.But, above these things labor must learn total abstinence.

Mark you, “total abstinence,” not “temperance.” That term “temperance” compasses a compromise with which the devil is well content. The man who starts out to be a temperate man turns out to have been a fool. It would seem, indeed, that labor has had abundant opportunity to have learned this fact. Her representatives have sacrificed more on the altar of Bacchus than all other classes combined, and suffered in proportion to their sacrifice. They have suffered in purse. On one occasion when a deputation of workingmen waited on Lord John Russell, respecting the taxation levied on their people, that nobleman took occasion to say: “You may rely upon it, gentlemen, that the government of this country dare not tax the working classes to anything like the extent to which they tax themselves in their expenditure upon intoxicating drinks alone.” It would be interesting to know how much of the money received by a hundred workingmen on Saturday night found its way into the hands of saloon men before Monday morning.

In Belgium a manufacturer marked seven hundred five-franc pieces and paid off his employees. Two days after the wages were paid more than three hundred of the silver coins were in the possession of the adjacent grog-shop keepers.

When one adds to the loss of money the loss of life, the loss in intellect, the loss in physical ability, not to speak of the moral degradation, the sufferings imposed upon innocent wives and helpless children, the crimes, insanities and suicides that grow out of this drink custom as out of no other custom known to men, it seems singular that the preacher needs to preach total abstinence.The commonest sort of sense, possessed by the commonest sort of a man, ought to make of him a total abstainer. A friend tells how a calf of his, getting into some sour mash, intoxicated herself. After one experience the brute could never be induced to touch it again. What a reflection on man! Calf-brains counsel more wisely than his much-boasted gray matter. All over the country strikes have been occurring, voicing the appeal of laboring men for better wages, and in some instances for shorter service.

In almost every one of these instances my sympathies are with the strikers. They have occasion of complaint; they are not one whit more anarchistic in procuring their rights than organized capital is in its determined greed.

But, after all, it ought to be remembered by the workingmen of this country that if they would cease from the accursed liquor, forsake their drink customs, they would save a half billion of dollars every year, and could easily buy up the Brooklyn street-car system, the Chicago street-car system, the St. Louis street-car system, Carnegie’s iron works, Pullman’s Palace Car Works, Illinois coal fields, the Pennsylvania anthracite, and every other piece of property that has been a center around which capital and labor have recently waged their bloodiest wars.Here is a table in illustration of this truth. The people of this country spend three hundred and seventy millions of dollars annually for flour, and nine hundred and fifteen millions of dollars annually for meat, and if you added to this our expense for all other table comforts, and our outlay for dress, your sum total would come far short of the combined liquor and tobacco bill of this country, which aggregates a billion and a half—a billion and a half spent for bloating bodies, blighting minds, and damning souls. Do you wonder, then, that any preacher who has any interest in the laboring classes should plead with them to learn the lesson of total abstinence?We wish also to speak ofSOME NOTIONS CAPITAL MUST CORRECT It must be cured of its conceit. There are many people of means who retain humble minds, but we are sorry to say that the majority of those who can rightfully be called “capitalists” entertain an overwhelming self-conceit, and seem to regard themselves as lords of creation. In fact, Col. Dyer, of England, sometime since voiced that very sentiment when, in a speech, addressed to the United Club, he affirmed that labor was no source of wealth, but only contributed to wealth as coal contributed to the generation of power. These are his words: “Both labor and coal are inert masses until galvanized into life by intelligence. Capital took the savings of years, the power of organization, the education that enabled it to get orders and to build up credit, then it turned around to labor and said, ‘What do you bring?’ They answered, ‘We bring the labor of our hands.’ And what was that?

It was an inert mass until it was invested with life by directions.” It is difficult to imagine anything beyond that in the way of self-conceit. Such a speech calmly assumes that all laborers are ignorant and all capitalists are intellectual—an assumption which opposes all history, and proves how easy it is for men to mistake dead money for a living mind, and lordly airs for real royal attainments.

It is this conceit that accounts for much of the strife between the employee and his employer, and makes adjustment so well-nigh impossible. It is the same spirit that Nabal evinced when, with scorn, he asked of the noble David, and his demand of fair remuneration for services, “Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse?” and in answer to whose scorn David said to his servants, “Gird ye on every man his sword”; the same spirit that speaks of men employed in a mill as “so many hands,” as if they were machines without minds.Capital must also cease from its intolerance. The corporations of this country have with forethought of purpose and malice of intent, maligned, through a prostituted press, every public-spirited citizen who has dared to protest against their methods of piling up millions, escaping taxes, buying up legislative bodies, bullying voters, and oppressing employed. If politicians have spoken against them no caricature has been vile enough to present the true spirit of their reply. If college professors, in the plain line of appointed duty, have taught true sociology, the money power has made impossible the continuation of their professorships. If preachers have kept faith with conscience and defied iniquities, they have had to pay for the privilege by hearing their names anathematized, submitting to wholesale publication of false reports, demands for resignation, harangues about “heresy” and all the rest.

And yet the plainest duty of every public-spirited man in the land is to oppose this intolerance to a point where its continuance is impossible, and its subjects are brought to think soberly of themselves, as they ought to think and justly of their equals as God demands. It would be & sad circumstance if, under the present conditions of a press partisanized, the pulpit also should sell itself to silence or to such platitudes as would be acceptable to the small circle that worships at the altar of Mammon, and assumes to dominate all mankind.Dr.

Lorimer, in his address at the Baptist anniversary in Detroit, said of conscienceless corporations: “As long as I live I will denounce them.” May God give us more of his kind.Capital needs also to restrain its greed of gain. Personally we rejoice in a man who can make money. We love a man no less because he is worth a million. If he has secured it by honest means we admire him the more. But we must voice the conviction that to get gain by grinding one’s fellows is one of the most godless acts of which mortal man is capable. You have heard us speak on the slavery question, and know our feelings upon that subject, and our joy in that the blackest man in Dixie will never again be put at auction and sold. Yet we agree with Hon. E.

McRea when he declares that mill-bondage in New England, in its dire effect upon its operatives, is far more degrading than plantation-bondage of the South.There is one man to whose philosophies of life and to whose superb judgment of social questions all genuine Americans yield attention. I speak of our martyred president, Lincoln. We do well to remember that he said just about the close of the Civil War: “It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people, till all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” These forty years since Lincoln made that speech have sufficed to prove this noble president to be also the people’s prophet; and the time is already on when all good men should join him in calling upon corporate wealth to cease its greed and listen to God, whose Gospel is the Gospel of giving versus that of getting.So long as men continue to discuss their rights and to quarrel over their rights, just that long the social problem will remain unsolved. Josiah Strong says, “Duties give; rights get.” The social legislation of Jesus—the law of service and the law of love—was aimed at the uprooting of human selfishness. Laws may resist greed in some measure; they may mitigate evils by making it harder to do wrong and easier to do right; but so long as men are grasping, and some are stronger than others, there will be strivings.

The root evil is selfishness, and its removal is the only radical solution of this and every other social problem. That is the same doctrine that the Apostle Paul taught when he said, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ”.This leads me to speak ofSOME METHODS TO MUTUAL GOOD The social maxim of our text should lead to the surrender of groundless suspicion. We do not say that all the feeling that has grown up between capital and labor is groundless. On the contrary there has been much of injustice and much of irritation. But suspicions, when the product of wrongs, are always out of proportion to the offense. It is not only possible, it is pretty certain, that while the laborer has more virtues than capital can see in him, the capitalist often enjoys a better character than the social reformer paints for him. There are those who make it their business to array army against army; to speak, always and everywhere, of capital and labor as hostile forces contending for a common ground which cannot be occupied by both, and fostering the spirit of extermination of one party or the other.Those entertaining this sentiment do not always belong to the hard-working classes.

A good article in the November, 1902, “Review of Reviews” shows, with some conclusiveness, that a plan was laid and systematically worked upon for over a year by the anthracite coal operators to destroy the prestige of Mr. Mitchell’s labor union, “and so have, henceforth, the labor situation wholly in their hands.”The student of social economy must ask himself whether the extermination of either party would bring a blessing to the victor.

Prof. Peabody, in his volume “Jesus Christ and the Social Question,” said: “It may be urged indeed that to picture the field of economic activity as a battle-field is grossly to misconceive the nature of modern industry. Employer and employed, it may be pointed out, are in reality not hostile forces, but allies and partners in production. They prosper or suffer in the end together, and to assume a discord between their interests is not only unjustified, but suicidal.” Would not the fostering of mutual confidence and affection the sooner bring the reform for which socialists pray? Would not a proper emphasis upon the industrial partnerships already formed, and the co-operative institutions already in existence hasten the hour of their general adoption more rapidly than the attempt to overthrow all society by utterly abolishing either laborer or capitalist, or both? Can the language of our text, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ”, be literally obeyed if men are to follow the lead of agitators, and make it their business to build up antagonisms, and lay fuel on the flames of class hatred?

There is an old adage to the effect that “you cannot fight the devil with fire,” which ought to suggest to sane men that you cannot banish distrust by a stab, or bring antagonism to an end by irritation. Christ’s sentence, if once accepted by capitalist and laborer, would sound the death knell of groundless suspicions— “all ye are brethren”.

And yet we are not pleading for a peace that shall mean a suppression of speech regarding any unjust economic condition. The man who pleads for mutual love must also present a righteous law, since, after all, abiding love is founded in strict justice.With surrender of groundless suspicion as between capital and labor there ought to come the establishment of a proper ratio of profit-sharing. One need not go outside the city of Minneapolis to illustrate, both the beauty and utility of this suggestion. In 1894 an able writer contributed to the “Arena” an article in which he said: “We all know how much energy it adds to a man if he owns the business or comes to be a partner in it. When the Pillsbury Flour Mills of Minneapolis gave their men a share in the profits, the energy, care and economy of the men so greatly increased that, after subtracting the $40,000 worth of profit that went to the men (an average of $400 to a man, or thirty-three percent, on their wages for the year) the part of the profits that went to the firm was more than the total it had had by the old pure wage system. That was also the experience of the LeClaire shops in Paris.

It is always the case where profit sharing or co-operation is thoroughly tried under true conditions.” That intelligent labor would be satisfied, could it once share in some just proportion in the output of combined energy is evident in the face that the Colby family, carrying on an extensive business in the east, and sharing with their men the profits of the business, have never known a strike. Alfred Dolge, the felt manufacturer, in thirty years of experience in profit-sharing, can say the same.

When, some years since, he was compelled to make a cut of ten percent, in wages, it was accepted without complaint. Mr. Nelson, of LaClaire, Ill., manufacturer of plumbers’ supplies, says that because he had allowed his men a share in the profits, in the proportion of two percent, on wages, and one on capital, a reduction of wages in his shop was accepted by the men with applause. When, a few years since, The American Association of Profit Sharing made its report of one hundred companies in America, eighty in England, and one hundred and twenty-five in France they had yet to learn of an instance of dissatisfaction.But, to make this surrender of groundless suspicions possible, and this sharing of profits in the proper ratio the greatest power for good, capitalist and laborer should worship the same God. The rich and the poor must meet together the Lord and Maker of them all. When we speak of worshipping we do not mean sitting in a splendidly cushioned pew for an hour while the preacher reads to us a moral lesson—we mean worship!Did you ever read the story of Zacchaeus?

He was a rich man. And yet, when once at the feet of the Son of God he saw what to do with ill-gotten gain, as well as what use to make of his more righteous possessions. “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold”.

And Jesus said unto him, “This day is salvation come to this house.”There is a great deal of capital in this country that will never find the Christ until it has responded to the appeal of need. Jesus loved the rich young ruler, but He could never say to him, “This day is salvation come to [thy] house”, simply because that rich young ruler found it easy enough to bow the knee to the Son of God, but impossible to sacrifice his wealth, and that, when demanded for righteousness’ sake. When the rich worship God all ill-gotten gain will go back again whence it was taken, and honest wealth will be laid upon the altar of love. There will not be a point of character at which the poor can point the finger of criticism. And when the poor worship God, their poverty will come to an end. David said: “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread”.In a ministry of forty-five years we have yet to come upon an instance of starvation or rags as the lot of faithful follower of the Son of God.

Luxuries are not promised; they are not a need. He who took the five loaves and two small fishes, and fed the multitude and gathered up the twelve baskets of fragments, will never send the famished away unfed, provided they are faint from having followed Him.