The Industrial Conflict in the Light of Revelation.
By Geo. W. Rine
PROPERTY is one of the most potent factors of human society. As a means to the attainment of the highest human ends it is indispensable. We too often forget that it is only a means, not an end. As a means it is a gift from God, and as such it is to be enjoyed and legitimately used. But, like many other instrumental blessings, money has been sought for its own sake—has been made a fetish, an idol. Hence, with most persons, property is the supreme incentive to endeavor, the paramount good to be realized at all hands. This fact has made property the great cause for discontent, and one of the gravest sources of danger. If all Christians apprehended their true relation to property and of property to the kingdom of God, the many perplexing social and economic problems of to-day would soon be solved. The only permanent and efficient corrective of present-day evils, perplexities, and dangers in the industrial as well as in the moral world, is found in the Gospel. If all men should accept and practise the precepts of the Bible concerning property, the world would soon become an economic and social paradise. There is no human duty more clearly defined and more insistently emphasized in the Bible, than that which pertains to the ethics of ownership and to the attitude of the rich to the poor. Both Testaments are replete with passages upon this phase of human duty. If the doctrines of the Inspired Word, touching the possession of riches, were taught and lived by the Christian church, miracles of social and industrial reform would inevitably follow. “What is needed,” declares Dr. Josiah Strong, “is not simply an increased giving, an enlarged estimate of the Lord’s share, but a radically different conception of our relations to our possessions.” An honest perusal of the Scriptures would soon convince us that we are not proprietors or absolute owners, but simply the trustees or custodians of property, all of which belongs to God. It is not in a merely poetical or sentimental sense that the Lord declares Himself to be the absolute owner of all wealth, but in a very real and practical sense. We shall note a few striking passages: “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.” “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” “The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord.” Deut. 10:14; Ps. 24:1; Hag. 2:8. Many Christians gladly and practically concede God’s claim to a portion of their possessions, perhaps a tenth or even a fifth. This portion they hold themselves in duty bound to use for God. The foregoing Bible citations, however, show most conclusively that God did not, for the yielding of a part, renounce all claims to the remainder. In language, clear-cut and oft-repeated, we are taught that we and all our possessions belong absolutely to God. Not only our property, but we, body, soul, and spirit, are God’s. “Behold, all souls are Mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine.” “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price.” Eze. 18:4; 1 Cor. 6:19, 20. God’s eternal and unqualified ownership of all things created, rests upon the dual fact that He created us and all things, and that all are upheld “by the word of His power.” If we do not have any claim even to ourselves, how much less to the riches which God has entrusted to our care-taking. By this is not meant that we do not have any personal rights as touching property, or that private property is in itself a wrong, as Socialists would have it, but it does mean that between God and the individual soul there can never be any such distinction as thine and mine. Since all things are the Lord’s, He necessarily has a right to the use or service of all. We and all our possessions should, therefore, through the service of humanity, be dedicated to the service of the Lord. Jesus and His inspired writers uniformly denounce the accumulation of wealth for its own sake, and enjoin the obligation of sharing it with the helpless and the needy. Invariably they speak of material possessions as in the nature of stewardship, a distinct responsibility, for the right or wrong use of which the owner will be held to strict account. The amassing of great riches, the adding of house to house, of farm to farm, that the owner may enjoy them without regard to the needs of others, is always branded as a sin. Our first and highest duty, we are taught, is to fulfil the law of Christ, and to fulfil this law is to “bear . . . one another’s burdens,” to share with the less fortunate our strength, our joys, and our dollars. To do this is to serve humanity; to serve humanity is to serve God; to serve God is to fulfil the supreme mission of human life; and to fulfil this mission is the divine pledge that we shall be entrusted with infinite riches and endless life in the world to come. Property is a trust from God, a “talent” to be scrupulously employed—to be put “out to usury.” How very, very many are doing even worse than burying this talent in a napkin! They are sinking it in the mire of self-indulgence, squandering it in the gratification of vicious appetites and animal lusts. Such are unjust stewards, betraying their trust by embezzling their Lord’s property, which was graciously given them as a blessing to themselves and as a means of blessing the less fortunate. “Freely ye have received, freely give,” is our Lord’s explicit instruction. He would have us understand that we receive in order that we may give; that He blesses us that we may be a blessing to others; that He makes us the recipients of good, in order that under His guidance we may become the dispensers of good. Wealth is a blessing; but no real blessing can ever become actually and permanently mine until I permit the Giver to bless some one else, through me, with that blessing. It is only by giving them away that the gifts of God can be retained. As a man soweth (gives) so shall he also reap (receive). Every believing Bible student knows that there can be no personal righteousness without personal self-denial. But there is a sort of self-denial that is essentially unrighteous. I mean the self-denial which has for its object the hoarding of wealth, with no reference to using or giving. Such is the self-denial of the miser, who is, of all men, most miserable. But there is a noble and Godlike species of self-denial, without which Christian character is unattainable and salvation impossible. “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” This applies to the rich as well as to the poor. The richest of men are recreant to their divinely-given trust if they do not use every penny of their wealth in a way that will best glorify God. But God is glorified not only by our ministering to the needs of the poor and helpless, but by ministering to our own needs as well. Asceticism has no place in Christian character. Jesus “came eating and drinking.” But He ate and drank only to the extent that would insure His highest mental and physical integrity—a condition absolutely necessary to His greatest usefulness and efficiency as the servant of God. Every Christian is a servant, and he is morally bound to make that service as effective as possible. Hence, whatever expenditures are necessary to his greatest growth and efficiency are not only permissible, but obligatory. Our Lord has not left us without an infallible rule, by which to test the legitimacy of every expenditure: “Whatsoever you do, do it all to the glory of God.” Dr. Strong once wrote: “All the money which will yield a larger return of usefulness in the world, of greater good to the kingdom, by being spent on ourselves or families than by being applied otherwise, is used for the glory of God, and is better spent than it would have been if given to missions. And whatever money is spent on self that would have yielded larger returns of usefulness, if applied otherwise, is misapplied; and if it has been done intelligently, it is a case of embezzlement.” Dr. Strong has here given us a very luminous and concise commentary on the Bible rule above quoted. The rich need ever to remember that wealth is not self-creative. For every dollar of wealth some one has expended labor. Each dollar represents hours of hard work, a part of some one’s life given to its production, in the mine, in the forest, in the shop, in the office, or at the desk. It is so much stored energy, so much work in the concrete. Hence, every one that inherits wealth virtually receives free the fruits of as many days of toil as was originally required to create the amount he inherits. He is, therefore, morally bound to render to society the equivalent of his inherited toil, either in some form of personal service or in some form of ministry made possible by his unearned wealth. Failing to do so, he becomes a social parasite, a pauper, tho he may have millions of money at his command. He is virtually eating bread in the sweat of another’s face. One of the greatest evils and dangers that confront society to-day is the world-wide phenomenon of opulent pauperism. It is costing the world’s workers vastly more to support the great army of wealthy drones than it is to support the helpless poor. In the parable of the unjust steward our Lord has forcefully illustrated the true attitude of His followers toward property. He speaks of a steward who is charged with having wasted his master’s estate. The proofs of his guilt are so flagrant that he is sure to lose his position, with its perquisites. He calls together his lord’s debtors, and knavishly cuts off fifty per cent from the debt of one, twenty per cent from that of another, and by this piece of roguery he hopes to make friends who will receive him into their homes, at least for a time, when he has lost his office. Tho his master discovered the fraud, he is represented as having no remedy. The steward being his lord’s4legal representative, the steward’s orders were necessarily valid. Tho an unscrupulous knave, the steward had the forethought to provide for his future interest. “The sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of light.” Jesus commands His disciples (and us) to learn a lesson from the unjust steward. Of course it is not the dishonesty of the steward, but his foresight, that Jesus would have us note and imitate. “Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” It is obviously because wealth has had so much to do with human selfishness and cruelty, and because it is so often unjustly acquired and so wickedly used, that Jesus brands it as “the mammon of unrighteousness.” The following words afford a concise interpretation of this parable: “He that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he that is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who will give you that which is your own? . . . Ye can not serve God and mammon.” Temporal riches, the things of this world, are here represented as of very little value compared with eternal riches. But faithfulness in the inferior trust is a test of fidelity in the far greater matters of the world to come. We shall not receive from God the real and enduring riches, if we have not been faithful in using the material riches committed to us. Again, how strikingly this parable teaches what I said before, that our material possessions are not really and essentially ours, but God’s. They are placed in our hands for the purpose of testing our fitness to be entrusted with the imperishable riches of the coming kingdom. And just as certainly as our Lord spoke the truth, just so certainly can no one have a part or share in the eternal riches, if he has been faithless to his Master in the use of perishable riches. It is just as imperative as it ever was that we should forsake all and follow Christ. This is the fundamental law of His kingdom. To the man of the world this may sound like a stern tyrannical law, calculated to make life hard and gloomy. He can see no happiness in such a life. He is looking through eyes that have back of them a covetous, grasping heart. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. To the spiritually enlightened heart this law of self-renunciation is the only law that can make life free, glad, joyous. Its practical acceptance cleanses the heart from the blighting passion of avarice, relieves the soul of that carking care, that corroding anxiety, that hot restlessness, which are inseparable from a life devoted to money-getting. It is then that we become children of God in spirit as well as in name, and the true temper and blessedness of God’s children fill our hearts. We now realize that God is our common Father, that we are all His children, that our property all belongs to our Father, and we are ever ready to share it with all who are in our Father’s household. We see truly that there is no happiness like the happiness that comes from making others happy. With our Elder Brother, we can say from the heart that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”