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Here we come upon one of the most curious and important facts of the revolutionary movement. At first sight it is difficult to understand why a movement which appears to propose simply an economic change should be colored by this antipathy to spiritual ideals. The truth is, however, that this characteristic of social radicalism proceeds, in the main, not from an economic necessity, but from the philosophy of history with which the German school of scientific socialism happens to be associated. Marx and Lassalle, the apostles of the German socialist gospel, though of very different types of character, were both of Jewish extraction, and both had been swept into the current of the Hegelian philosophy, in its more radical interpretation. To this way of thought the universe presented itself as a self-unfolding process of material forces, one result of which was expressed in the shifting opinions and beliefs of men. These doctrines and ideals were, to the left wing of Hegelianism, not glimpses of reality, but effects of social conditions. Spiritual ideals were the result of

Fabrikarbeiter," 1891, s. 142 ff. Adequate criticism of this position is offered by: Herrmann, "Religion und Sozialdemokratie," 2ter Evang.-soz. Kongress, 1891; A. Wagner, "Das neue sozialdemokratische Programm," 3ter Evang.-soz. Kongress, 1892. See also the less important discussion in Flint, "Socialism," 1894, Ch. IX, "Socialism and Religion." The whole subject is treated in elaborate detail by H. Köhler (op. cit.). So Uhland:

:

"Ich ging zur Tempelhalle zu hören christlich Recht,
Hier innen Brüder alle, dort draussen Herr und Knecht !
Der Festesrede Giebel war: Duck dich, schweig dabei!
Als ob die ganze Bibel ein Buch der Könige sei."

economic circumstances, not revelations of absolute truth. Given a certain range of economic condition, and there would ensue a certain quality of spiritual belief or of religious fellowship. "Every man," said Bebel, "is a product of his time and an instrument of circumstances. Christianity, then, the prevailing spiritual expression of the present economic order, must pass away as a better social order arrives. Indeed, the wise reformer should apply himself to economic revolution exclusively, because he is sure that the evanescent imaginations which capitalism has suggested will disappear like dew when the morning of socialism arrives." It would not at first seem as if such a philosophy of the universe could have had great significance for a parliamentary party of plain working-people; yet the fact is that it tinges a great portion of the talk of labor agitators, falls in with many lower impulses, becomes the justification of many natural prejudices, and contributes greatly to the consolidation of the working-class against the privileged and the pious. It is not enough to say that the socialist programme is indifferent to religion. It undertakes to provide a substitute for religion. It is a religion, so far as religion is represented by a philosophy of life, to which men give themselves with passionate attachment. It sets itself against Christianity because, as Liebknecht said, "That is the religion of private property and of the respectable classes." It offers itself as an alternative to the Christian religion.

It is, as a distinguished critic has remarked, not merely a new economic and social programme, but proposes to compete with Christianity in offering a comprehensive creed.1

We find, then, a gulf of alienation and misinterpretation lying between the social movement and the Christian religion, —a gulf so wide and deep as to recall the judgment of Schopenhauer, that Christianity, in its real attitude toward the world, is absolutely remote from the spirit of the modern age. Yet, from the time when the social question began to take its present form, there have not failed to be heard a series of protests against this alienation of the new movement from the organization of the Christian life. To any one, indeed, who has once recognized the ethical quality of the modern social question, the interpretation of it in terms of sheer philosophical materialism must appear a perversion of its characteristic aim, which can have occurred only through an unfortunate historical accident. What reason has the Christian Church for existing, many persons are now asking, if it is not to have a part in that shaping of a better world which at the same time is the aim of the social movement? What was the gospel of Jesus if it was not, as he himself called it, a gospel for the poor, the blind,

1 H. Holtzmann, "Die ersten Christen und die soziale Frage" ("Wiss. Vorträge über rel. Fragen,” 1880), s. 55. So Nathusius, "Die Mitarbeit der Kirche an der Lösung der sozialen Frage," 1897, s. 115 ff., "Radical socialism must be in opposition to prevailing religion, because it is itself a religion."

Is it not

the prisoners, and the broken-hearted? possible that the social movement, which so often seems remote from, or even hostile to, the work of the Christian religion, may be in reality nothing else than a modern expansion of that religion? May it not come to pass that the solution of the social question shall be found in the principles of the Christian religion? And is it not, on the other hand, evident that the only test of the Christian religion which the modern world will regard as adequate is its applicability to the solution of the social question? Must we not, as Maurice said, either socialize Christianity or Christianize socialism? Such considerations have prompted a great number of propositions,- experimental and philosophical, reactionary and radical,-looking to the reconciliation of economic needs with Christian ideals. They range all the way from the most obvious and practical undertakings to the most visionary and speculative schemes. Each plan creates strange companionships,-Catholics with Protestants, scholars with hand-workers,-yet all are at one in the desire to find a place for the Christian life in the modern world; and while a complete history of such schemes is quite beyond our present purpose, it may be instructive to indicate briefly a few of the ways in which this reconciliation has been sought.

The first and most elementary scheme thus proposed is that of a literal reproduction of the eco

nomic life of primitive Christianity. The disciples, we read in the book of Acts, "had all things com mon"; and "sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need"; "and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own."1 These passages have given encouragement to a long series of experiments in Christian communism, sometimes monastic in form, sometimes ascetic in bond of union, but always inspired by the hope of practically establishing a Christian way of life in the midst of an unchristianized world. No one can recall these tranquil communities of pious and self-effacing souls without a touch of admiration. It is reassuring to see the lusts of the world, which dominate so many lives, powerless to disquiet or control. The lingering communities which still attempt, in unambitious seclusion, this reproduction of apostolic life are to our time what the best of monastic life was in its own age. spots of calm in the centre of the cyclonic activity of the world.

Yet these conscientious attempts to revive the industrial life of the first disciples have no substantial justification, either in economics or in Christian history. On the one hand, they do not meet the modern problem of economic life; they simply run away from it. It is impossible for such communities to enter on a large scale into direct competition with the methods of the great industry; and it

1 Acts ii. 44; iv. 32.

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