JESUS CHRIST AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION CHAPTER I THE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS The life was the light of men. THERE are many periods in history which, as one looks back on them, seem marked by distinct and central problems or achievements, as if to each such time there had been committed a special work to do. Their characteristics stand out clearly against the past, as a distant range of mountains stands out against an evening sky. We speak with confidence of the mission of Greece to civilization, of the place of Rome in history, of the vocation of the Hebrews, of the period of the Reformation, of the epoch of Napoleon. By one lesson at a time, through types of beauty or strength or righteousness, through instructions in intellectual liberty, or warnings of the lust for power, the Master of the ages seems to have directed the education of the human race. Sometimes this mission of an age or race is recognized by those who are fulfilling it; sometimes it is discerned when one stands at a distance, where the crowded details of life melt into a general view. The Hebrews, on the one hand, were sustained throughout their history by the conviction of their sacred and special calling, and that conviction gave to their career its sombre, strenuous, self-examining character; in Greek life, on the other hand, it was the very unconsciousness of a didactic mission which made possible the prevailing serenity and charm. If Greek art had stood consciously before the glass of the future, it might have been the teacher, but could not have been the joy, of the world. The present age belongs, without question, to the former class. There is not only given to it a mission, but there is added a distinct consciousness of that mission. We do not have to wait for the philosophical historian of some remote future to discern the characteristic problem of the present time. Behind all the extraordinary achievements of modern civilization, its transformations of business methods, its miracles of scientific discovery, its mighty combinations of political forces, there lies at the heart of the present time a burdening sense of social mal-adjustment which creates what we call the social question. "The social question," rémarks Professor Wagner, "comes of the consciousness of a contradiction between economic development and the social ideal of liberty and equality which is being realized in political life." 1 This is what gives its fundamental character to the present age. The consciousness of contradiction between economic progress and spiritual ideals may use the language of social philosophy, or may take the form of social service, or may be organized in social legislation, or may simply utter itself in the passionate cry of indignation or hate which comes from the hungry or despairing, or from those who sympathize with them. In all these varied, and often unreasonable or extravagant, ways the characteristic emotion of the time expresses itself. It is the age of the social question. Never were so many people, learned and ignorant, rich and poor, philosophers and agitators, men and women, so stirred by this recognition of inequality in social opportunity, by the call to social service, by dreams of a better social world. There is, of course, a huge, inert mass of unobservant humanity, with no perception of this new region of hope and faith into which the present generation is entering. These persons live their lives of business or of pleasure, as Jesus, with splendid satire, said of such persons in his own age, with just enough power of observation to tell the signs of to-morrow's weather, but without the 1A. Wagner, "Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie," 2. Aufl., 1876, s. 36. So also Bebel, "Die Frau und der Sozialismus," 10. Aufl., 1891, s. 240: "Society, in its form of wealth, has grown far more aristocratic than in any earlier age, . . . in its ideals and its legislation it has grown far more democratic." capacity to discern the signs of their own times.1 No one, however, who lifts his eyes from his own private life can mistake these signs of the times. The literature of the present age is saturated with the desire for social amelioration or social revolution; workmen with grimy hands and women with eager eyes are turning the pages of the economists in search of practical guidance; social panaceas are confidently offered on every hand; organization on an unprecedented scale is consolidating the fighting force of the hand-working class; legislation is freely advocated which practically revolutionizes the earlier conception of the function of government; and, finally, the party of revolution, with its millions of voters in European countries, officially announces that all other issues are to be subordinated to the social question, and that all other parties are to be regarded as "a mere reactionary mass." 2 It is the age of the social question; and to pretend that social life is undisturbed, or is but superficially agitated, is simply to confess that one has been caught in an eddy of the age and does not feel the sweep of its main current. It is, however, not enough to say that among human interests the social question is just now 1 Matt. xvi. 2, 3; Luke xii. 54-56. 2" Die Befreiung der Arbeit muss das Werk der Arbeiterklasse sein, der gegenüber alle anderen Klassen nur eine reaktionäre Masse sind," Programm der sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, Gotha, 1878. central and commanding. There are, it must be added, two characteristics of the modern temper which make of the social question of the present time something quite different from the economic and social agitations of the past. In the first place, we are now confronted by a degree of radicalism and a scope of reconstructive purpose which practically create a new situation. Social and industrial reforms in the past have been for the most part ameliorative or philanthropic measures, accepting the existing order of things, and mitigating its harsher effects. Now and then a sudden wave of indignation has risen out of the depths of human nature and has swept away some special abuse like American slavery, or some special form of social relationship like the ancien régime of France; but for the most part the desire to relieve the unfortunate and improve the condition of the hand-worker has satisfied itself with deeds of charity and with industrial expedients which calm the surface of social life. A wholly different state of mind prevails to-day. Beneath all the tranquillizing arrangements of philanthropy or industry which are being applied to social disorder, there is a vast and rising tides of discontent, stirring to its very bottom the stream of social life. The social question of the present age is not a question of mitigating the evils of the existing order, but a question whether the existing order itself shall last. It is not so much a problem of social amelioration |