THE SPREAD OF SOCIALISM.
By Editor
A GREAT many well-meaning people are being deluded with the idea that the great cure-all for social evils and industrial complications is found in Socialism. There is no doubt that many Socialists have a clear view of current conditions. They can describe the evils that affect humanity, the diseases of the body politic, quite lucidly. Their diagnosis shows keen research, is socially scientific; but when it comes to the prescription, the medicine is about on a par with the disease. It is salvation by human means, and nothing more. It would save society as the only means of saving the individual—just the reverse of Christianity. On the surface it presents many beautiful theories, and these are deluding even Christian people who do not see to the end of its logic. As a brief warning to Christians who are being thus misled, we subjoin the following extract from a dissertation on the subject of "Socialism and Religion," by Bishop Matz:— As far back as 1848 the Socialists of France were flooding the country with a kind of catechism containing a condensed summary of its teachings, just as they are doing at present in Chicago and other cities of America; with this difference, however, that they are going about this business more systematically in this country, for they have started a standard system of Sunday-schools in the above-mentioned city of Chicago, which has become so popular as to require new establishments in various parts of the city. Among the queries given the children for study we find the following:—
"Is there a hell?"
"Answer.—The hell of the next world, taught by the religious to frighten the people and domineer over them, is pure fiction, but there is a hell in this world—the hell of popular misery."
Another query and answer:—
"Is there a heaven?"
"Answer.—The heaven of the next world, invented by the religious, is a pure hypothesis, created by the priests to make the people bear patiently the burden of their sufferings, but there is a paradise on earth; for one day humanity will enjoy the earth perfected by labor, and make it a veritable heaven. There is no other heaven." That this is Socialism, pure and simple, is evident from the positive party utterance of the socialistic congress of Gand [Belgium], Sept. 17, 1877, which was received with frantic applause. Even this short extract ought to be enough to set Christians to thinking a little before adopting Socialism as a remedy for human ills.