A good sign of awakening conscience is evident by the protest from the ministers against accepting Rockefeller’s money that has been wrested from the people by indirection. The great success of the Standard Oil robberies has spawned upon the country hundreds of such corporations that plunder the public with even more skill than the Standard. If the church accepts this donation it will be as fatal to it as the thirty pieces of silver were to Judas. This protest against the gift by these ministers is a most courageous act. The Standard Oil tactics may lose every one of them their pulpits. The Standard Oil management will stoop to any kind of dirty work to perpetuate the system. They are attempting now to ruin Lawson, and, with all his astuteness and his millions of wealth to back him, they may succeed in doing so. The people should stand by Lawson to a man, and the congregations of these ministers that have dared to affront Rockefeller should see that none of his poisoned arrows reach them.—The Forum, Denver, Col.
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION
We hear much of Christian Civilization, but we do not see so much of it. Let us consider briefly the Christian world:
Russia—Anarchy, rapine, bloodshed, pauperism and starvation.
Austro-Hungary—Disease, strife, strikes, poverty and pauperism of millions.
Italy—Overpopulation, dire poverty, with millions of the people actual beggars, excessive taxation and a practically bankrupt treasury.
England—Army of unemployed, a vast section of the population in a poverty so appalling that it makes one’s heart bleed to read the details.
Ireland—Practically a nation of paupers, not of their own volition either, but as a result of evil laws and customs which have destroyed the hopes of a gallant people.
Spain—Once the proud leader of nations, reduced to the rags and sores of Lazarus.