IT DOES NOT REACH THE ROOT.
A SPLENDID dream is that of Socialists, namely, that this struggle in which so many of them are sacrificingly, bravely, and hopefully engaged “can only result,” as Walter Thomas Mills puts it, “in the overthrow of the master class and the end of class struggle with the disappearance of all classes. Socialism will end the class struggle by removing the economic inequality of opportunity which has created the classes.” It is a grand dream, we say, but only a dream, “as when a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty; or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite.” We would not presume to argue that a change in economic conditions might not prove temporarily beneficial, but it would be emphatically briefly beneficial. The economic condition is not the cause; it is only one of the results of a cause, one of the symptoms of a disease, one of the fruits of a seed-sowing which Socialism with any effort whatsoever can never destroy, cure, or uproot. That primal cause which no political ism can extirpate is the innate selfishness of the human heart, the incarnate sin of which all evil in mankind is the fruit. Mankind, or society, is not one great homogeneous body; it is an aggregate of diverse units. It is primarily, logically, and generally true that what is good for one, especially in principle and opportunity, is good for all. But as long as man is the selfish being that he is, he will never yield to that law which will work only for the good of all. That law is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” coming into every man’s life by the voluntary yielding of his own life and the free choice of the mind and life of Christ Jesus. It is not a matter of evolution, but a matter of recreation of the soul in Christ Jesus. It is not supernatural as regards God, but it is as regards sinful man. It is God’s power by the free choice of man lifting man to the divine, so that he will seek his neighbor’s good as he will seek his own. That is Christianity, that which will lift man above all earthly masters even tho he be a slave. If fully appropriated, it will make new men physically, mentally, spiritually. But it will not do it in the aggregate. It can not accomplish it by the evolution of ages. It can not effect the transformation by legislation. It must be by individual, personal life-relationship with Jesus Christ. Let Socialism hold the balance of power in politics, let it bid fair to be a success, and every place-seeker and gold-worshiper in the world will swear fealty to its tenets till he fills and controls the party, and then decay and dissolution and utter defeat will come from within. No; let every true-hearted man working for the good of others, not depend upon politics, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “The long gain is the true gain,” and the gain of the Gospel is eternal.