How pitiful are the results of our penitentiaries and reformatories, of our workhouses, orphan asylums, and industrial schools, of all the various charities by which we painfully and vainly try to mop up evil and misery, or to sweep it out of our sight. The recipients of punishment or care, when released, in the large majority of cases, fall back again into the crime, temptation, and evil from which they had been taken, and the flood of ruffianism and vice rises ever higher.
In the hard and crushing strife for decent living in which the great mass of our population are entangled, health is injured, hope dies out, and the gas-lighted gin-shop is the solace, as the dreary workhouse is the refuge of those who have ceased to hope. Yet the great mass of these persons have tried to do honest work. They have once hoped to support wife and children as an honest man should do. How is it that capital and labour have failed to come together in such a way that every willing worker can secure a comfortable livelihood, that every honest man can bring up his family in health and virtue? The relation of capital to labour is a vital question of practical Christianity.
Consider also the great agrarian fight always going on to some extent and periodically breaking out in revolution and outrage. Why is it that the great bulk of English men and women are divorced from the soil? Why are they always crowding into towns, whilst the precious natural heritage of land is so often wasted and going out of cultivation? Health and happiness should be found in country life. Such a life should not be one of dreariness and ennui, or of hopeless drudgery. There is no life so suitable for the healthy development of childhood as a country life, with natural home influences. The care of animals, the cultivation and observation of natural objects, the pure air and abundant exercise which can be enjoyed, mark the country as the natural home of childhood. Again, the production in perfection and abundance of all the articles which naturally belong to various soils is a primary need of healthy national growth. The conditions under which such cultivation can be best carried on, with the kind and proportion of manufactures which might advantageously spring up in connection with it, affect the very structure of society. They provide the necessary material and social conditions which furnish the possibility and favouring of a religious life, or which create serious obstacles to such a life.
The relation of the people to the soil of their native land is a very serious question of practical Christianity.
Again, in what manner is the education of the various classes of our children carried on? Consider the education given to the boys of the aristocracy and upper classes. What chance have these lads of growing into a sense of Christian brotherhood? They are fawned upon from babyhood; initiated at school into the most heathen vices; corrupted by luxury, taught that money can do everything, that rank will be servilely worshipped. How can these poor lads become the large-hearted leaders of a society founded on the Great Master’s teaching of brotherhood? The character of education does not depend only on the more or less wise oversight and arrangements of the schoolmaster, but still more on the constant influences of the life in which the child grows up. Trace the various stages of education downwards, through all classes of the community, to the enormous mass of little boys and girls trained from babyhood into vice and ruffianism, and we see that education is a vital subject of practical Christianity.
Consider next the relations of the sexes. This subject is the fundamental question of society, for the element of society is the man, woman, and child, not the individual. How do our laws and customs inculcate manly honour, womanly dignity—in short, Christian life? Carefully studying this subject in its widespread ramifications, it is seen to be the deepest question of human brotherhood—i.e., of practical Christianity.
When, proceeding from more private to public affairs, we examine the modifications or arrangements of municipal institutions which have arisen in our towns, the examination is not encouraging. It is the heathen, not the Christian, principle which is chiefly exemplified. It is self intensified. The new power created throws off a sense of responsibility to those who create it. No enlarged sense of duty springs from the trust that is thus given to individuals; but petty cabals and bickerings arise, narrow party views are fostered, selfish interests advanced, or a foolish air of authority is assumed. The more high-minded inhabitants shrink from entering into corrupt political contest; centralization increases as municipal control is degraded. Local and general government is too often only a parody of representative institutions. The important question arises, In what way can we who believe that public as well as private life should be guided by a religious spirit attain the end? How can we form associations and delegate necessary authority in such a way as to advance Christian, not heathen, life? In observing the effect of Law upon the education of a nation, we find that its embodiment in government forms a very important branch of practical Christianity.
When we ponder all these vital questions, and earnestly strive to put into practice the principles of action which we believe to be profoundly true, we find our Christian sense of right shocked at every turn by fixed conditions, which are the result of selfishness, not of brotherhood. The spirit of self-interest, only useful as a servant, has usurped the false position of master. Like all our faculties, self-interest needs a higher guidance, or it degenerates into the narrowest selfishness. We have not yet learned the one grand lesson of Christianity—viz., that the largest view of self-interest can only be found in brotherhood.
The inquiry now to be made is whether any new principles of association, co-operation, combination—or by whatever name we choose to express united interests—have so grown and been proved within the last generation, that we may make successful advance on the path dimly seen by the noble men I have referred to.
There have been many failures in attempts at the realization of associated or organized life; but there are also many and striking examples of successful, though imperfect, organization, founded either upon a religious idea or on business enterprise, or on the enthusiasm of some clever and benevolent individual. Roman Catholic, Moravian, and Shaker communities will illustrate the first series of successful organization; joint-stock enterprises and co-operative stores the second; Leclaire’s house decorators’ guild and the Familistère of Guise the third. It is through union of the forces exemplified in these three classes of association that we may attain to a nineteenth-century realization of practical Christianity in the future growth of towns or colonies.