Capital and Labor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 12, 1914

Capital and Labor

[The following quotations are taken from a sermon delivered several weeks ago by Dr. Gabriel Reid Maguire, pastor of the Park Avenue Baptist Church of Plainfield, N. J. The report is furnished us by Brother F. E. Johnstone, of that city.—Ed.]

THE greatest war the world has ever seen is that between capital and labor, —a war of centuries. The middle classes in this country, who have held the balance of power, acting as mediator between the two extremes, are diminishing. Should this state of affairs continue as it has during the past twenty-five years, there will soon be no middle classes; there will be the very rich or the very poor, palaces or hovels. Some people have an idea that this trouble between capital and labor is just like a crying child that will soon fall asleep; but the problem is far more serious than that. Most of the men who have tried to pacify these two parties have miserably failed. The trade-union is more bitter today than it ever was. "Give us more wages," cry the employees. "You shall have less," says the capitalist. There are 10,000,000 persons in this country tonight on the verge of starvation, and 4,000,000 paupers. Several million hungry persons cannot be kept quiet very long, no matter how large the police force, nor how many the enactments of the legislature. This war between capital and labor will never be settled by human wisdom. Christianity is the only force in the universe that has the power to settle this controversy.

The laboring class is not found in our churches today, and there is a reason for it. They think the church is supported by the capitalist, and that therefore the rich own the preacher. The church has got to wake up. There is too much cold-storage religion. There is too much churchianity, and not enough Christianity. It is a sin to build million-dollar churches in New York City, with the thousands of poor and needy at our very doors. That is churchianity, not Christianity. Jesus Christ loved the poor as well as the rich.

How shall we solve the problem? This controversy between monopoly and labor cannot be stopped by crying out against the rich. There is no laboring man in America who would not be rich if he could. It is no sin to be rich if the riches are attained honestly, if fortunes are amassed through skill and industry; but if wealth comes through grinding down the wages until there is barely sufficient to keep soul and body together, if the millionaire is known to take the bread from children's mouths, the curse of God will surely follow him.

Neither is this problem solved by cynical and unsympathetic treatment of the laboring classes. This question can never be settled by violence. God never blessed murder. If you were to blow up all the magnificent residences in Plainfield tonight, all the brick and stone would fall back upon your own head. Anarchy will never heal the breach. Barbarism was never known to cure the ills of civilization.

Capital and labor stand today with thumbs on each other's throats, and it is high time we looked somewhere for a settlement of the difficulty; and this is not to be found in churchianity. No force nor influence in the universe will ever be able to settle this momentous question but the power of the living God. Jesus is the only one who can settle this gigantic question,—he who died a death of shame on the cross. Before such a cross I ask the capitalist and the laborer to meet, to shake hands, to permit the golden rule to govern their lives, and to worship the Saviour, who gave his life for both.