A Solution of the Labor Problem
A Solution of the Labor Problem.—Says the Homiletic Review: “A student who specialized on the labor problem despaired of finding a way out of the difficulties. With the study itself the immensity of the problem grew, and the solution seemed to become more impossible. . . . The labor problem, which some treat so lightly, has unfathomed depths and unprobed mysteries. No man has the solution.” And yet the solution has been given by the man Christ Jesus: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” Let each one do this, and the labor question, and the tariff question, and all other perplexing questions, will be solved. The trouble is that men will not do it; they will not apply the remedy; therefore they will not be healed of the disease. They will not follow the rule, therefore the problems remain unsolved. Solved by Christianity.—The Golden Rule is Christianity; its carrying out is applied Christianity in the best and fullest sense. But this application can not be made by the state or the municipality, or by any other civil or human organization. The doing of the Golden Rule must be from the heart; and the heart can be operated in accordance with the Golden Rule only as the same Spirit which gave the Golden Rule operates in the heart. The Golden Rule came from the Spirit of God; the Spirit of God must therefore change the heart and implant within it the Golden Rule. But the Spirit of God is not under the control of any or all of the Legislatures of the world. It can not be controlled by man. It must control or it will not abide. Its way is the only true and right way, and the Spirit of God can only do right. There can therefore be no “Applied Christianity” in a political sense. It can only be brought about by the power of Christ through the Gospel.