Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 20, 1906

SAYS the psalmist: “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” America and Europe are being filled with the doctrine of socialism; and if we understand the aim of its expounders, most if not all the national, political, and social ills of the world are to be eradicated by the application of the principles of socialism to the affairs of men and nations. Political corruption, bank wrecking, graft, and financial inequality are to be banished from the world when socialism sits in the seats of the rulers. In view of what socialism expects to see accomplished through the instrumentality of human power, the following extract from the socialist paper Appeal to Reason is interesting reading:—

If we could only employ dogs instead of men in places of public trust! Dogs are honest, faithful, even unto death. They never turn traitor to their benefactors. But man! Look at him in all his glory, and find one you can trust with your life! Look at the tens of thousands who rob those who trust them, even when they have plenty without robbing.

Men rob and betray trust because they are wrong inside. Their hearts are corrupted, and in their hearts they break the law of God before they put forth the hand to take that which is not theirs or turn their backs upon their trusting friends. What remedy has socialism to change the hearts of men? What men

have socialism or any other human organization to put in places of public trust but those who are in the world now, the very men so scathingly denounced in the above extract? What those men need, what all unconverted men need, is a change of heart; and that need can be supplied by nothing but the gospel of Jesus Christ. To denounce a man is not the same as putting a new heart in him. To denounce one set of men will never make angels of another set. As socialism has no power to touch and convert and transform the hearts of men, it will never be able to accomplish the purpose at which it aims. There is only one converting, conscience-building power in the world, and that is the power sent hither by God himself. Jesus said: “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.” There is power enough in that drawing to transform hearts and save men and enable them to lead clean lives. There is no other power on earth that can do it; and if we build our hopes for better things here upon what we can induce unconverted men to do for us, we are planning for ourselves the most bitter of disappointments.