, hard-headed, practical Jonathan, do you think
that the existence of the family depends upon keeping women in the
position of an inferior class, politically and economically? Do you
think that when women are politically and economically the equals of
men, so that they no longer have to marry for homes, or to stand
brutal treatment because they have no other homes than the men afford;
so that no woman is forced to sell her body--I ask you, when women are
thus free do you believe that the marriage system will be endangered
thereby? For that is what the contention of the opponents of Socialism
comes to in the last analysis, my friend. Socialism will only affect
the marriage system in so far as it raises the standards of society as
a whole and makes woman man's political and economic equal. Are you
afraid of _that_, Jonathan?

(4) Socialism is not opposed to religion. It is perfectly true that
some Socialists oppose religion, but Socialism itself has nothing to
do with matters of religion. In the Socialist movement to-day there
are men and women of all creeds and all shades of religious belief. By
all the Socialist parties of the world religion is declared to be a
private matter--and the declaration is honestly meant; it is not a
tactical utterance, used as bait to the unwary, which the Socialists
secretly repudiate. In the Socialist movement of America to-day there
are Jews and Christians, Catholics and Protestants, Spiritualists and
Christian Scientists, Unitarians and Trinitarians, Methodists and
Baptists, Atheists and Agnostics, all united in one great comradeship.

This was not always the case. When the scientific Socialist movement
began in the second half of the last century, Science was engaged in a
great intellectual encounter with Dogma. All the younger men were
drawn into the scientific current of the time. It was natural, then,
that the most radical movement of the time should partake of the
universal scientific spirit and temper. The Christians of that day
thought that the work of Darwin and his school would destroy religion.
They made the very natural mistake of supposing that dogma and
religion were the same thing, a mistake which their critics fully
shared.

You know what happened, Jonathan. The Christians gradually came to
realize that no religion could oppose the truth and continue to be a
power. Gradually they accepted the position of the Darwinian critics,
until to-day there is no longer the great vi