p. 8 (408) | ALL SEEK THEIR OWN

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 29, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 26.

“ALL SEEK THEIR OWN.”

HUMAN nature is human nature, and nothing more. The natural man is a natural monopolist, whenever the opportunity is presented, because he is naturally selfish. The divine mind, the mind of God, is benevolent, actuated only by love; but “the carnal mind is enmity against God.” In the history of the human race perhaps nothing has more aptly illustrated this principle than the current contest between capital and labor—or, rather, between organized capital and organized labor. The capital trusts were becoming so oppressive that organized labor undertook to offset them by forming a labor trust. The capital trusts had aimed to “freeze out” every enterprise in their respective lines that did not yield to their demands. So the labor trust adopted the same methods, and where successful, the unions became more oppressive than the capital trusts. Their intolerance toward non-union labor is even worse than the selfishness of the capital trusts, for these do admit the general right of men to work where opportunity offers. So oppressive was the labor trust becoming, that employers devised the citizens’ alliance and employers’ association movements, in order to protect themselves and their business enterprises from labor extortion.

And in places where the battle waxes warmest these protective associations have adopted the union methods. So it goes; organized extortion and oppression is met by retaliation in kind. Men seem to recognize no means of overcoming evil but by the employment of more evil. The methods condemned in the capital trusts by the labor trust are in turn employed by the labor trust, and even extended to a greater extreme. So the methods condemned in the

labor trust (called unions) by the alliances and associations of employers may be adopted in carrying out their purposes. All this seems to have been demonstrated in Colorado, where the conflict predicted in prophecy concerning the last days is so far in advance of the progress in other localities. The principles of the Golden Rule, the Gospel remedy for every species of threatened discord, are apparently ignored, while the bitter spirit of “fighting it out” pervades the social realm. The trouble lies in the fact that all seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ’s.” In contrast with this condition of things in the world, the true disciple of Christ will seek first “the kingdom of God, and His righteousness.” More and more will he do this as he realizes that “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”