Will It Close the Breach Between the Clashing Factions of Society? — Where May We Look for the Golden Age?
By PROF. G. W. RINE
This is the sixth article that Professor Rine, of the Pacific Union College, has furnished on the “economic situation.” In previous articles, he has told of the pending world-wide industrial revolution; of the unequal distribution of wealth as the great cause of discontent; the conflict of industrial autocracy with the sentiments and teaching of democracy; the extravagance and wantonness of the few and the destitution of the many; Syndicalism, or the world-wide organization of the I. W. W.; and last week the professor showed that the prophets of the Bible foretold all these conditions specifically and in detail. Editor.
Among the last written words of that venerable physicist, the late Alfred Russell Wallace, are the following: “We see a continuous advance of man’s power to utilize the forces of nature, to an extent which surpasses everything he had been able to do during all the preceding centuries of his recorded history.”
“We also see that the result of this vast economic revolution has been almost wholly evil. We see that this hundredfold increase of wealth, amply sufficient to provide necessaries, comforts, and all beneficial refinement, . . . for our whole population, has been distributed with such gross injustice that the actual condition of those who produce all this wealth has become worse and worse, no efficient arrangements having been made that from the overflowing abundance produced all should receive the mere essentials of a healthy and happy existence.
“We see millions still struggling in vain for a sufficiency of the bare necessaries of life (which, in their misery, is all they ask), often culminating in actual starvation, or in suicide, to which they are driven by the dread of starvation.”
“And while this is going on in the depths, . . . a little higher up, among the middlemen distributors of the necessaries and luxuries of life, bribery, adulteration, and various forms of petty dishonesty are rampant.”
“And higher yet, among the great capitalists, the merchant princes, the captains of industry, we find hard taskmasters who drive down wages below the level of bare subsistence, and who support a more gigantic and wide-spread system of gambling than the world has ever seen.
“And finally our administration of what we call ‘justice’ . . . is utterly unjust, because it is based on a system of money fees at every step; because it is so cumbrous and full of technicalities as to need the employment of attorneys and counsel at great cost, and because all petty offenses are punishable by fine or imprisonment, which makes poverty itself a crime while it allows those with money to go practically free.”
Professor Wallace has painted a dark but true picture of British economic society, and completes his sketch with the following lurid touches (italics his):
“Taking account of these various groups of undoubted facts, many of which are so gross, so terrible, that they can not be overstated, it is not too much to say that our whole system of society is rotten from top to bottom, and the social environment as a whole, in relation to our possibilities and claims, is the worst that the world has ever seen.”
It was upon British society that the foregoing vitriolic stricture was written. Who, however, would think of denying that the same insufferable conditions exist in all the other nations of the civilized world? Further still, who would think of denying that some of the evils so trenchantly depicted by Professor Wallace are still more glaringly in evidence in our own country?
Sweeping Rehabilitation of Society Demanded
At any rate, all thinkers are at one in holding that the breach between the two great classes of the industrial world has become so great as to call for a sweeping economic rehabilitation of society. Otherwise social war is not only inevitable but actually impending. Accordingly thousands of thinking men in all parts of Christendom are strenuously working to effect such social reforms as in their judgment would prove efficacious in closing the ominous breach between the capital and the laboring class. By such reforms they hope to establish permanent industrial peace and consequent social contentment and tranquillity. Professor Wallace himself, in the face of the portentously dark picture he has left us, was sanguine that the philanthropic instincts of society were sufficiently general and potent so to transform the industrial world in the near future as to insure the dawn of a social era marked by justice, fraternal good will, and, in consequence, by universal industrial peace and prosperity.
Transferring the Golden Age
Dr. Josiah Strong thinks it a highly significant fact that men to-day are transferring the golden age to the future, instead of to the past, as former generations were wont to do. Like nearly all other social workers, Dr. Strong bases his hope of the world’s future, not upon the immutable pronouncements of inspired prophecy, but upon the power and willingness of man himself to erect upon the ruins of our present social order an Edenic social state—the kingdom of God on earth.
It is true that these social leaders—men of great moral earnestness—often quote the numerous prophetic promises that the kingdom of heaven should ultimately be realized on earth; but they utterly fail to see that these same prophecies declare again and again that the realization of that kingdom, or of an ideal human society, can and will be effected only through the personal, visible coming of Christ in glory to our world. We all know, of course, that it is morally incumbent upon all Christian believers to do all in their power to promote the well-being and happiness of their fellows, and thus ameliorate the conditions of society; but they have no Scriptural warrant to expect the advent of the kingdom of God to this world except through the advent of the personal Christ, “the last Adam,” to this world. Did not the Master Himself declare that it is when the Son of man should come, with all the holy angels, that He would sit upon the throne772of His glory? It is then that He will say to “them on His right hand,” “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
The New Knowledge
Those benevolent men and women who are laboring for the moral renovation and rehabilitation of society in this world as it is, reason that the two great sources of human misery and the two great obstacles to moral progress are ignorance and selfishness. Ignorance is the mother of fear and superstition, and, in a measure, of want and famine. Selfishness leads men to prey upon one another by war, oppression, slavery, robbery, theft, fraud, and by the commission of a thousand other wrongs. They contend that these two sources of all human woe—ignorance and selfishness—are now in process of being removed by the new knowledge and the new altruism.
The new knowledge is what is commonly called science. No one will deny that the nineteenth century witnessed a mighty cataclysm in the intellectual life of the race. Prof. A. E. Dolbear names nineteen distinct sciences which had no existence one hundred years ago. “These sciences,” he avers, “embody almost all the knowledge we have.” Alfred Russell Wallace asserts that the scientific discoveries and their practical applications effected during the last century outweigh and outnumber all that had preceded in all time. It is generally contended that the achievements of science have only begun. The marvels of telephony, of wireless telegraphy, of aviation, of auto-motor power, etc., are referred to as the prophecies of the still more glorious human achievements of the long future. The Carnegie Institution at Washington, fortified with an endowment of $25,000,000, is devoted exclusively to scientific research. Prof. Charles S. Minot informs us that there are now more than ten thousand men of distinction carrying on original scientific researches.
The Scientific Dogma of Evolution
It is maintained that the discovery of the scientific dogma of evolution has given us a new conception of revelation, of God, of the future as well as of the past history of man, and, above all, it has shown us that “this is not a finished world, but one in process of becoming.” Of course, to believers in the evolutionary dogma, the human race has been for hundreds of thousands of years, and still continues to be, in process of evolution from a lower to a higher plane of being. From the evolution premise, the deduction is inescapable that man is ever rising spiritually as well as intellectually. Hence the realization of an ideal humanity by virtue of the “new knowledge,” or modern science, based on the new god, Evolution, is to the scientific reformer a certitude.
Says Dr. Strong, “There is good promise that social science will in due time enable us in large measure to shape the future of the race.” After referring to the sad fact that millions are now eating such food, living in such houses, working under such conditions and with such wages, as to make their living normal lives wholly impossible, he says further, “But all these conditions are remediable; and sociology gives us good courage to expect that the curse of poverty will be removed.” Pasteur’s proud declaration, “It is within the power of man to rid himself of every parasitic disease,” has become the slogan of the new scientific medicine. Dr. Broda, a noted writer on ethics and sociology, declares with gusto that evolution not only demonstrates the unity of nature, but also proves the brotherhood of the world and the solidarity of creation, and so gives us the foundation for a new moral ideal, “and provides a new theory of ethics, and is thus eminently fitted for becoming the basis for a new manifestation of the religious spirit.”
“It is the province of science,” avers Dr. Strong, “to discover to us natural laws by which we subdue nature to the uses of human welfare, and to reveal the laws of life, both individual and social, by the knowledge of which society may live in harmony with the laws of its own being, thus actualizing the highest possibilities, and realizing our social ideal.”
It would be easy indefinitely to adduce evidence of the same tenor showing that social reformers cherish the conviction that the “new knowledge”—modern science—is destined to prove an all-potent agency in bringing about the social, industrial, and ethical solidarity of man; that is, universal human brotherhood will be largely realized through increasing intellectual enlightenment applied to the promotion of human well-being.
The New Altruism
Not only the estimable men and women who, from philanthropic motives, are devoted to the task of social regeneration, but also many publicists, journalists, and clergymen maintain that men generally are becoming less and less selfish—less egoistic, more altruistic. This contention is fulminated from the pulpit, the platform, and through the press. It is urged that man realizes as never before that he is his brother’s keeper, that the interest of each is the interest of all. Dr. Strong declares with evident gusto, “This new spirit is so obvious that it is almost superfluous to cite illustrations.” It is held that universal competition is in rapid process of giving way to universal cooperation—to a system of economic brotherhood, as of a great family, or friends.
Philanthropic Social Civilization
In demonstration of the belief that a new and essentially philanthropic social civilization is soon to be realized, we are reminded that in nearly all the large cities of Christendom vast social settlements, such as that of Hull House in Chicago, have been created for the relief of the suffering poor; that many governments have placed upon their statute-books laws establishing a minimum wage for the more helpless classes of toilers, laws stipulating the maximum number of hours a day in which women or children may labor, employers’ liability laws, laws providing for state industrial insurance, laws requiring that all sorts of labor shall be performed only under approved sanitary conditions, etc. Attention is called to the fact that in Philadelphia alone there are 2,376 separate agencies engaged in benevolent work, and that the number of similar agencies has been nearly doubled in the last decade, in New York City, and that, for the purpose of giving intelligent direction to these altruistic efforts, several schools of philanthropy have been opened, in which hundreds of young men and women are trained for these new professions. “The churches also are beginning to see that they have a mission to society as well as to the individual.”
“There is abundant reason to believe,” says a noted social reformer, “that progress toward the realization of a high social ideal for the world is to be increasingly rapid in the future. . . . Knowledge and benevolence are all that are needed to make men efficient collaborers with God in building the holy city in the earth. . . . What possibilities of wise intelligence, of controlled power, of heroic endurance, of sacrificial service, of glowing love, of radiant beauty, of unspeakable blessedness, of godlike character, there are in human nature!”
An Illusive Hope
It is obvious that this army of social reformers are grounding their hope of success upon the intrinsic goodness and power of man. Observe that it is “in human nature” that the forces requisite to the moral renovation of society are to be found. Instead of “looking unto Jesus,” “the wisdom of God and the power of God,” these workers look to man for the necessary “sacrificial service,” “glowing love,” “controlled power,” and “heroic endurance.” This they do in the very face of the divine injunction, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.”
It is as obvious as a mathematical axiom that the moral transformation of society is not possible except through the moral transformation of the individuals who compose society. Now, the Spirit of truth expressly declares that it is as impossible for a man to change his character as it is for the Ethiopian to change his skin, or the leopard his spots. Again, inspiration pronounces a blessing only upon those whose trust is in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. On the other hand, the same inspired Word declares that those whose trust is in man, in the arm of flesh, bring upon themselves only a curse. Jer. 17:5-8.
Express Prophetic Testimony
We are assured, by the express testimony of our Lord, that in the days immediately preceding His second coming society would be ethically and morally as society was “in the days of Noah,” and as it was “in the days of Lot.” That is, eating, drinking, building, sowing, reaping, etc., would be the exclusive objects of their interest and concern. The same Spirit-given testimony is borne through the apostle Paul. He declares that “in the last days” men should be “lovers of self [No altruism here], lovers of money, . . . lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” In the same connection he finally pronounces that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.”
“The word of God . . . can not be broken,” and it uniformly teaches that society will be renovated only through the intervention of the second advent of our Lord. He must come and send His angels to gather out all them that offend—to separate the tares from the wheat. The tares must be burned with unquenchable fire,773and the wheat alone will be gathered into the garner of the kingdom of Christ. Then, and not till then, will the glory of the knowledge of the Lord cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Then, and not till then, will His kingdom have come, and His will be done in earth as it is done in heaven. When God’s “people shall all be righteous,” then, and not till then, will universal economic justice and industrial peace eternally prevail.
