LECT. XIII. the conclusion that property is a mistake and even a crime, a virtual robbery of the many labouring poor, a sort of treason against man's natural rights in the things of a common life and a common world?

Justice to socialism.

take heed.

Communism or socialism is the political expression of this feeling of the common rights of humanity, and whilst we must needs reject it in this systematized form let us do it justice in the thought of the sincerest of its advocates. It has in it a noble instinct of brotherhood; it has a sympathetic realization of some of the evils and anomalies of human life; it has a passionate desire to strike at the root of a misery which Let society appals and harrows the soul. And because at the bottom socialism is such a cry, even though it be but a blind cry, or a cry in the dark, that which calls itself society, that portion who enjoy the wealth, had better take it to heart. It is a cry for light, and sympathy, and help, and therefore a cry which we ignore at our peril. And I am bold to say, that they who give this A contrast. cry articulate voice because they feel its pathos in their hearts are more acceptable to God the great Father, with all their faults are nearer Christ the great Common Brother, than those are who in correct selfishness pay their 20s. in the pound, and go on amassing wealth without caring for

the condition of the poor. He who does not feel LECT. XIII. himself a part of humanity has the essential spirit of a robber and oppressor.

as a system

idea.

But communism, though it has this cry at its Socialism heart, is not as a system true. As an organiza- untrue. tion whose means are force it has become a lawless tyranny, the enemy of society, and even of human nature itself. It seeks to remedy a real evil by wrongful means, and would therefore "make confusion worse confounded." Besides, it has taken for its cardinal principle an untruth which can never realize anything but excess and instability, and the overthrow of social order. Communism in regard of wealth means share and Its ruling share alike, according to the common phrase that one man is as good as another. To be consistent it would, I suppose, have certain special times of distribution, because it is in the nature of human affairs to produce constant inequalities. If one man is as good as another, it is certain that all men are not equal in the power which makes wealth. Some are strong, some weak, some anxious, some careful, some wise and some foolish, some prudent, others careless. The irregularity would be constant, and the endeavours to deal with it would have to be constant also. The simple result would be, even if society were not reduced to anarchy, that all wealth would be

The retreating

sult of

men as

equal.

LECT. XIII. destroyed. The endeavour to equalize wealth would make all equally poor. The communism realized would be a communism of abject poverty.

The reason.

East London.

Socialism

a national blight.

Its fatal flaw.

If

Who would care to toil if the fruits of toil must be squandered perforce upon all alike; for by what means could the idle and the vicious be kept down in such a community? If at the East end of London this class abounds even under our present system, because of indiscriminate charities, how much more would it abound when it could shelter itself under social rights? Life would soon begin to be felt a monstrous injustice by all the workers; and, worse still, the workers. would inevitably drift down amongst the idlers. Thus a withering blight would fall upon national progress. It would be cut off at its source. the principle of the rights of property gives rise to a selfish accumulation of wealth, the principle of communism would cause a selfish annihilation of human industry. It would be a leanness like that of Pharaoh's lean kine, which devoured all but were none the better. The fatal flaw of communism is that it would act in reverse of human feelings, and would do so by force, and not by moral change. It has a truth at its heart but it perverts it. It would realize by physical power what can only be effected by a new moral sense in man. It too is guilty indeed in its very en

A possible

commun

thusiasm of humanity, for it would impose LECT. XIII. the selfishness of the multitude in place of the selfishness of the few. It too appeals to selfishness. When there are no bad men, when there is no selfishness any more in either the few or the many, in either the rich or the poor, when men are of a Divine spirit, then communism will be gloriously possible, then it can be true. Then that dream of George Macdonald in his novel

ism.

of Thomas Wingfold, Curate,' will be realized. Thomas Wingfold, He depicts a community in which wealth was the Curate.' common store of a pure-hearted brotherhood, in which the one great evil to be dreaded was not poverty but selfishness, in which the one great blessedness was not to amass for oneself but to contribute generously to the common good. All in every department of labour knew and accepted his rightful place and filled it cheerfully, each finding his best life in planning, serving, buying and selling, for all the rest. Fanciful, sentimental, impracticable, some are saying in their hearts. It is the fancy and the sentiment of truth nevertheless. Therefore also I hold it to The ideal be the ideal of all true souls. And whether practical or not does not matter to such; the ideal is the only real, the only vision which abides; it is the only real to aim at, long for, if needs be weep for. And let no professing Christian forget

is the real.

Pentecostal communism.

LECT. XIII. that his religion dreams of just such a communistic world, at least in spirit, as that which. the novelist describes; of a communism like that of which the brief pentecostal day was typical, when the disciples, "walking in the comfort and joy of the Holy Ghost," had all things in common. That was a transient glimpse of the ideal which shall be realized in the reign of the Son of man. To it all the prophets bear witness. To it all the best hopes of our race look with expectation. But it will be a communism not of force but of choice, not imposed from without but developed from within by the instincts of a Divine love. The communism of Christian love will make a heaven on earth, the communism of force can only produce a hell.

The good time coming.

Tradesunions.

in them.

At this point trades-unions appeal to us for discussion. They have in them an element of communism; is it of a true or a false kind? To The truth support the common rights in labour of the working class as a class is a perfectly legitimate object for which to combine; and the right to combine must be ungrudgingly allowed. There can be no quarrel with working men on this score, any more than with doctors and lawyers, in some sense the most jealous of unionists. However much we deplore that the old kindly relationships of master and man which once prevailed

Justice to

them due.