The waste of virile force and the degradation of womanly character which result from the barbarous remnant of slavery existing in our midst under the form of prostitution is incalculable. No community which aspires to Christian life can permit this hideous trade to exist. The buying and selling the human body is a natural wrong. The fearful evils, moral and physical, which result from such trade prove its inherent iniquity. Love, with the duties and responsibilities which accompany its expression, is the only Christian warrant for the intimate union of the sexes, and the growth and welfare of society absolutely depends upon the wise guidance of these relations by Christian principle. The wonderful advance of intelligence and moral perception on this vital subject during the present generation is the most hopeful sign of the nearer approach of organized Christian society. As a striking contrast to growing immorality, the possibility and incalculable benefit of equal purity for boys and girls, for men and women, is the great truth which is springing into vigorous life in this Nineteenth Century. A new world of hope and freedom opens to women, a new realm of energy to men, from the consecration of this mighty power of sex, which is descending upon our age as a great guide for the future. This God-created force has hitherto been squandered in these earlier centuries of our world’s life. Ignorance of woman’s true dignity and providential position has been the greatest obstacle hitherto in the Christian organization of society. This ignorance now slowly but surely vanishing, opens to us a great and glorious promise of unlimited future progress.
The principles thus expressed in very condensed form appear, from their present maturer development, to be the especial gain of this age. They are the legitimate results of Christian thought, growing in comprehensiveness, and conscientiously applying itself to a solution of the problems of social life.
Every proposition now set forth requires, however, long and careful consideration. Some persons may not realize the dangerous and growing evils which the prevalence of opposite methods of action is inflicting on society. Young countries possessing abundance of unoccupied land may not appreciate evils from which older countries suffer from individual monopoly of land. Other persons may fail to see the full bearing of these principles of Christian Socialism on our daily relations. Others, again, may be entirely unable to foresee the methods by which a Christian organization of society can ever become a practical fact. For these reasons union in preparation is indispensable. The wisest ways of realizing these principles in all their practical details require the varied knowledge of different classes of persons. They require the careful consideration of many minds, possessing both varied experience and a profound sense of the necessity of Christian organization. If, however, the principles laid down are true, then their realization must be only a question of time. In our towns much may be done to place both business relations and domestic life on a sounder basis. The gradual introduction of methods leading in the right direction is possible, by both men and women, in the two spheres of business and home life, when the end to be obtained is thoroughly understood. A still more rapid advance may be made by those who wish to establish country life on a more Christian plan by uniting religious principle, joint-stock enterprise, and wise guidance in the organization of an industrial colony—a colony which would be the most potent Christian Missionary Society.
Religious principle must be recognised as the essential basis of permanent future growth. Only a large comprehension of the Christian teaching of human brotherhood creates the highest conscientiousness, with a sense of responsibility to an unseen but parental Creator. No accumulation of material wealth, no appeal to the lower faculties of our nature alone or chiefly, will ever hold human beings together in permanent and harmonious organization of daily life.
Christian conscientiousness is the only power we know of, capable of controlling and guiding selfhood. This controlling force is indispensable in any wise effort to unite human beings together in the varied interests of everyday life. Without religious principle we possess no efficient check either upon the selfish scramble for wealth, or on the soulless pursuit of science, or on the enthralment of physical pleasure.
Consider some of our popular social maxims—‘Charity begins at home,’ ‘Take care of No. 1,’ ‘Competition is the life of trade,’ ‘Demand must govern supply,’ ‘Buy cheap and sell dear,’ etc. No one will deny that there is an element of truth in all these maxims; but their direct logical results, pushed to an extreme under the sole guidance of selfish interest, become diabolical. This is clearly illustrated by a remark once made to my own father by a Southern sugar-planter. He stated that he could raise slaves so cheaply that it was the most profitable plan to use them up in five or six years, and supply their place with fresh ones!
The same necessity for the guiding influence of Christian conscientiousness is seen in the pursuit of science. The modern dicta, ‘Medicine has nothing to do with morality,’ ‘Knowledge is its own end and justification,’ are the maxims of heathen, not Christian philosophers. Indeed, many of those who now pursue scientific investigation willingly assent to this statement, having lost all knowledge of the value of true Christianity as the highest spiritual guide of our race.
Accepting, then, the principle of Christian brotherhood as the necessary religious foundation and constant guide of any true organization, it is evident that all these weighty problems, now briefly indicated must be considered and solved by the ‘Church.’
A Church, in the true sense of the word, is a society of men and women who, accepting the Divine Mission of Christ, strive honestly to embody His teaching in daily life. As each age grows out of the life of the preceding age, so the practical incarnation of our Lord’s teaching varies in form from age to age. In 1882 the form which Christian life takes must necessarily vary from its form in 1800. Three generations of men have gained immensely in intellectual, scientific, and moral development. All the conditions under which human beings grow up have changed. What we now especially and urgently need from the ‘Church’ is aid in adapting the never-changing principle of Christian brotherhood to the ever-changing conditions of Nineteenth-Century life. We need sermons and conferences and earnest life in the Church; but the sermons must take up the Christian view of the relation of capital to labour, the Christian view of the relation of the sexes, the Christian protection and sound education of the young—in short, the whole conduct of life, from the cradle to the grave, in private and public. A certain inevitable hypocrisy is engendered by listening week after week to lofty theories which are never put into practice, or to impracticable suggestions. The soul grows callous when teaching demands one course of action and daily life enforces a quite opposite course. We need to learn in what way our actual life, public and private, can be guided by our Lord’s injunction of brotherhood instead of selfhood. Our Church Conferences should be the honest and eager effort of every man and woman to consider together how these true principles can be carried out by them. A Christian Church Conference must ponder the life of that army of little drudges in our underground kitchens, of the blasphemous boys and girls who gather at night in our public places, of the vicious roués who crowd on us from London, of the struggles of the poor householder who knows not how to pay the heavy rent, of the tendencies of the trader oppressed by taxes, who sinks all scruples in the desire to get money, and of the speculator whose one desire is to make ‘wealth accumulate, though men decay.’ These are the problems for Church Conferences which the practical Christianity of the Nineteenth Century urgently requires should be solved.
It is only on these humble but indispensable foundations that a Church which meets the needs of the age can be founded. It is only in a Church so founded that prayer and praise and the worship of the Great Father can become a glorious reality, and never sink into formalism.