THE HUMAN VERSUS THE DIVINE METHOD.
By Editor
DR. R. F. COYLE (Presbyterian), of this city, in a recent sermon, discussed the “Dangers of the Times,” especially as connected with the labor question. He thinks that we are on the eve of a great revolution of some kind, approaching a great crisis in earth's history. He says (we quote from the Examiner of Sept. 4): “In the line with all this are the increasing predictions of the near advent of Christ and of the end of the present dispensation.” And all these evils which are mentioned by Dr. Coyle are given in the Bible as especially characteristic of the last days. Of the power of gold he says:— Gold is king. The race for wealth is so intense, so absorbing, so supreme, that it is driving men into all sorts of unscrupulous methods and practices. Mammonism bribes the voters, corrupts the ballot box, buys legislators, and influences the decisions of courts. Its spirit is back of the lottery, back of gambling of all sorts, back of the wild speculations in boards of trade, back of the rum power, back of the fierce and savage competitions of commerce which have become so terrible within the last few years. It is said that the love of money runs in the veins of the Anglo-Saxon, and it looks like it. Among Anglo-Saxon people, especially in this country, it is not blood, not birth, not titles, but money, that makes the aristocracy. The circles from which the poor, though educated and refined, are barred out, give a hearty welcome to the person who has wealth. According to our ordinary social judgments, it is cash that counts and not character. Dives is on top, and, being on top, is lionized, and no questions are asked as to how he got there. The haste to be rich is one of the most suspicious and dangerous symptoms of the times. Other dangers mentioned by the doctor are centralization of power, socialism, and anarchy:— Power of all sorts seems to be concentrating. Politics are centralizing. There is vastly more power in the government at Washington than there was at the close of the civil war. The pendulum has swung from the States rights question of the last generation over to the other extreme. In the financial world these are the days of pools and trusts and syndicates. Capital is centralizing. Labor is centralizing too. Organization is going on among the workingmen as never before. Population is consolidating. The drift is everywhere toward the cities. This is an age of rapidly growing socialism. We are told that the socialistic vote in Germany was 124,655 in 1871, and 1,341,587 in 1890. The statistics of socialistic growth in this country I cannot give, but we are assured by Professor Walker that “socialism was never more full of lusty vigor, more rich in promise of things to come, than now.” Of Anarchists, though few in number, he says:— See how busy these destructionists are to-day. They are injecting their poison into the lifeblood of the masses. They are making the poorer classes sour, sullen, and rebellious. And then as to the duty of the church he utters the following, to which we say, Amen:— Israel should awake. These are no days for dreaming and creed-thinking and theological hair splitting. The church was built for stormy seas. To run us under lee shores and come to anchor in sunny707harbors is to be false to her high calling. No new gospel is needed, but new and harder application of the old gospel. Israel must take the cross down from her altars and steeples and into all the dealings of man with man. But here Dr. Coyle more than hints at methods which will never accomplish the work which needs to be done. He says:— The church has been too long in the habit of dividing human affairs into things secular and things sacred. This has kept her out of touch with the world. Her business is as much to save society as to save the individual. True, it is not the business of the church to divide “human affairs” into secular and sacred. They are so divided by a Higher Power than man, and it is the business of the church to respect that division and labor in her own sphere. It is not to be an object sought to come into “touch” with the world. It is her business to first know Christ and then reveal Christ to the world, in her speech, her deeds, her spirit, her whole life. Getting “in touch” with the world will then care for itself. The church has no business with society as such. Her business is to hold up Christ and win men, not en masse, but as individuals, because that is the only way she can help them. The fact is that just as soon as the church endeavored to “save society,” to control things “secular,” she fell under the corrupting power of politics. Principle was yielded to expediency. There is where she stands to-day,—“in touch” with the world, a very part of the world, but “out of touch” with Jesus Christ. The only way to save society is to save individuals. As recently remarked by a writer in one of our missionary magazines, “A nation is only transformed as its individual members themselves become transformed.” It is just as true of society. If the church would cut loose from the world, and lay hold upon Christ; if the church would stop trying to save society and nations, keep out of politics, and go to work preaching, living, ministering the gospel of Christ, God would care for the rest. To do this the church needs a new commission, but she will not admit it. Some of her great men see her danger, and know a little of her diseases, but they know not the remedy.