As he stood there in the forefront of this company, there was nothing in his refined and comely exterior to indicate that his real function was to pander to and flatter them; to invest with an air of respectability and rectitude the abominably selfish lives of the gang of swindlers, slave-drivers and petty tyrants who formed the majority of the congregation of the Shining Light Chapel.
He was doing the work for which he was paid. By the mere fact of his presence there, condoning and justifying the crimes of these typical representatives of that despicable class whose greed and inhumanity have made the earth into a hell.
There was also a number of “respectable”, well-dressed people who looked as if they could do with a good meal, and a couple of shabbily dressed, poverty-stricken-looking individuals who seemed rather out of place in the glittering throng.
The remainder of the Brothers consisted of half-starved, pale-faced working men and women, most of them dressed in other people’s cast-off clothing, and with broken, patched-up, leaky boots on their feet.
Rushton having concluded his address, Didlum stepped forward to give out the words of the hymn the former had quoted at the conclusion of his remarks:
“Oh, come and jine this ’oly band,
And hon to glory go.”
Strange and incredible as it may appear to the reader, although none of them ever did any of the things Jesus said, the people who were conducting this meeting had the effrontery to claim to be followers of Christ—Christians!
Jesus said: “Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth”, “Love not the world nor the things of the world”, “Woe unto you that are rich—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Yet all these self-styled “Followers” of Christ made the accumulation of money the principal business of their lives.
Jesus said: “Be ye not called masters; for they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not touch them with one of their fingers. For one is your master, even Christ, and ye are all brethren.” But nearly all these alleged followers of the humble Workman of Nazareth claimed to be other people’s masters or mistresses. And as for being all brethren, whilst most of these were arrayed in broadcloth and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day, they knew that all around them thousands of those they hypocritically called their “brethren”, men, women and little children, were slowly perishing of hunger and cold; and we have already seen how much brotherhood existed between Sweater and Rushton and the miserable, half-starved wretches in their employment.
Whenever they were asked why they did not practise the things Jesus preached, they replied that it is impossible to do so! They did not seem to realize that when they said this they were saying, in effect, that Jesus taught an impracticable religion; and they appeared to forget that Jesus said, “Wherefore call ye me Lord, Lord, when ye do not the things I say?...” “Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not, shall be likened to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.”