un-Christian. It puts a premium upon
selfishness. Modern industrialism is cruel and unjust and directly
incites men to self-seeking. The weak and unfortunate have to go to
the wall; little mercy is shown to the man who is not strong enough to
fight his way and keep his footing in the struggle for existence. We
are all the time making war upon one another,--man against man,
business against business, class against class, nation against nation.
We talk of our freedom, but no man is really free, and the great
majority of us are slaves to some corporation, or capitalist, or
condition of things, which renders the greater part of life a
continuous anxiety lest health or means should fail and we should prove
unequal to the demands made upon us. If a man goes under, his
acquaintances will pity him for five minutes and then forget all about
him. There is no help for it; they cannot do anything else, they have
their own living to get. They are like soldiers in the heat of battle;
they must not pause to mourn over a fallen comrade or they may soon be
stretched beside him. I do not mean, of course, to make the foolish
statement that present-day industrialism is unrestrainedly
individualistic: thank God it is not that. But the principle of
competition still exercises a sway so potent as to stamp modern social
organisation as un-Christian. We may just as well recognise that fact
and state it plainly. The glaringly unequal ownership of material
wealth is anti-social; it is good neither for the rich man nor for the
poor, for it is to the interest of every man that the body politic
should be healthy and happy. That so large a number of our total
population should have to exist upon the very margin of subsistence is
a moral wrong. We have no business to have any slums, or sweating
dens, or able-bodied unemployed, or paupers. Poverty, dulness of
brain, and coarseness of habit are often found in close association.
Some amount of material endowment is required even for the development
of the intelligence and the training of the moral faculties. Wealth
possesses no value in itself; it only possesses value as a means to
more abundant life. If there is one thing upon which Christianity
insists more than another, it is the duty of caring for the weak and
sinful, but at present this duty is only recognised to a very limited
extent.

+Christianity and Collectivism.+--In what I am now saying I am well
aware that I have come to a p