THE CHURCH CONGRESS AND THE LABOUR QUESTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—What you say in your article on this subject, as to the danger of making of altruism a religion, is no doubt quite true ; but I think there are considerations to be urged on the other side.
(1.) The influence of the Church in bygone days has been thrown so strongly on the side of the rights of property and of the privileged classes, that the pendulum must needs swing a good way in the opposite direction before we arrive at an equilibrium. I remember my boyish indignation being roused by a much-respected clergyman, now many years dead, who in preaching for schools impressed upon his poorer brethren the duty of grateful obedience and submission to the rich, in return for their goodness in providing schools for their children. And only twenty years ago, clergymen who sup- ported the Agricultural Labourers' Union bad to bear plenty of hard words from their brethren. And though things are very *different now, one sees in the utterances of Mr. Tillett, who speaks of the Church as the Church of the capitalists, how the impression of past days lingers in men's minds.
(2.) St. Paul does not, indeed, make of altruism a religion, but if one reads the First Epistle to the Corinthians, it is re- markable how large a part altruism plays in his religion. He uses both the Sacraments as witnesses to the unity of Christians,—or may we not say of mankind? "As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body ; so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptised into one body whether bond or free ; and were all made to drink of one Spirit." "We, who are many, are one bread, one body; for we all partake of the one bread." The community of goods in the Church at Jerusalem, though apparently only a local experi- ment which proved a failure, was at least a witness to the feeling of the primitive Christians that private rights are eclipsed by public duties ; and I do not see how any disciple of Christ can doubt that in an age of vast accumulation and boundless luxury, it is the duty of the Christian society to declare that a rich man cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven unless he acknowledges that not aught of the things that he possesses is his own. I do not mean that a rich man is at once to divest himself of his riches—(he would probably do more harm than good if he did so)—unless he finds that his riches are fatal to his spiritual life ; but that he should learn that he holds his wealth as a trustee for his tenants, his work- people, his neighbours, his fellow-countrymen.
It would, no doubt, be a calamity if the clergy were to take up social questions in order to win popularity for the Church ; but we may well be thankful to the Bishop of Durham for drawing men's attention to the fact that such questions are religious rather than (in the debased modern sense of the word) political.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Chelmsford, October 6th. R. E. BARTLETT.
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