but to yield to their just demands; that wages are too low and profits too large; that eight hours should constitute a day's work; and that the gulf between the rich and the poor should be bridged at all hazard; and a multitude of similar propositions which a few years ago would have been regarded as the wildest, weakest, and socially the most treasonable balderdash.

The employer of labor who but yesterday as it were would have indignantly resented the slightest interference on the part of his employees with his management, now consults with them as a matter of course. He has been forced to do this by the progress of public sentiment. His newspaper assures him that it is only reasonable and just; that labor has rights; that in the social evolution the almighty dollar must do obeisance to the more almighty labor; and that in the assumptions of political economy and in the conditions of industrial progress old things have passed away and all things become new.

No writer, even among the stanchest supporters of individualism, ventures to propose any solution of the labor problem aside from prescribing a mere salve to allay irritation on the surface, that is not in its nature and tendency co-operative and fraternal. Is this Socialism? No, it is only Socialistic.

"Finally this system [the wages] is indicted in the name of that Christian religion whose two cardinal principles it disregards and brings into disrepute the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.. Dividing society into two classes it practically disrupts the first, and whatsoever does that leads on to the denial of the second."— DR. LYMAN Аввотт.

The significance of this title may not be at once apparent to those who have not given attention to the progress of ethical ideas.

It would be strange indeed if the new social conditions which have brought men into new relations with each other should not be accompanied with new duties. The central

principle of the new ethics is fraternity. If we seek the material cause that has wrought the industrial and social changes of the present century, it may be sumned up in one word, steam. Steam has revolutionized all human activities both on land and sea. It has multiplied machinery, concentrated capital, massed laborers, specialized work, created great industrial centres, depopulated the country and crowded the town, increased production as well as human want many fold; by facilitating travel and communication it has founded schools and colleges, built theatres and churches, and flooded the world with literature both good and bad; it has carried the gospel and opium to China, Christianity and infidelity to Japan, democracy and dynamite to Russia, missionaries and rum to Africa; it has made frightful inroads upon the sanctity of home and marriage, and changed the whole face of social and domestic life by causing society to break ranks in every direction; steam has annihilated distance, opened hermit nations, made neighbors of the remotest regions, reduced the size of the world by one-half, and made all men cosmopolitans and members of one family.

This complete metamorphosis of social life has evolved one principle which is essential to our civilization, a principle indeed as old as the race, but hidden from philosophers, dimly foreseen by prophets, hardly recognized by priests, and denied by the world; that principle is the essential unity and solidarity of human society. This, the grandest of all human truths, has at length dawned upon the world, and its first fruit is the purely ethical idea of fraternity with the divinely beautiful sentiments of sympathy, unselfishness, and love that cluster around it.

All true religion consists in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. It is the new conception of these two great truths that has inspired during the present century the grandest missionary movement the world has ever seen. Formerly God was regarded as the Father only of particular tribes and nations; foreigners were not brothers but enemies even among the Jews. Whatever idea of brotherhood existed was confined to one's own people; no

stranger could be a brother. The book of Sifri says, "A single Israelite is of more worth in the sight of God than all the nations of the world." "It was thought that God himself loved only the Jews. He was the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. . . . The prayer of Israel was, 'Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that know not thee.' The Jew knew no neighbor outside of his own race, and in this he was like other nations. Max Müller says that the word mankind never passed the lips of Socrates, or Plato, or Aristotle. The greatest teachers of the most learned nations' had not conceived the idea of human brotherhood in which all have common rights and where each owes to all the others common duties." No rights without corresponding duties. More than this, "common rights" and " common duties."

Here is a conception of fraternity new but pre-eminently Christian, and which is already beginning to dominate all ethical thought. It is recognized by the State in relation to crime. Formerly the State only punished crime; now it is attempting to prevent it, and this is certainly more economical and rational as well as more merciful. It is this conception of fraternity that has established state reformatories and eleemosynary institutions that are nothing less than phenomenal. It is this spirit that sends millions. of bushels of wheat to famine-stricken Russia; that enters a solemn protest against nations about to declare needless war; that is making human life more sacred the world over; that is everywhere multiplying societies to emphasize the great principle of brotherhood; and that is compelling Christian denominations to lay aside their weapons of sectarian warfare and erect the olive-branch of peace and good will.

What steam has done for economic production, fraternity is about to do for social reorganization. Fraternity declares that every man is his brother's keeper. Individualism based on the opposite principle of selfishness says, as voiced by Professor William G. Sumner: "Let every man mind his own business!" This is not, however, original: the senti1 Rev. A. E. Dunning, D.D., in "Congregationalist," May, 1890.

ment is borrowed from Cain. This is what the priest and Levite said as they passed the wounded and dying man by the road-side. This is the dictum of laissez-faire, the shibboleth of capitalism, and a rule of conduct too often acquiesced in by the church. Even the pagan Solon said, "Every man should make the care of the injured his own." This selfish and devilish principle is now, for the first time in the history of the race, formally confronted by the new ethics of fraternity. There will be no compromise; one or the other must fall, and if we rightly interpret the spirit of the age the issue cannot be doubtful. Applied fraternity will be Socialism realized.

In support of these views we call attention to the advanced position already taken by many Christian ministers. The Christian Scriptures have so much to say respecting capital and labor and all social relations, and the existing struggle is so bitter and its issues so important, that religious teachers can no longer be indifferent or silent. The earliest attempts both in Europe and America to correct the abuse of capitalism by the substitution in industry of the Socialistic principle were heartily supported by leading ministers and laymen in the church. That Christ was the first Socialist cannot be denied. A great revival of interest in Socialism on the part of the clergy is certainly in progress. Hardly a day passes in which some influential minister does not declare himself in sympathy with the principle of Socialism. To-day's paper contains the following: "In the formation of the 21st district club (Nationalist, New York City), Tuesday night, such men as Rev. Dr. DeCosta, Rev. S. G. Raymond, Professor Daniel De Leon, and Thaddeus B. Wakeman took a leading part. Their efforts are pledged to the overthrow of the competitive industrial system, and in their declaration of principles they say the principle of competition is simply the application of the brutal law of the survival of the strongest and most cunning." 1

A surprisingly large number of Christian ministers, among whom are many leaders in the church, have identi

1 "Springfield Republican," July, 1890.

fied themselves with these Socialist organizations which are scattered throughout the country. Rev. George Cannon is president of the club in Vineland, California. Resolutions indorsing Rev. Dr. Silcox "in the stand he has taken for the emancipation of the race," were passed by the club in Oakland, California. Rev. R. M. Webster delivered a course of lectures of marked ability before the club in Pasadena, California. The first lecture delivered before the club in Tescott, Kansas, was by Rev. D. McGurk, the vice-president of the club. Rev. Samuel Longden is a member of the advisory committee of the club in Greencastle, Indiana. The club at Hartford, Connecticut, numbers among its members Rev. Floyd Tomkins, rector of Christ Church. Rev. Frederick A. Hinkley is a member of the club in Boston, and a second club in the same city was recently addressed by Rev. James Yeams, an honorary member. Rev. George P. Bethel, presiding over the club in Columbus, Ohio, discussed and explained its declaration of principles. The president of the club in Tacoma, Washington, is Rev. W. E. Capeland.

Rev. Philo W. Sprague recently addressed the Fourth Club of Boston on "What we want and why we want it." Rev. W. C. Gannett addressed the club in Rochester, New York. The Ninth Club of New York listens to an eloquent address upon Nationalism by Rev. H. H. Brown. At the organization of the club at Santa Ana, California, Rev. H. D. Connell was elected vice-president. Rev. M. J. Callan was also elected vice-president of the Salem Club. Rev. W. E. Sillence addressed the club in Chicago on the "Religious Aspect of Nationalism." The club in San Diego, California, elected Rev. B. F. McDaniel president. In a series of lectures given in the different churches of Minneapolis, the first was by Rev. Kristofer Janson, a pronounced Nationalist. Rev. C. A. Cressy has delivered several able lectures in that city. Rev. Samuel Freuder of San Francisco is devoting himself exclusively to making known the gospel of Nationalism. At the formation of the club in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Rev. H. H. Bradshaw was elected secretary. Rev. H. H. Brown is president of the Second