'HE CHURCH 
 
 TOWN PROBLEMS 
 
 W. MOORE EDE 
 
 
 
THE HULSEAN LECTURES FOR 1895. 
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHUECH 
 
 TO SOME OF THE 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF TOWN LIFE. 
 
Sonton: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, 
 
 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, 
 
 AVE MARIA LANE. 
 
 ffilasgoiu: 263, Argyle Street. 
 
 ILeipjig: R A. BROCKHAUS. 
 i^eixf lork : MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHUECH 
 
 TO SOME OF THE 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF TOWN LIFE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. W. MOORE ^ EDE, M.A. 
 
 RECTOR OF GATESHEAD ; HON. CANON OF DURHAM. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1896 
 
 [All Rights reserved.] 
 
Cambriligc : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 ALFRED MARSHALL 
 
 PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CAMBRIDGE, 
 
 WHO BY HIS STIMULATING TEACHING 
 
 FIRST AROUSED THE INTEREST OF THE AUTHOR 
 
 IN SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 TTTHEN Canon Moore Ede asked me to write a few 
 words introductory to his Lectures, I naturally 
 answered that ' they required no words from me : they 
 would speak for themselves.' Yet I cannot but most 
 gladly commend them to the study of our Clergy and 
 Laity, who feel with a vague sense of sad helplessness 
 the needs and sorrows and dangers of our great towns. 
 
 The Lectures are not the speculations of a theorist. 
 Every page reflects the experience of one who has been 
 for fifteen years Rector of a large Tyneside Parish, and 
 taken his full share of municipal work as a Guardian 
 of the Poor, and Member of the School Board, of which 
 he is now Chairman. I made Mr Ede's acquaintance 
 first when he came to Cambridge in 1883 to tell stu- 
 dents of Social Questions there some lessons of the 
 Relief Committee at Gateshead, on which he had been 
 recently engaged. In recent years he has had the happy 
 experience of presiding as chairman in several meetings 
 
Vlll PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 for settlement of trade disputes ; and in the Conferences 
 on Industrial Problems, between Employers and Em- 
 ployed, which have taken place here periodically since 
 I was called to Durham, his services have been in- 
 valuable. 
 
 But if Mr Ede has been actively engaged in social 
 works, he traces such work back to its only adequate 
 source and inspiration. He recognises the true position 
 of the Christian Church and of the Christian Minister. 
 It is not, he shews, the office of the Church to propose 
 any social programme but to enforce eternal principles. 
 Her Ministers must labour unweariedly to awaken the 
 conscience and prepare the advent of a better order 
 through the service of men won for Christ. None the 
 less he assumes that in the fulfilment of this duty they 
 will patiently and courageously follow the methods 
 which they think best fitted to bring the conditions of 
 life into harmony with what we believe to be the 
 Divine destiny of the people. It is equally true that 
 material improvements cannot regenerate a nation, and 
 that character can transfigure circumstances. Again 
 and again when I have been filled with despair in 
 considering the housing of the poor, I have recovered 
 heart by remembering Miss Octavia Hill's experience, 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. IX 
 
 who tells us that she * knows many of the prettiest, 
 ' happiest, little homes, which consist of a single 
 ' room.' 
 
 In any case the changes, which it is the Mission of 
 the Church to accomplish, cannot be accomplished 
 without sacrifice. ' Our towns cannot be rebuilt, our 
 ' social inequalities reduced, without much sacrifice of 
 ' luxuries on the part of the rich ' (p. 29). We are 
 tempted to think that apostolic warnings and claims in 
 regard to material wealth are withdrawn ; but they are 
 the expression of an immutable law. In the presence 
 of urgent needs we must learn to recognise that nothing 
 *of the things which we possess is our own.' The 
 resources of the Church and her real treasures (p. 64) 
 are always the same ; and if we reflect, it may well 
 seem that the wretched, the ignorant, the dissolute, the 
 rebellious, whose vices are due outwardly to the circum- 
 stances of modern industry and life, are in a most special 
 sense committed to the care of Christians. The kiss 
 which St Francis is said to have bestowed upon the 
 leper may have a direct lesson for ourselves. 
 
 For effectual sacrifice is not of money only. There 
 must be sacrifice of leisure, of feelings, of habits, of 
 tastes. The systematic organisation of ' Charity ' tends 
 
X PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 to obscure this fundamental truth and to rob habitual 
 deeds of mercy of all grace and tenderness. Some one 
 said — and the words are hardly an exaggeration — 
 * Give everything except money'; but now the elaborate 
 machinery which is provided for meeting every form of 
 distress seems to imply that nothing but money is 
 needed. The specialisation of the relief of human 
 wants has become a profession. But the relief which 
 can be given without the personal ministries of love is 
 at the best destitute of moral value to the receiver, and 
 for the most part to the giver also. The contributions 
 which provide it have rather the character of a ransom 
 than of a brother's offering to a brother. The money- 
 gift indeed hardly ceases to be hurtful till it is hallowed 
 by the presence of sympathy. We must give ourselves, 
 before we can give without stirring suspicion any part 
 of our possessions. And here a great door of hope is 
 opened. Let us think for one moment what would be 
 the difference if every generous subscriber to some 
 scheme for bettering the condition of the poor would 
 himself make some one poor person among his neigh- 
 bours — ' a brother of low degree ' — his friend, would 
 win his confidence, would take pains to understand his 
 view of life, would lift him up to a truer conception 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. XI 
 
 of his own nature — the nature which Christ has taken 
 to Himself — in its capacities and in its destiny. 
 
 But such efforts, it will be said, would take time. 
 It is true ; and is it not also true that we owe to God, 
 and to man for God's sake, an offering of our time, and 
 require ourselves the moral discipline which such a use 
 of it would bring ^ ? 
 
 At the same time ministries of love have their stern 
 aspect. The other side of love is righteousness ; and if 
 no effort can be spared to raise the life of citizens to a 
 reasonable standard, cases will arise when coercion and 
 restraint must be exercised on those whose habitual 
 conduct tends to corrupt. Such procedure is in form a 
 novelty in our legislation. It is well therefore that we 
 should be asked to consider the words of a writer like 
 Mr C. Booth who thinks that 'some day the indivi- 
 ' dualist community on which we build our faith will 
 ' find itself obliged for its own sake to take charge of 
 ' the lives of those who, from whatever cause, are inca- 
 ' pable of existence up to the required standard ' (p. 60). 
 
 1 In connexion with these thoughts may I refer to a suggestive 
 book by Mr J. Goldie, The poor and their happiness, cc. ix. — xii. 
 Greatly as I differ from the assumptions which he makes, I feel his 
 criticisms of modern methods of dealing with the poor are most 
 instructive. 
 
XU PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 In this respect the time seems to have already come 
 when effective measures should be taken for the com- 
 pulsory and corrective detention of habitual drunkards 
 in industrial retreats maintained and governed by the 
 State. For the incorrigibly indolent and shiftless 
 another kind of discipline in some form of home or 
 foreign colonization appears to offer the most hopeful 
 remedy; and perhaps we may look for a not distant day 
 when every County Council will have an experimental 
 farm to which those may be committed under proper 
 regulations who have proved themselves incapable of 
 earning a sufficient maintenance. 
 
 The questions involved in the last paragraph require 
 a full discussion from many points of sight. May I 
 suggest that we have gatherings in which they could be 
 treated effectively ? I do not wish to disparage for a 
 moment the interest of our Church Congresses, but no 
 one would maintain that the discussions there are 
 exhaustive — I have an ineffaceable recollection of being 
 required to deal in twenty minutes (if I remember 
 rightly) with the question of ' Critical scepticism.' 
 Might not the results be more substantial if the Con- 
 gress were devoted to the examination of some one 
 great subject : if, for example, a whole Congress held in 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. XIU 
 
 a great industrial centre were occupied with the vast 
 problem of the Unemployed : with the varieties, the 
 causes, the consequences, the remedies of unemploy- 
 ment and under-employment ? The Meetings would, 
 no doubt, be far less entertaining than those which are 
 occupied by about forty Essays on eighteen groups 
 of subjects and brief comments upon them ; but they 
 would be far more likely to produce definite and 
 valuable fruit and to indicate promising lines of action. 
 But I must not stand any longer between the 
 Reader and the Book. No one, I believe, can study 
 Canon Moore Ede's Lectures and look with open eyes 
 on the common life of men, without feeling the range 
 and the gravity of the problems of great towns by which 
 his attention is necessarily arrested ; and without finding 
 some fragment of work which he can do. To call out 
 such service is the highest reward of the teacher. Our 
 hope for the future lies in the cooperation of men who 
 recognise the grandeur of the corporate life of the 
 Church, and in the light of that vision gladly accom- 
 plish the work, great or small, which has been prepared 
 for them to do. 
 
 B. F. DUNELM. 
 
 Auckland Castle, 
 
 Feb. 5th, 1896. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Lectuke I. The Function of the Church in the Work 
 
 of Social Reform 1 
 
 Lecture II. The Problem of the Unemployed and the 
 
 Duty of the Church 32 
 
 Lecture III. The Homes of the People ... 75 
 
 Lecture IV. The Attitude of the Church towards the 
 
 Vices of our Towns 105 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH IN THE WORK OF 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 
 
 1 Chron. XII. 32. 
 
 The children of Issachar were men that had under- 
 standing of the times, to know what Israel ought 
 to do. 
 
 The prominent figure of the great religious revival 
 of the last century was John Wesley. The England 
 which he knew so well and for which he did so much 
 was an agricultural country in which manufactures 
 were subsidiary, and for the most part home, industries : 
 it was a land of small country towns and villages. 
 Bristol was the only city out of London which con- 
 tained 100,000 inhabitants. Birmingham, Sheffield, 
 Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle were then 
 what we should call country towns, with a popula- 
 tion of from 20,000 to 40,000. To-day all is changed : 
 England is now a vast industrial community, the people 
 are congregated together in great masses in towns. 
 
 E. H. L. 1 
 
2 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Every census reveals an increase, not only absolutely, 
 but relatively, in our town population. According to 
 the last census in England and Wales, 20,802,770 dwelt 
 in towns, only 8,198,248 in rural districts; 71*7 per 
 cent., or nearly three-fourths of Englishmen, live in 
 towns. 
 
 An industrial revolution which in the latter half of 
 the last century, when Wesley was in the height of his 
 active missionary labour, began with the invention of 
 the spinning-jenny, power-loom, and steam-engine has 
 changed England and English life. It is a change 
 which has gone on with accelerating speed as invention 
 has succeeded invention, and industry has become 
 organised on an ever-increasing scale. Every bridge, 
 every improved road, every increase in the facilities 
 by which men can come together or act together, tends 
 in the direction of concentrating population. Railways 
 and telegraphic communication have not only rendered 
 the concentration of population possible, they have 
 rendered it inevitable \ 
 
 1 Some have expressed the hope that now electricity is displacing 
 steam as a motor, and can be most economically generated by water 
 power, the influence of the earlier inventions may be counter- 
 acted and the population leave the great cities and be scattered along 
 the water-courses of our hills. There is no sign of any such change. 
 All the signs are in the other direction. It is more likely that elec- 
 tricity generated by the mountain waterfalls will be brought to the 
 towns than that the towns will go to the mountains. The electricity 
 generated by the use of a fraction of the fall of Niagara is to be con- 
 veyed to towns within a radius of two hundred miles. 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 3 
 
 The majority of our countrymen in the present are, 
 and still more in the future will be, dwellers in towns, 
 therefore there are no more important problems which 
 can engage attention than the problems of town life — 
 for the concentration of the population into towns has 
 created serious problems. The mere massing together 
 of such numbers in limited space has serious effect on 
 the physical health, and this reacts on the moral health. 
 The factory system which prevails, has separated the 
 owners of the machinery of production from those who 
 work the machinery, has separated the man from the 
 tools, and as a consequence there is often conflict of 
 interests which produces bitter feeling, and a state of 
 things sometimes akin to civil w^ar. Our world-wide 
 market is uncertain and unstable, consequently employ- 
 ment fluctuates, and at times our streets are filled with 
 those who, seeking work, find none, and whose enforced 
 idleness leaves them no alternative but slow starvation 
 or semi-starvation. We produce an amount of wealth 
 per head never attained before, and yet multitudes live 
 in abject poverty. In London in 1888, more than one 
 out of every five deaths occurred in a public institution, 
 and it seems probable that in the richest city in the 
 world one out of every four persons dies dependent on 
 charity. We have gathered together means of satisfying 
 the needs of life such as never were gathered together 
 before \ and yet there are multitudes whose lives are 
 
 1 T. Hertzka has recently made some interesting calculations 
 
 1—2 
 
4 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 SO dreary that their only ideas of enjoyment are the 
 deadening of dull care by the excitement of strong 
 drink, or the hazard of gambling. Matthew Ai'nold has 
 said, " We call ourselves in the sublime and aspiring 
 language of religion, Children of God — Children of 
 God ; it is an immense pretension and how are we to 
 justify it ? By the work which we do and the words 
 which we speak — and the works which we, collective 
 children of God, do, our grand centre of life, our city 
 which we have builded for us to dwell in, is London," 
 and he might have added Birmingham, Manchester, 
 Newcastle ; for what is true of London is in its degree 
 true of every one of our towns, they all reproduce the 
 same features, and we are dissatisfied with them all ; 
 they are not fitting products of the work of the children 
 of God. 
 
 The Growing Discontent. 
 
 The most hopeful sign of the times is the existence 
 
 of discontent with our towns and the lives lived in 
 
 bearing on this point. He estimates that in the civilised nations 
 of the earth modern discoveries and inventions — especially the 
 application of steam to industry — can perform twelve times as much 
 work as all the men living in these nations. In other words it is 
 just the same as if twelve slaves were working for each man or sixty 
 for each family ; whereas in ancient Athens there were only 10 slaves 
 for each Athenian family and these had to maintain themselves as 
 well as their masters. And yet according to Mr C. Booth's careful 
 analysis of London Labour and Life 32-1 per cent, or nearly one- 
 third of the population of our greatest and wealthiest city are either 
 paupers, or only just able to scrape together a bare subsistence. 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 5 
 
 them. This discontent is spreading with remarkable 
 rapidity. In 1884 Mr Rae, a careful, well-informed 
 writer, stated in the Contemporary Review, "there is 
 no sufficient reason for believing that Socialism has 
 secured any serious foothold in England." In 1894 
 the Trades Congress adopted the celebrated resolution 
 in favour of collective ownership of land and capital, 
 and did not rescind it in 1895. Thirty-eight avowed 
 Socialists went to the poll and polled 64,000 votes, not 
 so many as they hoped perhaps, but sufficient to show 
 that there are a large number willing to risk all in an 
 endeavour to reconstruct society, in the hope that the 
 result of the gigantic leap in the dark will be to secure 
 greater justice and more general well-being. 
 
 But the spread of Socialism throughout the whole 
 of what has been called Western Civilisation is only 
 one of many indications of the trend of opinion, of the 
 growing conviction that the principle of individualism, 
 which was the principle at the root of the great religious 
 movement of the Reformation, and which expresses 
 itself in the economic relationships of men as free 
 competition, has failed to produce a satisfactory social 
 state, and must fail, because the interests of the com- 
 munity as a whole are not always identical with the 
 separate interests of the individuals who compose it. 
 It has been efficient as a stimulus to exertion, it has 
 promoted efficiency of industrial effort and been a 
 powerful factor in human progress, but it has sacrificed 
 
6 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the weak to the strong, the have-nots to those that 
 have ; for those that have, who possess the instruments 
 of production, are the strong. The restless striving 
 of each to do the best he can for himself, while pro- 
 ductive of marvellous activity, has not conduced to a 
 well-organised community, has not secured the well- 
 being of all. We are entering upon a new era, an era 
 of effort after a higher organisation of the community 
 which shall secure more general well-being. In the 
 sober words of Professor Marshall, " Now at last we are 
 setting ourselves seriously to enquire whether it is 
 necessary that there should be any so-called lower 
 classes at all, that is, whether there need be large 
 numbers of people doomed from their birth to hard 
 work in order to provide for others the requisites of a 
 refined and cultured life, while they themselves are 
 prevented by their poverty and toil from having any 
 share or part in that life." 
 
 I need not elaborate this point. I may take it for 
 granted that we all recognise in the growing prominence 
 of the Social Question in its various aspects indications 
 that the work which lies before us in the coming century 
 is the reconstruction and reorganisation of society, with 
 the view of securing more general well-being, more 
 equitable distribution of wealth and a wider diffusion 
 of all that conduces to the fulness of human life. 
 
in the work of social reform. 7 
 
 Has the Church a Social Work? 
 
 What is the function of the Church in this work of 
 social reconstruction ? What part ought she to play in 
 the work of rebuilding our towns and realising in them 
 better social conditions ? Called as I am to live and 
 work as a clergyman in a large and populous town, 
 that is a question which daily comes home to me — the 
 difficulty which I have to face — that is the question I 
 want, as far as I am able, to answer. 
 
 That the Church has a function to perform is 
 manifest. Christ came into the world to redeem the 
 world, to rescue men from the evils which oppressed 
 them, and to make the lives of all men what the lives 
 of the children of God should be. The Church of Christ 
 exists for the purpose of carrying on the same work ; 
 its raison d'etre is the salvation of men, the establish- 
 ment of a sound, healthy life among men — sound and 
 healthy because based on the true principles of life — 
 the principles revealed through Christ. We believe 
 that through Christ we know the divine laws of life : 
 the principles which if followed out will save man and 
 save society. We believe that every evil which exists is 
 occasioned by men's departure from the true principles 
 of life : therefore, believing we hold the key to the 
 problems which perplex us, we of all men are called on 
 to be up and doing and take our part in the work of 
 social reconstruction : we must be like men of Issachar, 
 
8 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 men who have " understanding of the times to know 
 what Israel ought to do." 
 
 Louis Kossuth, the great Hungarian patriot, when 
 asked to suggest a remedy for social evils, said, " If the 
 doctrines of Christianity that are found in the New 
 Testament could be applied to human society I believe 
 the solution of the Social Problem would be got at." As 
 believers in the divine character and mission of Christ, 
 we too believe this. We believe in the Kingdom of 
 Heaven being set up on earth ; that is the subject of 
 Christ's preaching, the object of His desire. For the 
 realisation of a social state in which men live according 
 to the laws of God and in obedience to His Will we 
 pray every day, and for our hope and encouragement our 
 Scriptures close with a vision of the perfected city, the 
 New Jerusalem brought down from above and realised 
 on earth. That is our ideal, our hope : what can we do 
 to help in the task of bringing the cities of our land 
 nearer that ideal ? The work of the Church is to 
 labour for the realisation of this ideal : how is the 
 Church to do it ? 
 
 Improvement of Man. 
 
 Two lines of possible action at once present them- 
 selves : one direct action on men ; the other indirect 
 action through the circumstances which influence men. 
 If by direct action on men we can change their character, 
 that change will very soon express itself in their sur- 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 9 
 
 roundings. The changed men will alter the conditions 
 of life and their relationships to others. The man who 
 did most to reform the social life of England in the 
 last century was John Wesley. His appeal was direct, 
 it was an appeal to the individual ; his aim was to 
 reach the heart and conscience of each man in the 
 crowds which gathered round him. His words were 
 the instrument whereby men were brought to a sense 
 of the sinfulness of their lives and the desire quickened 
 in them to live henceforth more as children of God. 
 His converts were for the most part among the poorest, 
 the most degraded, — as among the early converts of 
 the Church, " not many mighty, not many noble " were 
 called, — how low they had been sunk is evident from 
 the observations in his diary, and the need he found for 
 directions as to destruction of vermin. Those whom 
 his appeal reached became changed characters, and the 
 changed character soon expressed itself in changed 
 surroundings; the homes of the Methodists were cleaner 
 than those of their neighbours, their children were 
 cared for and clad, they set about improving their 
 social condition in many ways ; they were thrifty, and 
 the training they gained in managing their religious 
 societies and the development of their character which 
 resulted, enabled them to take a leading part in those 
 self-help associations. Friendly Societies, Trade Unions, 
 and Cooperative Societies, which have done so much 
 to elevate and improve the wage-earning classes. The 
 
10 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 same results follow the same causes now. In manu- 
 facturing England as well as in agricultural England, 
 in towns as well as in the country, in this century as in 
 the last, the direct appeal to the individual does change 
 characters, and the changed character expresses itself 
 in its surroundings. The Church can never, must never 
 neglect the direct appeal to the conscience of each 
 man; the conversion of sinners is an important part of 
 its work — the most important part. The Church must 
 aim at bringing home to each individual the conviction 
 of sin, must strive to stir in each man a longing for 
 a higher, nobler, more divine life, and must build up 
 character. 
 
 In so far as the Church is stirring men's consciences 
 and building up character by bringing men into con- 
 scious relationship to God, training them to surrender 
 their will to Him, and to do their " duty in that state of 
 life unto which it shall please God to call " them, it is 
 doing true social work. It is making them better sons 
 and daughters, better fathers and mothers, better neigh- 
 bours, nobler and more righteous men. And as is often 
 pointed out, the first requisite of a better social state is 
 the elevation of the individuals who compose it to a 
 higher type of character. From an economic point of 
 view Cooperation is sound in principle, the rock on which 
 Cooperative Production has been so often wrecked is 
 not economic but moral, faults of temper, want of 
 mutual consideration, lack of confidence between men, 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 11 
 
 selfishness and dishonesty. It is the " manners that 
 maketh man " which is wanted. 
 
 The Church is helping to render a more righteous 
 and equitable society possible by its varied machinery 
 for training men and developing character. Sermons 
 and classes, clubs and institutes, Confirmation with its 
 confession of the obligation to live righteously, the 
 use of the Means of Grace whereby weak human wills 
 are strengthened, are all methods by which the Church 
 trains character and so does useful social work. Is it 
 sufficient ? Is there no other work required of the 
 Church of Christ ? 
 
 Improvement of Environment. 
 
 At the very time when Wesley and his colleagues 
 were doing so much to raise and elevate those whom 
 their direct appeal reached, the factory system was 
 bom, and the owners were filling their mills with 
 children taken from the workhouses and subjecting 
 them to conditions of toil which were destructive to 
 physical health, absolutely ruinous to moral health, 
 and left no opportunity for development of spiritual life. 
 
 The Church, whose aim is the salvation of men, 
 cannot ignore economic and social surroundings ; they 
 are influences which are ever present, day by day 
 and hour by hour they play a powerful part in fashion- 
 ing and moulding life. The child of the city slums 
 whose frame is weakened by breathing the vitiated air 
 
12 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 of a crowded dwelling, and whose moral nature is 
 blighted by the sights and sounds amid which he 
 dwells, has not much chance of growing up virtuous. 
 Transplant him to the colonies under the care of 
 Miss Ray, or some other agent, who will place him with 
 people who live decently, who will care for his welfare, 
 and with whom he will have fresh air and good food, 
 and the chance of his living a good and noble life is 
 enormously increased. 
 
 It is proverbial that pauper children trained in 
 a Workhouse rarely lose the pauper taint and become 
 self-respecting citizens, hence the most enlightened 
 Boards of Guardians endeavour to change the circum- 
 stances which surround the lives of the children under 
 their care : they board them out, or erect cottage homes 
 away from the Workhouse. We are fully alive to the 
 influence of surroundings on the character of our own 
 children, we watch over the companionships they form, 
 and ai^e careful as to the reputed character of the school 
 which they attend. We are all influenced by our sur- 
 roundings, they make their mark on us and on our 
 character. We recognise " the hall mark " of the Uni- 
 versity when we meet a man in after life ; the circum- 
 stances of his residence at Cambridge or Oxford have 
 left an indelible mark on his character. Man is not an 
 independent unit — with all his powers and capacities, 
 even when those capacities reach to genius, he is a 
 creature who bears on him the stamp of his age and 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 13 
 
 circumstances. We are children of the past and fathers 
 of the future. 
 
 "There, but for the grace of God, goes John 
 Bradford," said a great puritan divine, as he saw some 
 poor wretch conveyed in the hangman's cart to Tyburn. 
 As we look into a Monday morning police-court and 
 see some wretched loafer, dirty and unkempt, brought 
 up on the charge of being drunk and disorderly for, 
 perhaps, the twentieth or thirtieth time, we may well 
 say, " There, but for the mercy of the circumstances in 
 which my lot in life has been cast, there stand I." For 
 what better should we have been had we been brought 
 up, as he, in a narrow tenement without training in 
 decency and self-control, our playground the poverty- 
 stricken street, the idea of pleasure presented to us as 
 a drunken orgy, our only livelihood chance jobs, and no 
 certainty, no security, no orderliness, no method in our 
 lives ? Such are the influences which surround and 
 degrade thousands of lives in our towns. 
 
 Should the Church frame a Programme? 
 
 Recognising, as we all do, the influence of surround- 
 ings on character, there are some who would have the 
 Church, — if not the Church of England alone, all de- 
 nominations of Christians, — formulate a programme of 
 social reforms, run candidates for all electoral bodies, and 
 having carried them inaugurate the millennium. More 
 than once with the noblest desire for promoting human 
 
14 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 well-being the Church has endeavoured to make itself 
 master of the instrument of government, whether 
 monarchical or republican. Whenever the Church has 
 aimed at such power it has lost more than it has 
 gained. We are not without object lessons of such 
 failures, on a large scale in the Latin Church, on a 
 smaller scale in the brief attempt to set up a reign of 
 the saints in England. The history of our own Anglican 
 communion is not without warning against too close 
 identification with the ruling powers, and the tempta- 
 tion to use those powers for the furtherance of selfish 
 ends, and to trust to the arm of the flesh rather than 
 the power of the Spirit. 
 
 Social life is complex and dependent on economic 
 relationships, and wise reforms require a true grasp of 
 economic principles. If the Church of England or a 
 union of all denominations is to formulate a social pro- 
 gramme it must adopt some economic principles and 
 reject others, and therefore must pronounce authorita- 
 tively on the most intricate and complicated relations 
 of life. While it is true that Bishops and Councils 
 have erred, it is still more true that Professors of 
 Economics have erred \ Every reform when it comes 
 
 1 "We have learned by sharp experience how totally unfit the 
 Church is to anticipate or to control the movements of knowledge. 
 Her unfitness has proved that any such attempt was in excess of 
 the intention which created her. And it would be no less stupid than 
 it would be fatal to re-enact this blunder in the department of 
 Economic Science just at the very moment when she has discovered 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 15 
 
 into the domain of practical politics is largely a question 
 of detail ; about details men, and good men too, will 
 ever be divided in opinion. Every ' how ' is always a 
 matter of dispute. While individual Churchmen not 
 only may, but ought to identify themselves with any 
 party or association whose policy or programme seems 
 to them calculated to bring about a better realisation 
 of Christian principles, the Church in its corporate 
 capacity must stand aloof from, and apart from, all 
 parties, the preacher of principles, the inspirer of ideals 
 which each member must endeavour to realise accord- 
 ing to his personal judgment. For the Church to 
 identify itself with any party is an abdication of its 
 true and higher function, and would in a fatal fashion 
 secularise the Church. If I interpret aright the temp- 
 tation in the wilderness, it was an attempt to entangle 
 Christ in a secular policy for the realisation of an ideal 
 society. 
 
 Moreover, the city is the expression of the life that 
 is, of the thoughts and habits of men as they are, and 
 however much we attempt the reform of outward things, 
 there will be no real reform which is not the recognition 
 of higher and truer principles. We express this in 
 other words when we say we cannot legislate in advance 
 of public opinion. The consequence of so doing is that 
 either the law is ignored and evaded, or the evil which 
 
 her mistake in all other regions of knowledge." Canon Scott Holland, 
 Economic Review, Jan. 1895. 
 
16 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the law aimed at destroying assumes a new form\ If 
 the city is to be reconstructed on an improved plan it 
 must be because the citizens have realised higher prin- 
 ciples, and therefore construct the city, and the rela- 
 tionships of men in it, more in accordance with the 
 laws of God. 
 
 Christ's Method. 
 
 Has the Church then no social message ? Has it 
 nothing to say concerning the reconstruction of the city ? 
 Yes, it has much to say, but it must say it in Christ's 
 way. In metaphysics there are voices crying back to 
 Kant ; back to Plato ; — in our economic and social diffi- 
 culties let us raise the cry, "back to Christ." He came 
 to redeem the world, to reform it and to raise man. His 
 method of redemption was to reveal God and the true 
 law of life for men. Christ's revelation of God is the 
 revelation of the character and attitude towards men of 
 that unseen power which lies behind all that we see. 
 
 1. Our Lord reveals that power as a Moral Power — 
 a God of Righteousness, according to the principles of 
 whose moral rule it is as necessary for men to order 
 their lives as it is for them to do so in relation to the 
 laws of nature in the physical world. Human well- 
 being can only be obtained by life lived, and actions 
 done, in conformity with the laws of the universe ; for 
 these are the expression of the will of the unseen ruler. 
 
 1 The history of prohibition affords abundant illustration of this. 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 17 
 
 " Seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness, and 
 all these things shall be added unto you." "I came 
 not to do mine own will but the will of Him that sent 
 me." Christ teaches that the true principle of life is 
 conformity to the will of God, who is righteous. 
 
 2. Again, our Lord reveals to us that the human 
 relationship of Fatherhood expresses the attitude of the 
 Unseen Power towards all men and towards each indi- 
 vidual man. As all are equally His children, He cares for 
 the slave, or the degraded denizen of a town slum, as much 
 as for the cultured lady or the monarch ; desires the well- 
 being of one as much as the other. The Fatherhood of 
 God carries with it and involves the recognition of the 
 Brotherhood of men, is its true basis, the ground of its 
 obligation, and has a far-reaching social significance \ 
 
 3. And lastly, our Lord grants us the Revelation 
 of the law of life as love — as altruism — " that ye should 
 love one another as I have loved you " ; love expressing 
 itself as self-sacrifice ; love stronger than hate, or greed, 
 or selfishness. Love, the true principle of family life, 
 which places the well-being of the family above self- 
 aggrandisement. 
 
 To the power of these principles Christ trusted, and 
 not to any programme of reform. When He lived as 
 
 1 "The historic fact to be noted is that this idea of the funda- 
 mental equaHty of men, when one goes beneath accidental differences 
 and social distinctions, has dealt and was intended to deal the death- 
 blow both to the caste and the slavery of the world." Dr W. Knight, 
 The Christian Ethic, p. 90. 
 
 E. H. L. 2 
 
18 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 man among men there existed a worse form of selfish 
 oppression of man by man than any which exists among 
 us, viz. slavery — which gave one man absolute control 
 over the life of another, and as that involved control 
 by man of woman, slavery was productive of awful 
 immorality. Christ put forward no plan of eman- 
 cipation, but the principles of His revelation under- 
 mined and destroyed the curse of slavery. 'Ye are 
 children of one Father, slaves are brothers in the Lord,' 
 was the principle declared ; then there followed a grow- 
 ing conviction that brother should not ill-treat brother. 
 As the Christian faith spread the condition of the slave 
 improved, and legislation concerning slavery became 
 more humane ; then the conviction gained ground that 
 brother should not hold brother in bondage, and as that 
 conviction grew it found expression in manumission of 
 slaves \ 
 
 Thus, not by force, but by the permeation of a higher 
 ethical ideal, an appeal to the nobler sentiments of men, 
 slavery disappeared. The more men were imbued with 
 the spirit of Christ the more they recognised the 
 practical claims of brotherhood ; the most saintly re- 
 cognised them first. No less than thirty-seven ancient 
 
 1 *' We are content to leave the decision of personal duty in detail 
 with those who, looking to the eternal in the Person of Christ, find 
 no rest till ' they are persuaded in their own mind ' with full 
 assurance. There was no social polemic in the apostoHc age, but we 
 cannot believe that Onesimus continued to be a slave." Westcott, 
 The Christian Law. 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 19 
 
 councils of the Church passed resolutions favourable to 
 the slaves and encouraging emancipation. The very 
 forms of emancipation show the Christian spirit, e.g., 
 " For God's love and for her soul's health, Gatflood hath 
 set free E. the smith and A. his wife, and all their off- 
 spring, born and unborn." Another, "A. and B. for their 
 souls' sake set free all their serfs." The part which the 
 Church of Christ played in this reform was the per- 
 sistent insistence on the principles of Christ, and con- 
 stant demonstration of how the practice of slavery was 
 inconsistent with the principles Christians recognised. 
 The influence of the principles of the brotherhood of 
 man, and the infinite value in the sight of God of each 
 soul, has been continuously working in the direction of 
 emancipation and against class distinction and privi- 
 lege, and is the true ground of the claim that in the 
 nation each man shall count for one and no more than 
 one. Political freedom has been gained, and now the 
 same principles are urging us on to win for each equal 
 opportunities of life, and to secure to each such share of 
 the product of industry as will render self-development 
 possible, and thus to obtain economic freedom. As with 
 slavery so was it with the elevation of woman ; she was 
 the daughter of one Father, a sister in the Lord, on an 
 equal footing with man in man's highest relationship. 
 In the ideal of humanity presented by the Christian 
 Charch there was neither male nor female, no distinc- 
 tion of sex. It is a long, long story how the principle 
 
 2—2 
 
20 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 was applied step by step to one relation of life after 
 another ; the last tide-mark of progress in our country 
 was the Married Women's Property Act, and there is 
 yet to come the recognition of woman's equal rights with 
 man by conferring on her the same privileges as man 
 possesses of choosing our rulers and deciding the policy 
 of the nation. Among the principal functions of the 
 Church in its social w^ork must be placed the pro- 
 clamation of the truly social principles of Christ. 
 
 The Church should embody Christian Principles. 
 
 The Church must practise as well as proclaim. 
 When men do not practise what they preach their 
 preaching is not heeded. The Christian religion is a 
 religion in which faith in God as our Father expresses 
 itself in brotherhood and love. All through the Gospel 
 of Christ the performance or non-performance of social 
 duties is the one great test. " I was an hungred and 
 ye gave me meat : I was thirsty and ye gave me drink : 
 I was a stranger and ye took me in : naked and ye 
 clothed me : I was sick and ye visited me : I was in 
 prison and ye came unto me." And that there might 
 be no mistake as to the meaning of the words, that 
 men might not interpret the ministering mentioned as 
 figurative, he adds, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 
 one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
 unto me." 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 21 
 
 When the disciples were contending who was the 
 chief in the Church of Christ, Christ settled the contro- 
 versy for all time, saying, " He who would be greatest 
 let him be servant to all : I am among you as He that 
 serveth." He gave as His commandment that His 
 followers should love one another. St John, the apostle 
 of love — and as God is Love, we may suppose he under- 
 stood better than others the nature of Christ — is very 
 plain in his exposition of our duty to love our fellows, 
 making that the test of love to God : " If a man say he 
 love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar." " We 
 know that we have passed from death unto life because 
 we love the brethren." 
 
 The New Testament idea of the Christian Church 
 is that of a body of men bound together by their belief 
 in the character of God and the laws of God for social 
 service. That, I am afraid, is not the idea which 
 presents itself to men as the main and obvious purpose 
 of the Christian Church. While I am well aware how 
 much social service is done by the Christian Church in 
 every parish in England, and I would not say a word 
 in disparagement ; it must be admitted that the world 
 does not regard the leading feature of the Church, the 
 main object of its members, to be social service. The 
 aspect which presents itself to the world as the chief 
 interest of the Church is the maintenance of certain 
 dogmas concerning the nature of God and special forms 
 of worship. The great complaint of the masses is that 
 
22 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the Church is so taken up with the concerns of the 
 world to come, with theological doctrines and ritual, 
 that it is of little use in helping to make this world 
 brighter and better. This is one great reason for their 
 alienation from the Church. If we be honest we must 
 admit there is some justice in the complaint. The 
 Church has failed to maintain a due relative proportion 
 in its teaching. Undue preponderance has been given 
 to devotional forms and theological ideas, and sufficient 
 stress has not always been laid on the fact that they 
 are means to an end, and that their true object is 
 to help men to discharge better the life of social 
 service. 
 
 When Christ lived on earth He found men excusing 
 themselves from duty to their fellows on the plea of the 
 higher obligations of the Deity : there was the plain 
 duty of supporting parents — a duty comprised in the 
 command, " Honour thy father and thy mother " ; but 
 the religious leaders of Christ's day taught that the duty 
 was not binding if what was needed for the support of 
 parents was declared Corban — a gift devoted to God. 
 Christ said, " Ye have made the commandment of God 
 of none effect by your tradition." The Christian Church 
 has too often made dogmatic orthodoxy or ritual obser- 
 vance of more importance than the discharge of social 
 service. Christ revealed God, but in that revelation 
 He laid very little stress on the mystery of the God- 
 head : He laid great stress on the brotherly relations 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 23 
 
 which should exist among men as a consequence of 
 belief in the Fatherhood of God. The Church has said 
 a great deal about the mystery of the Godhead, and 
 comparatively little about manifesting a brotherly spirit 
 in all our dealings with our fellow men\ It has also 
 given more attention to abstract speculation on the 
 nature of God, and man's relation to Him, than to 
 working out man's relation to his brother. In pro- 
 claiming Christ's Gospel we must observe Christ's 
 proportions. 
 
 It is much easier to be interested in speculative 
 views as to the nature of the Deity; much easier to 
 observe forms of devotion, much easier to give money 
 or build Churches, than to manifest love to our fellows 
 in the acts of daily life in buying, selling, and getting gain. 
 The Pharisees of old made long prayers and then de- 
 frauded widows. There is too much truth in the saying 
 that in our day " men are willing to offer their prayers 
 and praise on Sunday, if on Monday they may go into 
 the market place and skin their fellows and sell their 
 hides." 
 
 1 I would not have it be supposed that I undervalue the import- 
 ance of the doctrine of the Trinity and do not recognise how it is 
 bound up with our belief in the Incarnation and the revelation to us, 
 through the Incarnation, of God ; but what seems to me at fault 
 is that theology has not given as much attention to developing the 
 principle of the Second Great Commandment — "Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself" — as it has to developing explanations of the 
 Nature of the Being of God. 
 
24 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Workmen do not regard the fact of a Churchman 
 being the head of a firm, or a landlord, as any special 
 advantage, or as security that they will receive more 
 considerate, more brotherly treatment. Yet if all mem- 
 bers of Christ's Church loyally endeavoured to follow 
 Christ's teaching and live according to Christ's prin- 
 ciples, Churchmanship would carry a certificate of 
 character with it, an assurance of a spirit of brotherly 
 consideration for the claims and needs of others, and 
 Church work would be a certificate of honesty and 
 genuineness. A great deal is said in our time about 
 sound Churchmanship — true Churchmanship is the 
 fulfilment of the law of love, the carrying into life 
 the law of Christ, an honest endeavour to love our 
 neighbour. 
 
 If the Church is to help in solving the social 
 problems of our age it must first remove the beam 
 from its own eye, it must be a more living embodiment 
 of the spirit of social service, it must insist on love as 
 the great essential in its members. When men see 
 Christ's spirit in Christ's flock they will more readity 
 believe in the efficacy of Christ's principles to solve our 
 social problems. 
 
 It is because I feel this strongly that I emphasize 
 this as one of the most important parts in the social 
 work of the Church. Moreover, all reforms have 
 emanated from groups of sanctified men. Small groups, 
 whose own lives have been raised to a higher standard, 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 25 
 
 have enormous leavening and elevating power. Those 
 who know anything of modern civic life, know how true 
 it is now as of old, that the ten righteous men save the 
 city, that a few earnest high-souled men are the source 
 and centre from which all the best influence radiates. 
 From one hundred and twenty men and women in the 
 upper room at Jerusalem who had been trained and 
 educated to higher views of life, spread the influence 
 which displaced the heathen ideal by the Christian 
 ethic. It is the function of the Church to raise up 
 groups of men and women with higher ideals of Chris- 
 tian life who shall be the salt of the earth, and purify 
 our civic life by the influence of their higher standard. 
 By raising the life of her own acknowledged members 
 the Church raises the life of the whole community. 
 
 The Prophetic Office of the Church. 
 
 Granted that the Church is imbued with Christ's 
 spirit of love, and desires to give effect to it, how are 
 we to act ? What can the Church do to mitigate the 
 evils w^hich we behold in our towns ? how contribute 
 to solve the problems of the unemployed, the better 
 housing of the people, the reduction of the inequalities 
 of wealth, the degradation of life through animalism, 
 coming out either in drunkenness, immorality, or indo- 
 lence ? How shall we prove ourselves like the men of 
 Issachar, men who have "understanding of the times" and 
 "know what Israel ought to do " ? We must go back to 
 
26 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Christ, back to first principles, and emphasize the con- 
 trast between what is and the true brotherly relationship 
 which should exist. Our function is to emphasize prin- 
 ciples. When the springs of action and emotion are right, 
 conduct will be automatically transfigured. By em- 
 phasizing principles we form public opinion, and that 
 when formed takes shape in laws and rules of conducts 
 It has been truly said, "There is one social force which is 
 not always taken into account, but which produces effects 
 of acknowledged importance and magnitude. It is the 
 power of awakened conscience," and it is the function 
 of Christ's Church to awaken conscience as to the 
 enormity of the evils which exist, the injustice of 
 existing social conditions. This is the prophetic office 
 of the Church. As the prophets of Israel stood against 
 the unrighteousness of the hour, and contrasted the 
 ideal Israel, the Israel wedded to Jehovah and His law, 
 with the actual evils in Israel around them, so must 
 the Church now, in the same spirit, stand out in vigorous 
 protest against the evils of our towns, and contrast the 
 City of God, where righteousness, truth and love pre- 
 vail, with the cities which now are. 
 
 1 "The Christian army has plenty of work to do, but for the 
 strategics of the next decade or generation it is necessary for the 
 leaders to think rather than to act, and those advisers will most 
 commend themselves who are not too forward to suggest schemes, 
 but prefer at present to indicate principles." 
 
in the work of social reform. 27 
 
 The Power of the Keys. 
 
 When the conscience is awakened it desires and 
 needs guidance. " What must I do to be saved ? " is 
 its cry, and the Church must be prepared to answer 
 the demand of those who, their conscience awakened 
 to existing evils, desire to live more righteously and 
 brotherly in this present life. This involves thinking 
 out the ethics of life under existing industrial condi- 
 tions. As Bishop Westcott has expressed it, " Church- 
 men are called on to consider theories and problems 
 of social life, the idea of social organisation, the ethics 
 of industrial enterprise, the spiritual responsibility of 
 employers, the present relationship of Capital and 
 Labour, the crowding of masses of men into small 
 spaces." This requires thought and study, for the 
 problems involved are intricate and difficult. But it 
 is the business of the Church to use the power of the 
 keys, to bind and loose, to decide what is right and 
 wrong in buying and selling, in utilising or with- 
 holding land or other possessions from use, and it 
 would be well if theological schools and professorships 
 took as part of their task the consideration of the 
 ethical problems of industrial life : it is a more press- 
 ingly important branch of theology than the study of 
 past heresies, important though these may be\ It is 
 
 1 The second of three objects which the Christian Social Union pro- 
 poses to its members aptly describes what I, with all due deference, 
 
28 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 not uncommon for business men to say it is impossible 
 in these days to carry on business on Christian prin- 
 ciples. It is for the Church to examine such opinions, 
 to point out how it may be done. Where it cannot 
 be done on Christian principles it ought not to be 
 done at all. Not possible to carry on business on 
 Christian principles ! There was a time when men 
 could not profess Christianity and keep their heads 
 on their shoulders, and then they died cheerfully as 
 Christians. 
 
 We need consideration of the Christian ethics of 
 our industrial relationships ; we need a Christian criti- 
 cism of suggested social reforms ; a careful sympathetic 
 consideration of them in the light of Christian prin- 
 ciples. Should such examination disclose, mingled 
 with much which is righteous and good, proposals 
 which violate justice, or are contrary to the principles 
 of Christ, then the Church must stand firm ; she must 
 be like Athanasius against the world, whatever the 
 cost or sacrifice. 
 
 think ought to be one of the chief functions of Theological Professors 
 in our Universities. We need the solution of present day problems 
 more than expositions however able of solutions which men in years 
 gone by arrived at as solutions of the problems which confronted 
 them. The words of the C. S. U. are these : " To study (in common) 
 how to apply the moral truths and principles of Christianity to the 
 social and economic difficulties of the present time." 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL EEFORM. 29 
 
 The Obligations of Brotherhood. 
 
 I can quite conceive it possible that in the coming 
 century the Church may be called on to oppose popular 
 opinion and contend for the sanctity of marriage ; the 
 necessity of home as the school ordained by God for 
 the training of citizens; the reality of personal re- 
 sponsibility, and the existence of sin. I may be wrong ; 
 but there are not wanting signs of popular opinion 
 adverse to home life, and a tendency to undermine 
 responsibility by undue stress on the influence of 
 circumstances. I think, too, the Church will have to 
 emphasize the obligations of brotherhood, and work out 
 its various bearings more than it has hitherto done. 
 Brotherhood is apt to become a phrase expressive of 
 weak sentimentalism, and men forget that the recogni- 
 tion of brotherhood carries with it certain claims on 
 those who are so recognised, the claim that they live 
 as brothers. In families, if children will not live 
 rightly we punish them, and by such punishment train 
 them in the necessary habits and duties of family life. 
 So in the brotherhood of men; if men will not dischar^-e 
 the duties of brothers, will not live brotherly, then in 
 the interests of the family it is not unjust to insist 
 on their discharging the duties which they owe to the 
 family. We are recognising this more and more in 
 our towns by enforcement of sanitary legislation, factory 
 regulations, the punishment of parents for neglect of 
 
30 THE FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH 
 
 children, and in many other ways. I mention this 
 because there is a tendency to overlook this aspect 
 of brotherhood, and to forget that love has its stern 
 side, can and does punish, and can be righteously 
 angry. 
 
 The Duty of Sacrifice. 
 
 What else can the Church do ^ ? It can inculcate 
 the duty of sacrifice. Our towns cannot be rebuilt, 
 existing social inequalities reduced, without much 
 sacrifice of luxuries on the part of the rich. We 
 cannot rebuild our cities, we cannot bring within the 
 reach of the masses much of the brightness and joy 
 of life which they do not now possess, without great 
 cost ; we cannot level up without to some extent 
 levelling down. In plainer words, the removal of 
 many of the evils of our towns means more rates — a 
 heavier contribution from those who possess most 
 wealth. It means sacrifice on the part of the rich 
 and powerful — a sacrifice which the Church should 
 urge them to render willingly — for the strong should 
 bear the burdens of the weak. 
 
 More than sacrifice of wealth is needed : a drawing 
 together of classes is wanted which demands sacrifice 
 of pride, exclusiveness, and social isolation, and, above 
 
 1 To say, 'The Church ought to do this' means that if the Church 
 be what it should, men and women will not be found wanting prepared 
 for this particular sphere of service. 
 
IN THE WORK OF SOCIAL REFORM. 31 
 
 all, as we shall see as we examine some of the chief 
 town problems, there is much need of personal service 
 and helpfulness. There lies before us a great, a noble 
 work, a work which should inspire us with the noblest 
 enthusiasm, a work which calls us to war against the 
 evils of our towns ; to fight against all in them which 
 degrades life ; to contend for the realisation of more 
 equitable social conditions and greater opportunities 
 of living nobler lives — more truly brotherly relation- 
 ships. 
 
 Surely we Churchmen, by our faith in Christ, by 
 our belief that our Master's great work is the redemp- 
 tion of the world and of man, and that He founded 
 the Church to labour in the fulfilment of His purpose 
 of redemption, are above all men called in this time 
 of social change to take our part in the effort to 
 obtain more righteous, more equitable social conditions. 
 Surely 
 
 *' We are they whose steadfast watchword is what Christ did teach, 
 Each man for his brother first, and heaven then, for each. 
 We are they who will not falter — many swords or few — 
 Till we make this earth an altar of a worship new, 
 We are they who will not take from palace, priest, or code, 
 A meaner law than 'brotherhood,' a lower Lord than God." 
 
LECTUEE II. 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED AND THE DUTY 
 OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Matt. xx. 6, 7. 
 
 Why stand ye here all the day idle?- They say unto 
 him, Because no man hath hired us. 
 
 The most tragic figure in the busy city amid the 
 whirring of the wheels of the machinery, the clang 
 of hammers and the bustling to and fro of the 
 creators and distributors of wealth, is the man who 
 stands idly at the corner of the street without a place 
 in all the throng and bustle of industry, and who 
 has no other answer to the question, " Why stand ye 
 here all the day idle ? " than the reply, " Because no 
 man hath hired us." There he stands, shut out from 
 factory and shop, without part or lot in all that gives 
 aim and interest to life, — for him there is no place 
 in the hive of industry, no share in the wealth which 
 it creates. All around wealth abounds, he is starving 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED. 33 
 
 and shivering amid heaps of gold, in sight of windows 
 heaped high with bread and clothes. He dreads the 
 return to the room which is his home, for the fire- 
 grate is empty, the cupboard bare, the children's faces 
 pinched and wan, his wife pale and spiritless. Day 
 by day he starts on the weary tramp in search of work, 
 and day by day returns footsore and sad, the hope of 
 being admitted into a place in the busy throng of 
 workers becoming less; for in that weary search for 
 work, in those weeks of semi-starvation, he is losing 
 the strength wherein his hope of work lies, he is losing 
 vigour, and what is more than these, he is losing 
 character and the very habit of work. There is much 
 truth in the saying that a man off work for a year 
 rarely works again — rarely settles down to steady 
 regular toil — because the power of application is lost, 
 and the listless ways, and often dissolute habits, which 
 so long standing idle has engendered, cannot be thrown 
 off when work is found at last. 
 
 One member of the body cannot suffer without 
 other members suffering with it. The man who stands 
 idle because no one hath hired him, involves others in 
 his misfortune. His fierce competition lowers the wages 
 of the employed, or of those who are somewhat less 
 unemployed than he; he may be truly said often to 
 snatch the bread out of their mouths, because the 
 chance jobs which he does, those who are not so well 
 employed as he is could do. As Mr C. Booth puts it, 
 E. H. L. 3 
 
34 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 " All that the casually employed earn, and all they 
 spend, might be earned and could very easily be spent 
 by the classes above them, these classes would be im- 
 mensely better off, while no class nor any industry would 
 suffer in the least. To the rich the very poor are a sen- 
 timental interest, to the poor they are a crushing load." 
 
 Number of Unemployed. 
 Consider for a moment the extent of the un- 
 employed, the magnitude of the problem, the numbers 
 of those whom no man hath hired. 
 
 On January 1st, 1895, there were in the Workhouses 
 of England and Wales, exclusive of insane and children, 
 Able-bodied Males . . 20,922 
 „ Females . 17,997 
 
 38,919 
 
 100,878 
 
 Not Able-bodied Males . 61,562 
 Females 39,316 
 
 139,797 
 
 77,559 
 
 266,773 
 
 Total supported by Poor Law 484,129 
 
 The adult in-door paupers, those who are not able- 
 bodied, may be said to be in their second childhood 
 and unable to work, nevertheless the greater part of 
 
 As Out-door Paupers 
 
 Able-bodied Males . . 18,097 
 
 „ Females . 59,462 
 
 Not Able-bodied Males . 76,078 
 
 „ Females 190,695 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 35 
 
 them should be reckoned among the unemployed, for 
 in a well-ordered family of the children of God the 
 aged would be in their own homes, among their own 
 relatives, and though unable to entirely support them- 
 selves, they would be able to contribute to their own 
 maintenance by doing such light work as their strength 
 permitted, busy in many little acts of usefulness and ser- 
 vice of which family life affords so many opportunities. 
 
 There were also 9205 vagrants — some of these 
 working men out of employment, but the great majority 
 a part, but only a part, of the great army of vagrants 
 who rarely ever work at settled labour and yet live, 
 and therefore are supported by the industrious on 
 whom they prey or sponge. 
 
 In Mr C. Booth's careful and laborious analysis of 
 the Labour and Life of the People of our greatest city, 
 he estimates the semi-criminal population, whose work 
 consists for the most part of preying on the industry 
 of the rest, as numbering 87,610, and the number of 
 the regularly unemployed, if one may use the expres- 
 sion, those who rarely ever know to-day where to- 
 morrow's work or to-morrow's food will be obtained, 
 who are constantly standing idle and never get more 
 than a chance job, or the most miserably paid work, 
 and never that for any length of time, these who are 
 the true unemployed he estimates as 316,834. In a 
 position just above these are 938,293, nearly one- 
 fourth of the total population of the richest city in 
 
 3—2 
 
36 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 the world, whose income does not exceed twenty-one 
 shillings a week, and whose existence is one un- 
 ending struggle, often aggravated by suffering from 
 the evils of irregular employment, which compels 
 them during an appreciable portion of their lives to 
 stand idle because no man hath hired them. At 
 any given date in winter one-fifth of these, or 200,000, 
 may be reckoned among the unemployed \ Thus 
 we arrive at the appalling figure of half-a-million 
 in London alone who must be reckoned as being 
 without a definite place in the industry of London. 
 As is London, so are all our large centres of population. 
 The poverty of London impresses the imagination 
 more, because owing to the magnitude of London the 
 amount of poverty massed together is so much greater, 
 but in every town the percentage of those who stand 
 idle is not far different. Even if we allow that a 
 larger percentage of the unemployed drift to the 
 greatest centre of all, and take eight per cent, as 
 representing those who have no recognised place in the 
 industry of the country, we arrive at the lamentable 
 figure of 2,240,000^ men, women and children who have 
 
 1 One-third and not one-fifth would perhaps be more accurate, be- 
 cause in his analysis of the East End, where Mr Booth separates his 
 classes C and D which together represent the poor, he places 75,000 
 in Class C whose earnings are intermittent and who, as a class, are 
 more than any other the victims of competition, on whom falls with 
 special severity the weight of recurrent depressions of trade, and in 
 Class D 129,000 whose earnings though small are regular. Vol. i. p. 35. 
 
 2 I.e. taking the population of England and Wales as 28,000,000. 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 37 
 
 no secure position, no surety of procuring to-morrow's 
 food, who are brutalised and demoralised by standing 
 idle amid the industry of our country. 
 
 But there are others to be added to this total. Ac- 
 cording to the returns of the Board of Trade throughout 
 the Skilled Trades during the last eight years 6*6 per 
 cent, have on the average been unemployed. This re- 
 presents about 79,200, which taking five as the average 
 family gives a total of some 297,000 persons affected by 
 want of employment \ These are protected it is true from 
 the worst evils by out-of-work benefit from the Unions, 
 but nevertheless they are not living a full life, and not 
 producing anything, are so much waste power. 
 
 We may summarise the total thus. Adult Workers 
 in England and Wales who are unable to maintain 
 themselves or only do so inadequately by Casual Em- 
 plo3rment, 
 Adult Paupers in Workhouses . . . 139,797 
 
 Permanent Vagrants 10,000 
 
 Adult males without prospect of regular 
 
 employment^ 560,000 
 
 Average number of Trade Unionists Unem- 
 ployed 79,200 
 
 Total 788,997 
 
 ^ Taking the Trades Unionists as numbering 1,200,000 we get 
 79,200. Deduct one-fourth for Scotland and Ireland and we get 
 59,400, which at five in family represents 297,000 persons. 
 
 2 As single men are included in the 2,240,000 who belong to the 
 
38 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 No figures are available showing the number of 
 skilled workers who are not members of Trades Unions 
 and whose percentage of Unemployed is therefore not 
 included in the above total, but the figures as they 
 stand represent, including women and children, a 
 population of close upon three millions, who may be 
 regarded as surplus population and without adequate 
 means of self-support. 
 
 In times of trade depression or severe weather 
 which prevents out-door life and occupation these 
 numbers are largely increased ^ 
 
 class of those who are casual labourers division by 4 will give a fair 
 approximation to the number of adult male workers, but as the 
 women of this class work when they can the number of persons 
 willing to work is really much greater than the total given above, 
 which is almost entirely male surplus labour. 
 
 1 Such vast numbers paralyse effort. Men either argue, What 
 I can do must be of so little avail it is useless to make any effort ; 
 or they attempt to rescue large numbers and parade the hundreds 
 and thousands they, or the Society with which they are connected, 
 have helped. The very quantity of the work they try to do ruins 
 its quality, and the number really permanently raised is small, 
 may be zero. Their want of true success tends to give the pessimist, or 
 the selfish, a plausible excuse for their pessimism or their selfishness. 
 Yet the number of families in fairly comfortable circumstances is 
 much greater than the number of those idle in the market-place, 
 therefore if each family made it their business to rescue another 
 family from their poverty, the problem would be more than solved, so 
 far as it could be solved by charitable help. 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 39 
 
 Effects of Want of Employment. 
 
 Consider for a moment what are the consequences 
 of the absence of regular employment to this multi- 
 tude of our brothers. Irregularity is destructive of 
 steady habits — those who are uncertain of to-morrow 
 are careless of to-day — there can be no saving, no 
 getting beforehand in the world. Gambling destroys 
 character and undermines steady industry. Depend- 
 ence on chance employment reduces the whole of life 
 to a lottery, makes every day depend on chance, and is 
 thus destructive of the regular habits which are the 
 most essential quality of true citizenship. As Aristotle 
 has said, " It is needful first to have a maintenance 
 and then to practise virtue," or as a Chinese saying 
 phrases it, "They who want the necessaries of life 
 want also a virtuous and equal mind." 
 
 When the satisfaction of the mere animal needs of 
 life becomes the absorbing object, the animal side of 
 life predominates, and bodily gratification — drink, ex- 
 cessive eating, excitement of the passions — becomes the 
 main idea of pleasured 
 
 As men the struggling poor have in them capacities 
 
 1 Those experienced in life among the very poor know how large 
 an element in their idea of pleasure is feasting. Where the craving 
 for enough to eat is ever present it is natural that the allaying of that 
 craving to the full should be regarded as an important element 
 in joy. 
 
40 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 for appreciating beauty of sight and sound, capacities of 
 mind whereby they might find pleasure in literature and 
 science, capacities of spirit whereby they might reverence 
 God, but these are undeveloped, crushed out by the 
 constant anxiety concerning daily food. 
 
 Those who stand a large portion of their time idle 
 in the market-place have no home comforts. Their 
 poverty drives them to the cheapest sleeping-place they 
 can find. The single man goes to the common lodging- 
 house, the married to a single room of a tenement 
 house barely furnished. Their furniture consists of one 
 bed, a table, a few chairs, and these are always in peril of 
 being seized for rent, or pawned for food, if they be less 
 fortunate than usual in obtaining work. One of the 
 most pathetic parts of the lives of the irregularly em- 
 ployed is their sisyphean labours to get a home together. 
 Again and again when they have gathered together a few 
 things, and made their room somewhat of a home, the 
 *bits of things' have to go for food or rent, and the task 
 of getting them again has to be commenced afresh \ 
 What wonder is it if many weary of the toil, and 
 content themselves with little more than the bare 
 walls ? " The little dark rooms may bear traces of the 
 man's struggle or woman's heroism, but the homes of 
 
 1 " The people (I would prefer These people) live in squalid dens 
 where there can be no health and no hope but dogged discontent with 
 their lot and futile discontent at the wealth they see possessed by 
 others. " — Thorold Rogers. 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 41 
 
 the class which form the mass of the unemployed are 
 sad like the fields of lost battles where heroism fought 
 in vain." 
 
 We spend £10,000,000^ a year on a National system 
 of education, but more valuable than any education 
 which Board or Voluntary Schools can give is education 
 in the Home. What training can be given in modesty 
 where a whole family, and perhaps some lodgers also, 
 are herded in one room ? What education in habits of 
 order and cleanliness where a whole street, or series 
 of streets, is inhabited by those whose homes are no 
 better ? Thus the poverty of the unemployed degrades 
 his children. It enervates them also. They do not 
 obtain sufficient air, or light or food^ and so they grow 
 up, feeble and puny, unable to do a full day's work, 
 and their feeble constitutions make them subject to 
 
 1 Parliamentary Grants for England and Wales, £6,586,266 ; School 
 Board Eates, £3,621,368. 
 
 2 Mrs Barnett gives some striking illustrations of this in her 
 Article on The Poverty of the Poor, in Essays on Practical Socialism. 
 Taking a family of eight children, she shows that taking the cheapest, 
 dull, keep-me-alive sort of food, it would cost with the best manage- 
 ment more than 2s. 4d. a day to provide the amount of carbonaceous 
 and nitrogenous food required for adequate sustenance, thus leaving 
 out of a wage of 20s. a week 3s. 8d. to pay rent, coals, clothes and 
 everything beyond food. The expenditure of a widow earning 9s. 
 a week is also given, and from it she draws the conclusion that while 
 wages are at the present rate the large mass of our people cannot 
 get food enough to maintain them in robust health — and bodit 
 health is here alone considered. She is speaking of the regul? ■, 
 employed labouring class, and if this be the case with them " 
 the case in a much greater degree with the casually unemploy^^ rors 
 
42 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 more than the average amount of sickness \ How 
 much that is opposed to the operation of the Kingdom 
 of God is contained in the degradation of the un- 
 employed and how essentially a religious question does 
 the remedy become ! I shall have to revert to this 
 subject when I refer more in detail to the housing 
 of the poor. I mention it now because I wish to show 
 that the social disorganisation, which results in such a 
 large number of our population being unemployed, has 
 far deeper and more wide-reaching consequences than 
 the hardships of the men who are at present among 
 the casually employed. The economic or social condi- 
 tions which have created this class of casual labourers 
 is causing a generation to grow up morally degraded 
 and physically enfeebled, and is thus perpetuating the 
 evil in a constantly intensified form^. 
 
 It is a result, says Charles Booth, of the conditions 
 of life in great towns, and especially in London, the 
 greatest town of all, that muscular strength and 
 energy get gradually used up — the second generation 
 of Londoners is of lower physique and has less power 
 of persistent work than the first, and the third genera- 
 tion (where it exists) is lower than the second. 
 
 1 " Many instances have inclined me to connect the rate of infant 
 mortality with the irregularity of employment of the father." Booth, 
 475. 
 
 2 "There is a great, perhaps a growing residuum of persons who 
 whtpiiysicaily^ mentally, or morally incapable of doing a good day's 
 their ^ith which to earn a good day's wage." — Marshall, Principles 
 others. om/V.s. 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 43 
 
 Is there not here a grand and noble object for Church 
 work, one of the noblest opportunities of service, work 
 for the rescue of the brothers and sisters who sit in 
 darkness and in the shadow of death ? A grand field 
 for service in many forms and many ways, for the 
 problem of the unemployed is the product of many 
 causes, and will require for its solution many efforts in 
 many different directions. 
 
 The Causes which produce the Unemployed. 
 
 What are the causes of this waste of labour ? how 
 comes it that our industrial organisation is so defective, 
 and that the multitude of those who are idle, because 
 no one hath hired them, is so great ? 
 
 In part it is due to trade fluctuations, a portion 
 of the price we pay for having the whole world as 
 our market. The failure of banks in Australia, bad 
 weather in America, war in the far East, and some say 
 even spots on the sun which influence the climate of 
 the Earth, will increase or decrease the activity of 
 British industry. 
 
 Fluctuations of Trade. 
 To some extent these fluctuations are caused by 
 the ill organised competition. In times of rising prices 
 every one who can obtain command of Capital or 
 Credit rushes to purchase in the hope of selling at 
 a higher price, and as each acts independently and 
 without full knowledge of what others are doing, errors 
 
44 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 in judgment occur, and at length it is perceived that 
 far more ships are ordered than can be profitably 
 employed, or more corn purchased than can be sold 
 at remunerative prices, and a sharp reaction sets in 
 which paralyses industry and produces those alternating 
 periods of expansion and contraction of industry which 
 we term good and bad times. The publication of 
 fuller trade statistics by public authority would pro- 
 bably help to somewhat steady trade by lessening the 
 liability to error, but it would not get rid altogether 
 of fluctuations which are occasioned by the strangely 
 alternating fits of hopefulness and despondency to 
 which masses of men appear to be subject\ 
 
 1 The extension of the cooperative movement in so far as the Co- 
 operative Societies produce for the known market of the well-ascertained 
 wants of their own members would, to the extent of the field it covered, 
 tend to steady trade and lessen the area of speculative production. 
 Some may regard Mr G. Thompson's words in his Inaugural Address 
 at the Cooperative Congress at Huddersfield as somewhat too strong, 
 but they are substantially correct. " With respect to the important 
 matter of what Carlyle calls Permanence, I think we have shown an 
 example to the outside world. Such things as depressions are un- 
 known in our cooperation. Our record is one of continuous progress. 
 We have no dislocations of industry. We possess the power of regu- 
 lating supply in accordance with demand." 
 
 An interesting experiment is being made in the Midlands with a 
 view to checking ruinous competition and steadying trade by forming 
 combinations of employers and employed, for the purpose of taking 
 joint action concerning all that concerns the welfare of the trade 
 in which they are engaged, and maintaining a recognised cost price, 
 and preventing underselling by speculative adventurers. For some 
 account of these see The New Trades' Combination Movement, its 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 45 
 
 There are also fluctuations caused by fashion, 
 fluctuations caused by our climate, which prevent em- 
 ployment in certain trades being continuous throughout 
 the year and compel those who engage in them to 
 stand idle for some weeks or months every year. There 
 are those paralyses of industry occasioned by those 
 trade disputes which sometimes assume almost the 
 dimensions of Civil War, in which, as in war, the non- 
 combatants suffer almost as much as the combatants. 
 But when all allowance is made for these, there remains 
 the serious fact that there is a permanent surplus of 
 labour, that even in the very briskest periods of trade 
 there are many standing idle because no man hath 
 hired them, a vast multitude who have no regular 
 permanent place in the industry of the country. 
 
 Divorce between the Labourer and Employment. 
 
 When we go behind the temporary fluctuations, and 
 seek for the deeper, more permanent causes of this 
 large mass of surplus labour, I would assign a chief 
 place to the divorce of the workers from the instru- 
 ments of production, which prevents the available 
 means of employment influencing and controlling the 
 numbers who seek employment. Where the workers 
 own the instruments of production, as in the agricultural 
 districts of France, the fact that an increase of numbers 
 
 Principles and Methods, by E. J. Smith. Published by Cornish 
 Brothers, Birmingham, price 6d. 
 
46 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 without a corresponding increase in the means of main- 
 tenance must result in the impoverishment of the family 
 is evident to all, and is brought home to each. 
 
 In agricultural England before 1760 the growth of 
 population was slow, because, though the workers did 
 not own the means of maintenance, the difficulty of 
 obtaining employment for an increase of population 
 was an obvious fact. The number for whom there was 
 employment in each parish was fairly self-evident. 
 If the population increased beyond this it was clear 
 some would be superfluous, and the owners of the land 
 would have to provide for their maintenance through 
 the rates. This caused the landowners to place diffi- 
 culties in the way of increase of the population on 
 their estates, and the growth of the workers was kept 
 within the limits of the growth of the means of employ- 
 ment, not by their own self-restraint or high standard 
 of living, but by the landowners \ The rise of the 
 factory system due to mechanical inventions provided 
 means of employment, there was no longer any need 
 to restrict the increase of the population of the village, 
 those not required at home could swarm off and find 
 employment in the rapidly growing factory districts. 
 They did swarm off, and have continued doing so for 
 more than a century, and in the towns to which they 
 
 1 The check on the growth of numbers for the causes mentioned is 
 referred to by Professor Marshall, Pmiciples of Economics, Bk. iv., 
 ch. 4. 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 47 
 
 have swarmed there is no visible connection between 
 the growth of the means of employment and the 
 growth of any particular family or set of families. 
 The feeling of each is that the increase of their family 
 does not matter, their children are as likely as any 
 other to get a place in the general scramble for work\ 
 
 ^ In what we may term the professional classes, incomes, as a rule, 
 increase as men grow older. The practice of the doctor or the lawyer 
 grows, the clergjTnan obtains preferment, the shopkeeper and the 
 merchant extend their connection, clerks in offices rise to higher and 
 better-paid posts. It is not always so, but roughly speaking, we may 
 say that those outside the working classes have a reasonable expecta- 
 tion of being better off at thirty than at twenty ; better off at forty 
 than at thirty. Not so the manual worker. He is better off in his 
 youth than he is likely to be at any other period of his life. If 
 a labourer, he earns full wages at eighteen years of age, or there- 
 abouts; if an artisan, at twenty-one. Unless he happens to become 
 a foreman, or pass out of the working-class, his wages do not advance, 
 his economic position does not improve — it grows worse, for as he 
 gets older the average of sickness increases, his employment is less 
 regular, because when trade is slack the older men are dismissed, and 
 the younger and more vigorous kept on. At the outset he has only 
 himself to keep, whereas when he grows older he generally has a wife 
 and family to maintain on the same wages as he had at first for 
 himself alone. The consequence is that if a working-man marries at 
 all it is actually prudent that he should do so as early as possible. He will 
 never be so well off, and if he rears a family and gets them out into 
 the world before sickness and advancing years, with their consequent 
 irregular employment, decrease his average earnings, he may hope to 
 obtain some assistance in the years of adversity and in the days of his 
 old age from the children he has reared. This condition of things, 
 whereby it becomes, among our largest and poorest class, a matter of 
 prudence, from the point of view of the individuals composing that 
 class, to marry as early as possible, is a consequence of our modern 
 industrial system, which began to prevail from about the year 1763. It 
 
48 the problem of the unemployed 
 
 Influence of the Poor Law. 
 
 Another potent cause is that evil principle of the 
 Poor Law which makes destitution the sine qua non of 
 assistance. Doubtless the framers of the law meant 
 well, they wanted to establish a test of genuine 
 poverty, and make a provision which would prevent 
 the genuinely poor perishing from starvation. Hell 
 is paved with good intentions. Good intentions cannot 
 make injustice justice, or prevent injustice working 
 evil. The law says no help shall be given if you have 
 anything at all. If however you have nothing, if you 
 have not tried to help yourself, if you have wasted your 
 substance in riotous living and have nothing, not even 
 a shred of character, then you shall have help, and 
 just the same help as the man who has struggled to 
 provide for himself and failed \ The result is that the 
 
 has not been the sole cause, but it has been an important factor in 
 the increase of our population by leaps and bounds during the last 
 century. — From a lecture on National Insurance by the Author. 
 
 1 The following quotation from Social Wreckage by Francis Peek 
 illustrates the evil influence of the Poor Law. "A benevolent gentle- 
 man called a meeting of working people to enlist their cooperation in 
 establishing a savings bank. He appeared to carry the meeting with 
 him until a labourer asked to be informed whether, in case he gave up 
 his beer, and by constant industry and thrift saved sufficient to provide 
 himself and his wife with the necessaries of life when no longer able 
 to work, he would be in any better position than another man, who, 
 having spent on himself everything he had earned, claimed these 
 necessaries from the parish. In the face of the provisions of the Poor 
 Law no advantage on the side of industry and saving could be shown, 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 49 
 
 poorest section of the community, whose power of logic 
 is as keen as that of any other section, argue, There 
 is little use in my struggling to save for the future 
 or get beforehand with the world. I cannot do as 
 much for myself as will be done for those who have 
 made no effort, therefore let us eat and drink, for 
 to-morrow there is the Poor Law. Thus the Poor Law 
 is a fruitful cause of reckless marriage and improvi- 
 dent habits, lowers the whole standard of life of the 
 poorer section of the community, reduces wages and 
 occasions much of the Poverty of the Poor\ The 
 main advantage of a system of National Pensions will 
 
 and so the philanthropist's scheme fell to the ground. This incident 
 is suggestive of the evil influence the Poor Law has exerted, and to a 
 great extent still exerts, upon many of the working classes. They 
 assert their right to spend at once all they earn without concern for 
 the future, and feel when destitute neither shame in claiming, nor 
 gratitude in receiving, the sustenance to which the law declares them 
 entitled. 
 
 1 In the majority of the Unions it is customary to allow every 
 widow Is. Qd. for each child under 13 years of age. Every wage- 
 earner knows that if he dies his children are secured that amount of 
 provision. He may be said, by his own contribution to the rates 
 for the maintenance of other people's children, to have insured for 
 the maintenance of his own. That may be a desirable method of 
 insurance, and much may be urged in favour of this method of 
 making provision for the care of orphans. The evil principle is the 
 condition imposed that orphans shall not receive this insurance if 
 any other provision has been made for their maintenance. If a man 
 leaves his wife £50, or a house the rent of which is os. a week, the 
 Guardians will not make an allowance for his children till the £50 is 
 spent, or in making the allowance they will take into consideration 
 the 5s. a week and reduce the amount given. 
 
 E. H. L. 4 
 
50 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 be the removal of the aged, who are, in the phrase of 
 John Locke, 'grown people decayed from their full 
 strength,' from the principle of the Poor Law, by either 
 making the pension given conditional on their having 
 helped themselves through their own contributions to 
 Friendly Societies, or, as I hope, giving to all, irrespective 
 of condition, a maintenance which will, though scanty, 
 serve to support existence. Secure of this as a right, 
 there will be inducement to supplement it by their 
 own efforts. Then every effort made will be so much 
 additional gain. 
 
 Immobility of Labour. 
 
 The fact that capital is more mobile than labour 
 and can change its form or situation more readily than 
 labour can accommodate itself to the change, is another 
 and frequent cause whereby large numbers of men lose 
 their employment. New machinery may render some 
 form of skill obsolete or useless, or trade may leave a 
 district, as shipbuilding left the Thames, but the men 
 remain in the place where they have been employed, 
 increase the competition for odd jobs, and gradually sink 
 down into the class of the permanently unemployed. 
 
 Within a mile from where I write this, some iron- 
 stone mines ceased to be remunerative. As long as there 
 was occasional work, though only an average of two days 
 a week, the men remained. Fortunately the mines were 
 closed, and the process of slow starvation stopped, and 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 51 
 
 as there were no other opportunities of obtaining 
 occasional employment the men removed. Had they 
 been residents in a town many would have remained 
 and swollen the army of casually employed. An ill 
 organised, badly managed or decaying industry has a 
 most detrimental effect on those who are employed ; 
 for a long period before bankruptcy or closing, work 
 is very irregular, the weekly average earned is reduced 
 one-half or more, and during this period the standard 
 of living of the workpeople is reduced, and they per- 
 manently sink down to a lower social grade. I have 
 been an eyewitness of such deterioration. What 
 Mr C. Booth says is quite true, " While a trade leaves 
 the people stay and form the unemployed, or partially 
 employed, class who provide the mass of cheap labour, 
 and the facilities for irregular work in which small 
 masters and small middlemen find their opportunity." 
 
 Deterioration of Unemployed. 
 
 The mass of the unemployed are those who have 
 deteriorated. " The unemployed as a class," as Mr C. 
 Booth says, "are a selection of the unfit, and on the 
 whole the most in want are the most unfit." They 
 earn little, but they can do little, and what they do 
 is of little value. Low as their wages are, their work 
 is dear at the price. Speaking of the applicants for 
 relief for the unemployed in Whitechapel, Canon 
 Barnett says, "There were few who seemed healthy 
 
 4—2 
 
52 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 or were strongly grown." " The majority had not the 
 stamina to make even a good scavenger." Those of us 
 who have been connected with similar efforts at Relief 
 have had similar experience. Here lies the difficulty of 
 the problem. Into this class of casual labourers drifts the 
 man whose skill has been superseded by some change of 
 industry and who cannot adapt himself to new economic 
 requirements ; the weak who cannot do a full day's work ; 
 the feeble, whose life in the vitiated air of a crowded 
 room in a poor street has lowered his vitality so that 
 the power of continuous work is sapped. These are 
 for the most part city born, evil products of ill con- 
 structed towns and of neglect of provision for the 
 elementary necessities of human well-being. 
 
 There are others, the victims of their own vices con- 
 stitutional or acquired, the lazy, the drunkard, the 
 indolent, who cannot keep a place when they get it, 
 and those who cannot stand the strain of regular 
 industry, and throw up work for no other reason than 
 the irksomeness of regularity of life\ and with the 
 speeding up of modern industry and its increasing 
 demand for high pressure we get an increasing number 
 of grown people decayed from their full strength : all 
 who from physical, mental, or moral infirmity have 
 
 1 None but those acquainted with persons of this class, especially 
 the young, can realise the way in which, when the irksomeness of 
 regular labour galls, they will throw up the most advantageous 
 positions and prospects and endure untold hardship and suffering just 
 because in their own phrase 'they could not settle.' 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 53 
 
 sunk down to the very bottom, into the slough of 
 despond, where they have lost all hope and all aspira- 
 tion ; and their children are gi^owing up habituated to 
 the lowest standard of life, and will pei^etuate the 
 misery and degradation in which they exist. 
 
 What are the Remedies? 
 
 Such are the main causes why men stand idle in the 
 market-place, such are the consequences of industrial dis- 
 organisation and moral defects. What are the remedies ? 
 There are those whose cry is for revolution, who would 
 have the community take over the means of production, 
 nationalise land and capital, and through elective 
 bodies organise the whole of our industrial system. 
 Notwithstanding the passing of the Norwich resolu- 
 tion^ such revolution is a long way off, and I do not 
 now propose to consider this particular remedy. The 
 end at which it aims is neither unjust nor unchristian, 
 but the means by which it is proposed to obtain 
 that end seem to me outside the range of present 
 practical politics. One lesson of the past which we 
 ought to have learnt is that violent changes work 
 no lasting good, and one truth of which the theory 
 of evolution ought to have convinced our age is that 
 
 ^ "That in the opinion of this Congress it is essential to the 
 maintenance of British industries to nationalise the land and the 
 whole of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and 
 that the Parliamentary Committee be instructed to promote and sup- 
 port legislation with the above ohject." Carried by 219 to 61. 
 
54 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 development is a slow process, and that the new forms 
 of social as well as other life must be gradual adapta- 
 tions of existing forms. 
 
 Trade Unions. 
 
 Trade Unions by mutual insurance, by the practice 
 of the Christian principle of sharing one another's 
 burdens, endeavour to protect their members from 
 the worst consequences of trade fluctuations, by allow- 
 ances to members out of work, by sharing the work 
 through short time when trade is slack (an arrangement 
 difficult to carry into effect where workmen are not 
 organised), and by helping to send their members to 
 places where workmen are required. Rarely is a 
 mechanic who is a member of a Union found among the 
 applicants for relief in those times of widespread misery 
 when Relief Funds are formed. Skilled mechanics 
 who sink into that condition are usually those who 
 have failed to take advantage of Union facilities. Un- 
 willing to pay the Union contribution they are less to 
 be pitied if they suffer in consequence. 
 
 Every group of workers organised is a group saved 
 from being driven by irregularity of employment into 
 the extreme of poverty, driven down to swell the class 
 of the hopeless and permanent casuals, when deteriora- 
 tion of body, soul and spirit is inevitable ^ 
 
 1 There is another side to the shield. Every trade organised makes 
 the pressure of the competition among those excluded from it more 
 severe ; each trade raises its own standard by lessening the amount of 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 55 
 
 The main difficulty of such organisation among the 
 unskilled labourers and women workers is that their pay 
 is so miserably small that there is not margin sufficient 
 to enable them to make provision for out-of-work 
 benefit. It is small partly in consequence of the severity 
 of competition among those who accept a low standard 
 of living which drives wages down, and drives women's 
 wages lower than men's ; partly in consequence of the 
 inefficiency of labour. Organisation will do something 
 to raise the former, and a wiser education which gives 
 greater prominence to industrial training will do some- 
 thing for the latter. As far as Unionism goes it does 
 much to solve the problem of the unemployed, but it 
 does not touch the poorly paid unskilled labourer, the 
 casual who so frequently stands idle because no man 
 hath hired him. 
 
 Charity. 
 
 There are those who would solve the difficulty by 
 
 Charity. The unemployed is very poor. Let the rich 
 
 competition and shutting out competitors. If the rate of increase of 
 any organised group is greater than the numbers admitted into the 
 group, the surplus population of that trade is driven into the ranks of 
 the unskilled workers, intensifies competition there, and depresses 
 those already the most depressed. Also the Union policy of insisting 
 on the same wage for all, for old and young, for men of all degrees 
 of capacity, renders it politic on the part of employers to dismiss 
 numbers of the less capable when prices tend to droop and trade to 
 decline. A group of men can only keep up a standard wage at the 
 cost of maintaining a portion of the group in times of depression. 
 The higher the standard wage maintained, the larger the number 
 who have to be so supported. 
 
56 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 then give him of their wealth. Give him a shilling and 
 
 send him away. That is the easiest way of disposing 
 
 of him. The shilling is however soon spent and the 
 
 man is in no better position than before. His poverty 
 
 will probably be increased rather than diminished, for 
 
 the knowledge that shillings may be thus obtained is 
 
 very apt to prove a snare, weakening in him and others 
 
 their efforts to gain a foothold among those who labour 
 
 steadily. The experience of all who have worked 
 
 among the poor is that such charity creates more 
 
 misery than it relieves. From time to time in periods 
 
 of trade depression, or severe weather, relief funds are 
 
 started, and the Poor Law Guardians open the stone 
 
 yards, where the usual remuneration is one shilling a 
 
 day, and for family men threepence for each child. 
 
 I had experience of such relief in 1883, 1884 and 1892. 
 
 Nothing was more striking than the reappearance of the 
 
 same faces on each occasion, showing how many of the 
 
 same persons were always among the unemployed. The 
 
 experience of others in other places is the same, and 
 
 tends to show that such relief funds do not really 
 
 help to tide men over a difficulty and restore them to 
 
 the position of self-supporting workers in the industrial 
 
 community \ 
 
 1 Such funds are always inadequate. I quote one sample which 
 is illustrative of many. "The Mansion House Fund failed to relieve 
 distress. In S. George's, in the East, there were nearly 4,000 appli- 
 cants, representing 20,000 persons. All these were in distress, cold 
 and hungry. Of these there were 2,400, representing 12,000 persons, 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 57 
 
 The casual labourer needs more, much more, than 
 gifts of money ; he needs a healthier home, more ade- 
 quate food, so that he may be physically better fitted 
 for labour ; he needs training ; he needs a higher ideal 
 of life ; he needs sympathy, encouragement and hope ; 
 he needs a share in those things which make life 
 enjoyable to the rich. 
 
 Provision of Work. 
 
 He is idle because no man hath hired him. Work, 
 not charity, is now the popular remedy. This is a 
 method of help every clergyman is almost daily asked 
 to give. It is a sad reflection that the result of one's 
 labours in obtaining work for one unemployed merely 
 changes the individual who is standing idle, and does 
 not lessen the number of unemployed. Your influence 
 which you are asked to exercise with some employer 
 secures the appointment of your protege, and perhaps 
 to please you another is dismissed, or at most, if one 
 was wanted, you have only secured the preference of 
 one over another. Unless you can succeed in finding 
 for one of the idle work which would not otherwise be 
 performed, and by the doing of which additional value 
 is created, the mass of the unemployed is in no way 
 
 whom the committee considered to be working people unemployed and 
 within the scope of the fund. For their relief £2,000 was apportioned ; 
 and if it had been equally divided each person would have had 3s. 4d. 
 on which to support life during three months." Barnett, Practical 
 Socialism, p. 65. 
 
58 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 diminished. Any one who has tried to find such work 
 realises the difficulty, the well-nigh insuperable diffi- 
 culty of finding it\ 
 
 The Local Government Board in November, 1892, 
 issued a circular to Local Authorities recommending 
 them to undertake local works of public utility during 
 the winter. It is certainly better that those standing 
 idle should be employed in labour which creates some 
 utility rather than in breaking stones, which is only 
 one degree removed from the absolutely futile labour 
 of the treadmill, but the value created rarely approxi- 
 mates to the expenditure incurred, for experience 
 shows that the man who is employed at even a shilling 
 a day is generally a very costly labourer. His ineffi- 
 ciency is the main cause of his poverty. Want of 
 work is not the real root of the disease, and the pro- 
 vision of it is not the cure-. When the provision of 
 work comes to an end the physically or morally in- 
 efficient worker is physically and morally unfit still, 
 he has not been lifted out of the slough of despond 
 and placed on the firm gi'ound of self-maintenance at 
 
 1 "Moreover, finding work is apt to be a sisj'phean task, the man 
 relies on you more than on himself, and, the job ended, back he comes 
 and the work of finding work for him begins again ; the rolling-stone 
 only rolls the more for your interference." Booth. 
 
 2 The experience in Glasgow was, "the men employed were those 
 whose distress though it might be sad enough was the result of 
 habits which would produce poverty and suffering in any case." And 
 this is the general experience. 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 59 
 
 an adequate wage. At the very best, provision of 
 work is but a costly palliative which serves to tide 
 over a period of exceptional trade depression. 
 
 Food — Training — Discipline. 
 
 The permanent raising up of those that are fallen 
 requires adequate food for those whose physique has 
 been lowered by long-continued semi-starvation ; train- 
 ing for those who have not adequate skill to earn 
 adequate maintenance; discipline for those who are 
 deficient in self-control, and hope which is a great 
 inspirer of effort, hope that by submitting to training 
 and discipline, he may gain the position of an inde- 
 pendent self-supporting worker. 
 
 Where training fails to raise to the degree of 
 efficiency required for self-maintenance, if the cause be 
 feebleness of mind or body, the feeble should be cared 
 for, as in a family we care for the sick and infirm ; 
 if the cause be idleness or drunkenness, or some other 
 form of immorality, then the discipline should be stern 
 and severe, and extend to the deprivation of liberty till 
 such time as reform is effected. 
 
 This would not be a violation of the principle of 
 brotherhood, for the recognition of brotherhood carries 
 with it a claim that he who is so recognised should 
 live as a brother, and if he fails to do so he must in 
 the interest of the rest of the family be placed under 
 conditions which will prevent his doing harm to the 
 
60 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 others. True love is not a mawkish sentiment and 
 does not hesitate to exercise discipline where it is 
 necessary^ 
 
 This conviction which experience has borne in upon 
 me is that at which Mr C. Booth has an-ived ; " some 
 day," he thinks, "the individualist community on which 
 we build our faith will find itself obliged for its own 
 sake to take charge of the lives of those who, from 
 whatever cause, are incapable of existence up to the 
 required standard. Beyond the malefic influence which 
 the imperative needs and ill-regulated lives of the class 
 we are considering exercise over the fortunes of those 
 who might otherwise do well enough, and beyond the 
 
 ^ The following extract from the evidence of the Eev. B. Waugh, 
 Director of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Children, given before the Eoyal Commission, illustrates the need of 
 discipline. "The experience of my Society is against meeting the 
 case of Underfed Children by charity. Since 1889 the Society has 
 had a Statute, under the powers of which it has been able to test the 
 cause of the neglect of children in various centres of population 
 throughout the land, and it has proved, by punishments and by 
 warnings of punishments, that it is in the power of nine-tenths of the 
 parents of children who are underfed to feed them. Eighty per cent, 
 of the cases we have dealt with arise from culpable neglect of parental 
 responsibility. One great cause of child nakedness and hunger is 
 idleness. Men, who from any cause are thrown out of work for a 
 long time, acquire a habit of idleness. In consequence of this idleness, 
 after the slackness of work passes, wives are expected to continue the 
 earning of the pittance which has kept the house together. Idleness 
 when it becomes a habit, from whatever cause, is a desperatism which 
 nothing but the rigour of the law can free. From the moment a man 
 knows that he must work, either at hard labour in a jail or at honest 
 labour out of jail, he does not long hesitate in making his choice." 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 61 
 
 fact that they do not support themselves but absorb 
 the charities of both rich and poor, they are also a 
 constant burthen to the State. What they contribute, 
 whether in rates or taxes, is little compared to the 
 expense they cause. Their presence in our cities 
 creates a costly and often unavailing struggle to raise 
 the standard of life and healths" 
 
 The unemployed casual needs training, discipline, 
 hope. The Church Army and General Booth are 
 trying to supply these in their Labour Homes and 
 Farms. There they give the discipline of work and 
 order; the training of Christian instruction and in- 
 fluence, and the hope of restoration to the ranks of 
 efficient workers. The uselessness of sending them 
 back to compete for odd jobs, or return to the ranks of 
 the unskilled where they would merely displace others, 
 have led both these agencies to aim at the creation of 
 new value by employing them to add to the stock of 
 wealth by cultivation of land which would otherwise 
 be uncultivated, or not so fully cultivated. These 
 efforts are useful as experiments, but they are not on 
 
 1 The Bishop of Durham expresses a similar opinion, "As far as 
 I can judge, the class of casual labourers require some extended 
 legislative protection, and I will venture to add some legislative 
 coercion. There are classes which are still children, and in their 
 case the Government must not shrink from discipline. It cannot 
 rightly leave uncorrected and unrestrained masses of men whose low 
 type spreads corruption. It treats attempted suicide as a crime: 
 it ought to treat 'the slow suicide of idleness' as a crime no less." 
 Westcott, The Incarnation and Revelation of Human Duties, p. 40. 
 
62 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 a scale which can grapple with the multitude, they can 
 touch but a few. 
 
 They seem however to indicate a possible line of 
 action. We import millions' worth of eggs, vegetables 
 and various kinds of agricultural produce which can 
 be grown in England, and at the same time English 
 land is going out of cultivation. Here then is a 
 field in which labour may be applied which will 
 create fresh value, not probably all which the main- 
 tenance of the unemployed will cost, but a reasonable 
 portion. It is not too much to hope that some day 
 every town will deal with its own unemployed and, 
 through the representatives of its citizens elected for 
 that purpose, provide a way of training and discipline 
 for those who, from whatever cause, are incapable of 
 performing work which will supply them with adequate 
 maintenance \ 
 
 Much has been said and written about a ladder 
 from the gutter to tlie University, we need still more 
 a ladder out of the gutter to adequate and independent 
 maintenance. Such a ladder would simplify many of our 
 town difficulties concerning helping our poorer brethren. 
 If we knew there was a means whereby the unfortunate 
 could by his own efforts win his way to industrial 
 maintenance, much charity now misapplied could be 
 diverted to more profitable channels. The honest 
 
 1 There is an excellent discussion of such Training for the Un- 
 employed in Practicable Socialism by Canon Barnett, p. 308. 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 63 
 
 industrious poor are so intermingled with the shiftless 
 and incapable that it is now well-nigh impossible for 
 public bodies, or societies which endeavour to provide 
 relief, to separate them. Schemes of relief which are 
 suited to the former only do harm to the latter, and 
 the shiftless generally succeed in appropriating the 
 gifts the benevolent intend for the industrious and 
 unfortunate. 
 
 The experiments of the Salvation Army and the 
 Church Army, the experiments of Labour Colonies 
 abroad, as yet not very successful and tentative, show 
 that the trend of opinion is that the remedy lies in the 
 direction I have indicated, so also does the growing 
 demand that the administrators of the Poor Law 
 should distinguish between the deserving and the 
 undeserving poor, which in practice means they should 
 separate the "sturdy vagabonds," to use the Elizabethan 
 term, from the helpless and unfortunate, and subject 
 them to sterner discipline. 
 
 I have endeavoured to lay before you the facts 
 concerning the number of those whom no man hath 
 hired, have endeavoured to point out some of the evil 
 consequences to the multitude of those who are not 
 hired, and have briefly commented on remedies which 
 have been suggested. I now pass to what may be 
 regarded as the aspect of the question most appropriate 
 for mention from this pulpit, the duty of the Church to 
 the unemployed. 
 
64 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 Assertion of the Claims of Brotherhood. 
 
 When the pagan emperor Decius demanded the 
 treasures of the Church they brought to him a mul- 
 titude of sick and poverty-stricken and miserable folk, 
 the very dregs of the city, and presented them to him, 
 saying, "Sire, these are the treasures of the Church, 
 these are what we care for most, the objects on which we 
 lavish our labours and pains." If we are true to Church 
 principles the treasures of the Church to-day should 
 be the multitude in our towns who are idle in the 
 market-place, and whose lives are the most miserable 
 in our cities. Christ's care for the least, His gift of 
 Himself for the lowest, gives to the most miserable, 
 even to the most undeserving of them, a claim on 
 the sympathy and help of His Church. The strongest 
 temptation which besets the Church — conformist or non- 
 conformist — is the temptation to place ministration to 
 the well-to-do first, and provide for their worship, their 
 tastes. To begin and end with the salvation of a respect- 
 able congregation, either salvation of their souls on evan- 
 gelical lines or by ritual and devotions, is not enough. 
 Far be it from me to undervalue evangelical doc- 
 trine or devotions. But evangelicalism that deprecates 
 worldliness and enjoys good dinners, or Churchmanship 
 which is satisfied with the delights of ritual and the 
 consolations of devotion, misses the true aim. As has 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 65 
 
 been well said\ "The crowning delusion of modern 
 Christianity is that salvation can be divorced from 
 helpfulness ; that men and women, who, in cities such 
 as ours, calmly look on with folded hands while sin is 
 rampant, and souls are wandering, and social foundations 
 crumbling, and vice and pauperism, hand in hand, are 
 defying all philanthropic effort, will what they call go 
 to heaven when they die, though their lives on earth 
 have been like the ship in Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner,' 
 
 Day after day, day after day, 
 With neither breath nor motion ; 
 
 As idle as a painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean. 
 
 The duty of the Church is to say to the rich, the 
 comfortable, the respectable, " Your Master whom you 
 worship was reproached with being the friend of pub- 
 licans and sinners : that reproach you, if you reverence 
 Christ, will share. These idlers in the market-place 
 are your brethren for whose salvation your Master 
 died." 
 
 The Church must stir Conscience. 
 
 It was the proclamation of the principle that the 
 negro was a man and a brother, and the bringing home 
 to the English nation of their responsibility, which put 
 an end to negro slavery. It is by the constant asser- 
 tion of the principle that the unemployed and the 
 irregularly employed, whose poverty dwarfs and ruins 
 ^ Canon Wilberforce. 
 E. H. L. 5 
 
66 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 their lives, are men and brothers, that the Church 
 must seek the emancipation of that slave of economic 
 circumstances, the unemployed. It is the duty of the 
 Church to stir the public conscience to the inhuman 
 conditions of life which result from want of regular 
 employment, and to drive home the fact that these, 
 our brethren, are not able to live true human lives such 
 as brothers should, and that we as a nation, as citizens, 
 are responsible for the continuance of this state of things. 
 It is for the Church to call the attention of Dives to 
 Lazarus, to bring home the responsibility of Dives for 
 the condition in which Lazarus is, and to make it clear 
 that crumbs from the table of the rich will not heal 
 the sores of Lazarus, are neither adequate nor satis- 
 factory as a remedy for the ills from which he suffers. 
 Till the public conscience is quickened to a sense of 
 its responsibility, and not till then, is there chance of 
 serious effort being made to remedy the evils \ 
 
 1 I know no better illustration of the true function of the Church 
 in Social reform than is to be found in the Journal of John Woolman, 
 which narrates how he, a poor tailor, had his conscience stirred as to 
 the iniquity of Slavery in the United States and then laboured by an 
 appeal to Christian principles to move the conscience of the members 
 of the Society of Friends. Slowly conviction spread, first certain 
 forms of slavery were condemned, then by degrees all slavery, and the 
 practice of slavery ceased among the Friends. Having cast out the 
 evil from among themselves the Friends laboured as a body to influence 
 public opinion, and their testimony and their work sowed the seed 
 which culminated in the Abolitionist victory. The Journal, which is 
 the autobiography of a beautiful and simple character, is a wonderful 
 illustration of the power of moral influence. 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 67 
 
 Principles asserted and driven home to conscience 
 have a way in course of time of working themselves 
 out into practice. We may not at once see clearly the 
 way to change the existing social order, but it is our 
 duty to assert and reassert that, when wealth in 
 abundance exists, more per head of the population 
 than at any former period, the principle of brotherhood 
 is not realised if a large proportion of the people live 
 under the conditions of casual labour, and that such a 
 state of things cries aloud for amendment. 
 
 The Church must study the Problem. 
 
 It is the duty of the Church in its care for Christ's 
 poor to study carefully the causes which produce the 
 evil conditions under which these brethren of ours 
 labour, and to watch sympathetically every remedy 
 suggested or attempted. Professors of theology devote 
 much time and thought to working out in detail the 
 application of the first great commandment. Some of 
 them might devote equal time and thought to working 
 out in detail the application of the second great com- 
 mand, which relates to our duty to our neighbours, 
 under the complex conditions of our social life. 
 
 The problem of the unemployed is complex, the 
 product of many causes and influences, and therefore 
 the remedies will be many : a juster Poor Law, better 
 homes, more sanitary conditions, a thousand influences. 
 All these it is the business of Churchmen to promote. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 It is because we acquiesce that they remain. But while 
 the problem of the unemployed is complex it divides 
 into two main sections: — want of employment occa- 
 sioned by the ebb of Trade, which is temporary, and 
 which will, as surely as in the tide which washes 
 our shores, be followed by the flood of returning con- 
 fidence and brisker trade : want of employment which 
 is permanent, dne to the change of industrial forms, 
 or to inefficiency, physical or moral ; due in one word 
 to the degi^adation of the worker. 
 
 As we see that the first of these is provided against 
 by the organisation of the older Unions and is fairly 
 effective in the field they cover, it is part of our duty 
 to use our influence to encourage such organisation, 
 for, as I said before, every group of workers organised 
 is a group saved from the worst evils of loss of employ- 
 ment due to trade fluctuations. But the lowest paid 
 cannot so organise; therefore one of the most pressing 
 needs of our time is the working out some definite 
 settled method of provision for those who are tem- 
 porarily thrown out of work by causes over which they 
 have no control, and whose idleness is not due to any 
 personal defect — a provision which shall not under- 
 mine self-respect or damage character. At present 
 no plan has been thought out or worked out. When 
 the tide of industry ebbs, the cry of distress is raised. 
 No preparation has been made, no plan thought out. 
 An appeal for funds goes forth, a relief fund is started ; 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 69 
 
 a method of assistance which has a thousand times 
 proved a failure. Surely the Church, knowing the 
 frequent occurrence of such a calamity, should not rest 
 content to leave things alone, but should show its true 
 care for those who are by trade depression compelled to 
 stand idle by calling together all the experience it can 
 gather in order to frame some better method of help. 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury summoned together re- 
 presentatives from every diocese to take action for the 
 preservation of the endowments of the Church in 
 Wales. An equally deep interest in the true treasures 
 of the Church, which are the poor and suffering, should 
 lead to some definite corporate action concerning the 
 relief of the temporarily unemployed. 
 
 Enforcement of Responsibility. 
 When we are clear as to the causes we can better 
 bring home the responsibility. Every one must bear 
 his share of responsibility for things being as they are. 
 Modern industry is more and more falling into the 
 hands of Companies. It is for the Church to awaken 
 the consciences of the shareholders to their responsi- 
 bility, to convince them that it is their duty to ascertain 
 how the business in which their money is invested is 
 carried on, whether efforts are made to prevent irregu- 
 larity of employment, whether the hours of unskilled 
 labourers such as Tramway men are excessive and the 
 general conditions humane, and make it felt that 
 
70 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 righteousness is of more importance than an increase 
 in the rate of dividend. 
 
 A friend of mine, who was a shareholder in a certain 
 Company, learnt that the conditions under which the 
 women workers were employed were unsatisfactory, 
 and conducive to immorality. He drew the attention 
 of the Directors to this, pointing out that the hours 
 and pay exposed their employees to great temptation 
 to prostitution, for they could not support and clothe 
 themselves on the pittance they received. He was 
 informed with brutal frankness that the Company had 
 no concern with that. Plenty could be obtained who 
 would accept the conditions. My friend withdrew his 
 investment. If every Churchman acted thus there 
 would soon be a change in the tone of the reports 
 presented at annual meetings, industrial conditions 
 would be recognised as being as important as dividends, 
 and it would be admitted that even to Companies the 
 rule applies, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and 
 his righteousness," and then, and not till then, other 
 things such as dividends shall be added. 
 
 It is for the Church to bring home the responsibilit}', 
 not of investment only but of expenditure, and make 
 each ask himself: When there are so many whose lives 
 are poor and meagre, poor in pleasures both as regards 
 kind and quality, poor in those things which give 
 interest and variety to life, pictures and books and 
 music and travel, and who for lack of these are dull. 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 71 
 
 or seek distraction in rough, coarse ways which alone 
 are readily within their reach, how far am I justified 
 in heaping up luxuries for my self-indulgence? Is 
 not the best use I can make of such luxuries not to 
 keep them for myself, but to use them to brighten other 
 lives, to let others share ^ ? 
 
 The Promotion of Brotherly Relations. 
 
 The East is separated from the West ; it is the 
 duty of the Church to bring them together, their 
 separation is hurtful to both. The East has not 
 personal knowledge of the West, and thinks ill of it, 
 and the West thinks the dwellers in the East much 
 worse than they are. Mutual knowledge removes 
 distrust, and is the first step towards true helpfulness. 
 
 I alluded to the effect of Trade Disputes on employ- 
 ment. These conflicts are often personal rather than 
 economical, due to personal misunderstandings, faults 
 of individual temper or bearing: nothing smooths 
 away such difficulties so much as personal intercourse. 
 When the Church, which, as the Church of Christ, is 
 equally the Church of master and man, brings to- 
 gether employer and employed in friendly discussion, 
 it performs the true part of a peacemaker, promotes 
 
 1 We must never forget that this life, which to us would not be 
 worth living, and would be unbearably cheerless, is one to which 
 legions of our fellow-creatures are doomed; and that they are so 
 doomed partly on account of our own excessive indulgence. 
 
72 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 brotherly relationships and so mitigates industrial evils. 
 The Bishop of Durham, by often bringing together for 
 friendly discussion representatives of employers and 
 employed, assisted in no small degree in promoting that 
 better understanding which has resulted in the forma- 
 tion of Conciliation Boards in the Mining Industries of 
 both Durham and Northumberland. 
 
 It is not the function of the Clergy as such to 
 settle disputes or act as arbitrators, they rarely possess 
 the technical knowledge requisite for the task, and as 
 clergy it is not our function ' to divide the inheritance.' 
 But it is the function of all clergy and of all Churchmen 
 to use their influence to promote brotherly relationships. 
 Perhaps there is no way in which the Church can help 
 more towards the solution of the problem of the unem- 
 ployed than by bringing together employer and em- 
 ployed, the casual labourer, the skilled artisan, the 
 organiser of industry, and the man of education who 
 can be in sympathy with the points of view of each\ 
 
 ^ Such a Conference was held on Oct. 26, 1895, at Auckland Castle 
 under the presidency of Bishop Westcott, for consideration of the 
 policy which should be pursued in times of exceptional distress, when 
 the following resolutions were passed : 
 
 I. That where exceptional distress exists, or is said to exist, 
 it is desirable that all efforts to relieve it should be made 
 in concert with the Guardians ; and that any body which 
 may already have been formed, or may be formed, to 
 relieve it, should co-operate with them. 
 II. That with a view to such co-operation it is desirable that a 
 permanent representative Committee of men and women 
 
AND THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 73 
 
 One class in the community cannot save another, but 
 one class may help another to save itself. By mutual 
 conference, by wise suggestion, by carefully considered 
 methods the casual labourer may be helped to raise 
 himself, stimulated to work out his own salvation by 
 the awakening in him of higher desire and hope, and 
 in the effort he will develop that strength of character 
 which now he so sadly lacks. 
 
 But for each one of us the vital question is, Lord, 
 what wouldest thou have me to do? what part should 
 I take in the discharging my duty as a member of thy 
 Church towards those whose lives are degraded and made 
 miserable by standing idle so long in the market-place ? 
 / don't know. The answer to that question is between 
 your conscience and God. 
 
 should be formed in each Union on the lines of the 
 Charity Organisation Society, -which would be prepared 
 to deal with the distress. 
 
 III. That this Committee determine, after communication with 
 
 the Guardians, when it is desirable that an appeal for 
 funds should be issued. 
 
 IV. That while every advantage should be taken of the know- 
 
 ledge of the Relieving OflBcers, the actual distribution of 
 the funds should not be in their hands, but must be in 
 the hands of paid agents of the Committee. 
 
 V. That in view of the evils of overlapping and multiplication 
 of agencies, it is desirable that all administration of 
 relief should be centred in such a Committee ; and that 
 on the one hand the co-operation of existing charities 
 should be sought, and on the other the institution of 
 rival funds should be discouraged. 
 
74 THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED. 
 
 What I do know is, that it is not so much money as 
 personal service, personal brotherliness which is needed. 
 It is much easier to obtain money for a boys' or girls' 
 club than to get volunteers to give up some evening 
 every week to make friends with the boys and girls, 
 and by friendship quietly win them to higher ideals of 
 spending their leisure, higher ideals of life. 
 
 When men recognise that our faith makes us act as 
 their brethren, then they will more readily believe in 
 and worship our Father, and recognise Him as their 
 Father. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 the homes of the people. 
 
 Isaiah lxii. 6, 7. 
 
 I have set watchmen upon thy ivalls, Jerusalem, which 
 shall never hold their peace da,y nor night; ye that 
 make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give 
 him no rest, till he establish, and till he make 
 Jerusalem a praise in the earth. 
 
 Whether the book of Isaiah is the composition of 
 one writer or more is a question I am not competent to 
 determine. Whether there was an Isaiah of the period 
 of national decadence which preceded the great national 
 defeat and fall, and another of the period of the captivity, 
 I know not, but this I do know : — Never has faith been 
 exhibited in stronger form; never have social evils been 
 more bravely and decisively tracked to their ultimate 
 source, and more clearly shown to be the result of 
 neglect or defiance of the Divine principles of righteous- 
 ness ; never has man had more clear vision of the glories 
 
76 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 of the golden age which will be when society is consti- 
 tuted according to the Divine order ; never has reliance 
 on the ultimate triumph of righteousness, when it will 
 no longer be 
 
 " Truth for ever on the scaffold 
 And Wrong for ever on the throne," 
 
 never has such faith found more confident expression 
 than in this book of Isaiah. 
 
 As was natural with a Hebrew seer whose national 
 patriotism and religious aspiration centred in Jerusalem 
 and its temple, the figure under which he sees the glory 
 that shall be is Jerusalem, the beloved city, restored 
 and called Hephzibah and Beulah, the city in which the 
 Lord delighteth and to which He is bound by the 
 closest of ties, because there His will is done, His 
 righteousness realised. The glory, the happiness, the 
 blessedness of that city become the wonder, admiration 
 and desire of all nations. 
 
 A portion of Isaiah's vision, descriptive of this holy 
 city which shall some day be built on earth, was read 
 this morning in every parish church in this land\ It is 
 a vision which Christ endorsed and accepted as ex- 
 pressing the aim of His work on earth by reading 
 the opening words and then saying, '* This day is this 
 Scripture fulfilled in your ears." Thus the vision of the 
 Hebrew seer is no vain dream of human imagination, 
 
 ^ This lecture was delivered on Jan. 26, the Third Sunday after 
 Epiphany. 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 77 
 
 but expresses the hope, the ambition, the aspiration, the 
 work of the followers of Christ. It is a vision which 
 calls the Church of Christ to the work of building up, on 
 earth, cities constituted according to Divine laws wherein 
 righteousness is realised in the facts and conditions of 
 life, where love holds sway, and peace and happiness for 
 all result. It is of this work I have to speak in these 
 lectures. In the first I described its method, in the 
 second I applied the method to the problem of the 
 unemployed. 
 
 The Environment of Home. 
 
 To-day I ask you to bear with me while I strive to 
 discharge the duty of a watchman on the walls of Jeru- 
 salem, and consider how the Church can apply the 
 principles which I laid down in the first lecture to the 
 homes of those who dwell in towns. It is one of the 
 most vital of all problems. No environment has 
 such influence as the environment of home. The 
 home is the recognised nursery of the public virtues 
 and the public affections; or, as Mazzini puts it, in 
 characteristic phrase, "it is the place where between 
 the mother's kiss and the father's caress the child's first 
 lesson of citizenship is learnt." We may even go 
 further and say that there the first lessons of heavenly 
 citizenship are learnt, for the child's first conception of 
 the Father in heaven and his relation to Him is a 
 transference to the unseen God of the ideas and experi- 
 
78 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ences of his relationship to his earthly parents and of 
 their care and love. 
 
 " The influence of our Faith," says Bishop Westcott, 
 " should show that the acknowledgment of brotherhood 
 in Christ leads us to enquire into the conditions in 
 which the majority of those whom we call brethren 
 actually live." " Domestic life," said Manning, " creates 
 a people." The domestic life of our citizens must be of 
 deep concern to every watcher on the walls of our cities, 
 for on it, more almost than aught else, depends the well- 
 being, the character and happiness of the citizens. 
 
 Overcrowding. 
 
 An enquiry was instituted in Glasgow into the 
 housing of the people. Here are some figures from the 
 report : 31,000 dwellings consisted of one room\ 53,000 
 of two rooms, only 33,000 of more than two rooms ; 
 100,000 persons, or about one-fifth of the total popula- 
 tion, lived in single rooms. 
 
 Those are appalling figures. In England, however, 
 the proportion in single rooms is not so large. 
 
 ^ "The result of the one room system is the one bed system. The 
 single room system forges incest, illegitimacy, juvenile prostitution, 
 drunkenness, dirt, idleness, disease, and a death-rate higher than 
 that of Grosvenor Square. The rate of mortality in a certain quarter 
 of St Pancras was stated by Dr Murphy to have reached, in 1882, the 
 enormous rate of 70-1 per thousand. The average death-rate for 
 England is 19-6 per thousand." Arnold White, Problems of a Great 
 City. 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 79 
 
 According to the last census in the country as a 
 whole, 3,058,044 persons, forming 11 per cent, of the 
 population, are living in overcrowded tenements, 642,000 
 having only one room, 2,416,617 only two rooms. If 
 overcrowding be defined as more than two persons to a 
 room, then in London nearly 20 per cent, of the popu- 
 lation are overcrowded. 
 
 Those who are not personally familiar with the con- 
 ditions under which the dwellers in our towns live can 
 find in Mr C. Booth's Labour and Life of the People a 
 carefully drawn picture of the homes of London, and 
 his picture of the conditions of life in London is with 
 slight modification a fair picture of the conditions which 
 prevail in all our large towns \ 
 
 The crowding together of so many in such a limited 
 area is detrimental to health, and lowers the physical 
 vitality. The Royal Commission of 1884 stated that 
 
 ^ If it be asked what class of persons live under the worst con- 
 ditions as to overcrowding, the reply is the least skilled labourers 
 and the irregularly employed, the class whose condition we con- 
 sidered in the last lecture, and men and women who have drunk 
 themselves out of better positions of life, who, though now in regular 
 employment, prefer to spend their money in drink rather than on 
 rent, also idle vagabonds who work as little as they can. It is 
 amongst these classes that overcrowding with its attendant evils 
 chiefly finds place. Many are content by nature, or grow content 
 by habit, with the one room and its indecencies. If they were 
 in better houses to-morrow at the same rent they would not feel so 
 happy. There is a sympathy between them and their degraded 
 dwellings. They have mutual influence. See Beport of Committee 
 on the Bristol Poor, p. 40. 
 
80 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 every working man and working woman lost upon the 
 lowest average about 20 days in a year from simple 
 exhaustion, occasioned by the vitiated air of overcrowded 
 dwellings. The mischief, however, goes further than 
 the actual day's labour lost ; the vital energy is sapped, 
 the power of work diminished, and this causes the very 
 poor to be inefficient workers, and thus keeps down 
 those who are already down. 
 
 The influence of overcrowding shows itself in the 
 death-rate of children, which is about three times 
 greater in poor districts than in better quarters of our 
 towns \ The Church keeps Holy Innocents' Day every 
 
 1 The statistics of the recruiting department of the army demon- 
 strate the physical inferiority of the town bred to the country bred. 
 In height, weight and chest measurement the countryman is decidedly 
 superior. We are not deteriorating as a nation. Bad as the influence 
 of town life is it is less deleterious than it was. The Local Govern- 
 ment Board in 1873 compared the weights of factory children with 
 the weights recorded in 1833 and found an increase of height and 
 weight equivalent to one year, i.e. a child of 9 was in 1873 physically 
 up to the standard of a child of 10 in 1833. While this is so it must 
 not be forgotten that the vigour of the town population is to a large 
 extent maintained by the constant immigration of the country 
 population of superior physique. The report on the Condition of 
 the Poor in Bristol states, p. 29, " Such immigration from the country 
 into big cities feeds them with life. Without the continuous influx 
 of such healthy and vigorous natures it is not too much to say that 
 in these days, when the strain entailed by competition seriously 
 affects the health of the town workman and that of his wife and 
 cliildren, the character and power of town labour would quickly 
 deteriorate. It is certain that this country immigration is continually 
 displacing older and feebler hands in towns and throwing them into 
 the out-of-work or irregularly employed classes." 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 81 
 
 year in memory of the massacre of a few children who 
 were slain nearly 2000 years ago at Bethlehem, but it 
 allows to pass, almost unnoticed, the massacre of inno- 
 cents which takes place every year, in every town, in 
 England, and which is a massacre that could be pre- 
 vented \ 
 
 I will adduce but one fact in support of my statement 
 that it can be prevented. In the Peabody buildings, 
 though the earnings of the inmates are only 245. a week, 
 the death-rate is 2 per cent, below the average for the 
 whole of London, and many per cent, below that of the 
 poor streets. That shows how much the high death-rate 
 is due to the conditions of the dwellings, and how, when 
 the dwellings are improved, the massacre of the inno- 
 
 1 The rate of infantile mortality per 100,000 is 21,803 in towns, 9717 
 in rural districts. Eegistrar- General's returns. 
 
 2 Those who become acquainted with the family histories of the 
 poorest class can hardly fail to have brought home to them how 
 comparatively few survive out of large families. A favourite subject 
 of conversation among the women is the number of children they 
 have buried. Not that the parents are wanting in affection, far 
 otherwise, but funerals play such a very important part in the lives 
 of the very poor, and are such a source of interest, and give such 
 opportunity of display of personal importance, that women report 
 the number of funerals which stand to their credit with a tone akin 
 to pride. 
 
 For similar observations by Miss Collett, see Booth's Labour and 
 Life of the People, Vol. i. p. 475. 
 
 The effect of overcrowding upon the health of the people can be 
 gauged from the following table taken from the Report of the Medical 
 Ofl&oer of Health for the London County Council. 
 
 E. H. L. 6 
 
82 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Destructive as the conditions of existence in the 
 poor streets are to the bodily life, they are still more 
 destructive to the moral life. How can the tender 
 plant of decency and delicate feeling be reared where 
 both sexes and all ages are compelled to sleep together ? 
 Think also of the difficulty of escaping from contami- 
 nating influences in a street of houses in which almost 
 every room contains a family, and privacy is impossible. 
 What would be the effect on our families if an adjoin- 
 ing room were occupied by a couple of single women, 
 whose occupation of prostitution was carried on under 
 the observation of all the children of the street, in 
 which business the whole street took an interest, and, as 
 I have seen them do, the children crowded round and 
 tried to peep through cracks in door and window ? Think 
 of the sights and sounds which daily present themselves 
 to eye and ear, the drunkenness, the quarrelling, the 
 oaths. And then think of the words ' Home, sweet 
 Home, there is no place like Home,' and there is a ring 
 
 Proportion of population living Death-rate from 
 
 more than 2 in a room, in tenements all causes, 
 
 of less than 5 rooms. 1885—1892. 
 
 Districts under 15 p. c 17-51 per 1000 
 
 15— 20 p. c 19-51 
 
 20— 25 p. c 20-27 
 
 25— 30 p. c 21-76 
 
 30—35 p. c 23-96 
 
 35— 40 p. c 25-07 
 
 "In one way or another, effective working Ufe is ten years longer 
 in the country than in the town, or speaking generally, is as seventy 
 to sixty." C. Booth. 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 83 
 
 of mockery in the association of such words with such 
 places. For us our home is a place into which we can 
 retire and shut out all contaminating influences ; a place 
 of rest and peace from the toil of life; where with books, 
 music, games, or our hobbies, we can occupy our- 
 selves and enjoy the society of our families. But in 
 poor districts, where a whole family is crowded into a 
 room, there is neither rest nor peace within the narrow 
 space of the home, and life is therefore lived in the 
 street. To preserve the moral tone of a public school it 
 is often found necessary to get rid of a boy or girl whose 
 influence is bad. But those who live in a crowded 
 tenement in a poor street have no power of ridding 
 themselves of the contaminating influence of a degraded 
 family, their poverty often prevents removal, and if they 
 do remove, the neighbours of the next room they take 
 may be little better, so they often stay on, attempting 
 as best they may to keep themselves to themselves ^ 
 If the Church as watchman on the walls is to give 
 
 1 There is a moral as well as a physical side to overcrowding ; and 
 in houses where the physical death-rate may be low, the moral death- 
 rate (so to speak) may be high. Even the best system of drainage 
 cannot carry off the effects on youthful characters of men, women, 
 boys, girls living without separation of sexes in one room; nor the 
 most sedulous isolation of infected physical cases counteract the 
 smirching of modesty which comes from the constant contact with 
 indecent sights. In many overcrowded houses innocence is often 
 tainted in infancy and purity perishes in the teens. Report of the 
 Committee on the Bristol Poor, 1884, pubHshed by P. S. King and Son, 
 London. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 men no rest till they establish, and till they make our 
 cities a praise in the earth, we must never cease from 
 crying aloud concerning the conditions of the homes of 
 the citizens till the evils are remedied. 
 
 The Homes of the People a Religious Question. 
 
 "I am certain," said Lord Shaftesbury, "I speak the 
 truth, and a truth which can be confirmed by the 
 testimony of all experienced persons, clergy, medical 
 men and all who are conversant with the working class, 
 that until their domiciliary conditions are Christianised 
 (I can use no less forcible term) all hope of moral and 
 social improvement is utterly vain. The question of 
 the homes of the people is in a very real sense a 
 religious question." There is a deep hypocrisy in our 
 being at our ease in Zion, as we sit in some church, 
 where we utilise every external accessory to aid the 
 devotion of the spirit, or sit in some comfortable pew in 
 a chapel, and pray " Thy will be done in earth as it is 
 in heaven," if we do nothing to remove the causes of 
 degradation in the courts and alleys which exist, perhaps, 
 within a stone's throw. Subscribing to the stipend of a 
 Curate, a Bible-woman, or Town Missionary, does not 
 discharge all our duty to these our poorer neighbours. 
 Of what avail are the labours of those so sent, if the 
 daily and hourly influences of life are degrading ? 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 85 
 
 Gladly do I admit the value of the work they do, 
 and well do I know, that amidst all the squalor and 
 degradation, there are some who withstand the evil 
 influences and live pure and noble lives, and that 
 the poor are true Samaritans, true neighbours, to the 
 poor : but for the many, the influence of their environ- 
 ment is destructive of characters which are by nature 
 capable of good ; for the natural depravity of the poor is 
 not greater than that of any other class, their natural 
 goodness is not less, they are not born bad, they are what 
 they are very largely because of the conditions under 
 which their poverty compels them to live in our towns. 
 
 We cannot shelter ourselves under the plea that 
 such ills are the result of the social system, the product 
 of economic law. That plea would justify any iniquity 
 which exists. That plea was urged when Lord Shaftes- 
 bury drew attention to the frightful miseries of factory 
 children. That evil is remedied. The fact is, the 
 social system is what we choose to make it ; if we 
 tolerate evils they will remain ; if we resolutely deter- 
 mine, we can mend them or end them. 
 
 The knowledge of economic law is a necessary 
 means to an end. When we know the causes which 
 produce a result we have learnt how to set to work. 
 Our knowledge of the laws of nature is the source 
 of our power over nature. Our knowledge of economic 
 laws gives us power over social conditions. 
 
86 the homes of the people. 
 
 Causes of Overcrowding. 
 
 Let me indicate some of the economic causes which 
 have produced the present conditions. 
 
 The population of our towns has grown by leaps and 
 bounds, but the increase in dwellings has been re- 
 stricted by the individual ownership of land. More 
 people required more houses, but additional houses 
 could not be built without land, and the owners 
 of eligible building sites would not part with the 
 land except at high prices, they would wait till the 
 urgent necessity of the people for land on which to 
 build would enable them to realise from £1000 to 
 £2000 per acre or more. The law made waiting profit- 
 able by exempting the land from taxation; while 
 waiting, owners are rated, not on the real value of the 
 land for building, but on its agricultural value, not on 
 say £50 but on £4 per acre\ Our land system 
 
 1 The system of Compounding for the Rates by which large 
 deductions, as much as 30 per cent., are made in the case of all property 
 below a certain rental has in many towns operated as a barrier against 
 any further improvement in the dwellings of the wage-earning 
 population. In Gateshead compounding is allowed where the rent 
 does not exceed 5s. per week, and as a result there are practically no 
 houses erected at any rental above that. It would not pay to provide 
 one or two additional bedrooms as might be done at a slight extra 
 cost, for the extra outlay could not be recouped by an increase in the 
 rent of 4d. or 6d a week because then the deduction for Compounding 
 would not be allowed. Compounding was introduced to save trouble 
 and loss to the rating authorities by making it profitable for the 
 owners of tenement property to pay the rates, and so relieve the rate 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 87 
 
 enhanced the value of sites, and made new houses costly, 
 and the more costly it is to erect additional houses, the 
 greater becomes the value of all houses which exist, 
 and the higher rise the rents, and therefore it becomes 
 increasingly difficult for those whose incomes are small 
 to obtain adequate house room. 
 
 The difficulty of obtaining land on the outskirts for 
 the expansion of towns as population increased made it 
 profitable to build on every available space within the 
 town. Garden Court is a common name, which denotes 
 that what was once the garden of a self-contained 
 dwelling has been covered over with buildings, and the 
 light and air space of the town correspondingly reduced. 
 This process of filling up the small open spaces which 
 were formerly scattered over the town has been intensified 
 by the facilities of communication, which have enabled 
 the well-to-do to find fresh air and space far from their 
 place of business. The poorer worker could not affi^rd 
 time, or money, to go outside the town, so the richer 
 man who left turned his house into tenements and built 
 over the space around it. A house built for the occupa- 
 tion of a single family is ill adapted for the occupancy 
 of 10 or 20 families, is ill furnished with the conveni- 
 ences of decent existence. Much more than light and 
 
 collectors of the difl&culty of collecting from a poor and migratory 
 class. It has been efficacious for that purpose, but its influence in 
 preventing the further improvement of working class dwellings is I 
 venture to think an evil which more than counterbalances the good. 
 
88 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ventilation were lost when tradesmen ceased to live 
 over their shop, or next door to their factory, there was 
 loss of contact of the different classes, loss of that per- 
 sonal knowledge of each other's lives, which is the best 
 foundation of all true helpfulness of one class by another. 
 It is this removal of the well-to-do which brought about 
 that congregation of the poor in large masses which now 
 saddens and disheartens us. 
 
 Thus the chief cause at the root of overcrowding 
 is selfish greed, operating through our present system 
 of absolute ownership in land\ As the evils which 
 the unchecked pursuit of gain in industrial manu- 
 facture occasioned rendered Factory Acts a necessity 
 to restrain the oppression of the defenceless wage- 
 earners, so in like manner the evils of overcrowding 
 
 1 This has enabled the owners of suburban sites and of land in 
 towns to take advantage of the necessities of their neighbours, and 
 has led them to attach more importance to the money they were 
 able to obtain in consequence of these necessities than to the well- 
 being of their fellow-men. The men who acted thus were not neces- 
 sarily worse than others ; they acted as others acted on the accepted 
 principle that each man should make the most he could of his own, 
 and did not realise the evils they were causing, or the responsibility 
 they were incurring. To change the method of ownership which the 
 law has so long sanctioned and abolish land monopoly would be 
 difiicult now, and could not be fairly or justly effected by any sudden 
 legislative enactment, but efforts should be made to prevent the in- 
 crease of value which is occasioned by the growth of the population 
 of towns enriching private individuals. The principle of betterment 
 is with justice capable of wide extension. There might be periodical 
 valuations of sites, and any increase in value might be made payable 
 to the municipality as a ground-rent. 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 89 
 
 caused the community, by Parliamentary enactment, to 
 check the right of a man to do as he likes with his own. 
 By Public Health Acts, Sanitary Regulations, Building 
 Acts, Town Bye- Laws, regulations are laid down, in- 
 sisting upon a certain amount of space and light and 
 sanitary requirements, and powers have been conferred 
 upon municipalities, by the exercise of which they can 
 condemn dwellings unfit for habitation, can pull down 
 whole areas which are unsanitary and rebuild them. 
 Parliament has discharged its duty so far as passing 
 laws is concerned. Lord Salisbury long ago said, " As 
 to these sanitary evils, nothing is wanted beyond this, 
 that the law should do in effect what, as it now stands, 
 it professes to do." The Local Government Board in a 
 circular issued (about 1888) said: "We cannot avoid 
 the conclusion that a large number of the working 
 population of this country are at present housed in 
 tenements which are either unfit for human habitation, 
 or in such a condition as to be distinctly prejudicial to 
 the health of the inmates. There can be no doubt of 
 the gravity of the evils which result from the unsanitary 
 condition of the dwellings of the poor, or of the ability 
 of sanitary authorities, by a strenuous and judicious 
 exercise of the powers which the Legislature has con- 
 ferred on them for this purpose, to effect a very material 
 improvement in the present condition of these dwell- 
 ings.... These have been entrusted to the sanitary 
 authorities in order that they may be exercised for the 
 
90 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 protection of the poor, who are unable themselves, for 
 the most part, to enforce the observance of the laws 
 relating to the public health by the landlords." 
 
 Since that circular was issued the various laws have 
 been consolidated, and further powers given in the 
 Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890. And 
 yet Lady Jeune truly wrote not long ago, " All over 
 London the sanitary authorities have neglected their 
 duty. Those who labour among the indigent find that 
 the greatest difficulty of rendering them permanent and 
 efficient aid is due to the shocking unsanitary con- 
 ditions under which they have to live," and we who 
 labour in provincial towns have to make a similar 
 statement. 
 
 The Need of stronger Public Opinion. 
 
 How comes this contrast between what might be 
 and what is ? As I was writing this an evening paper 
 supplied an illustration. A number of unsanitary con- 
 ditions were reported to a District Council in the North 
 of England, not for the first, nor even the second time. 
 What was done ? The Council formally resolved that 
 nothing should be done. The Medical Officer naturally 
 remarked, that in the face of such a resolution it was a 
 waste of time for him to report sanitary defects. The 
 Council manifestly thought so too. The members of 
 that Council were probably no worse than other men, 
 and most likely attended church or chapel, but it had 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 91 
 
 never come home to them that their religious profession 
 carried with it the obligation of preventing their 
 brethren suffering from ill health, and that " thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour as thyself" had any direct bearing 
 on the vote they gave at a Council meeting. 
 
 Sanitary reform involved expense ; they did not want 
 expense ; that was the aspect which presented itself to 
 their minds ; the health and well-being of those who 
 chose or were compelled to live in those unsanitary 
 houses seemed no concern of theirs, they did not realise 
 that they were their brothers' keepers. 
 
 But they were not the only persons at fault. The 
 electors who elected them must share the responsibility. 
 If the Council had not felt sure the electors were apa- 
 thetic they would have taken action, and taken it quickly. 
 
 The Duty of the Church. 
 
 Here in this matter of the homes of the citizens the 
 first duty of the Church is to exercise its prophetic 
 office by asserting the principle of human brotherhood, 
 and labouring to bring home to every conscience the 
 duty of securing brotherly conditions of life, a fuller 
 recognition of the principle "thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself." It can placard the facts which 
 disgrace our towns and degrade our brethren, and quicken 
 conscience to the contrast between the principles which 
 we acknowledge and the facts of life, and so create 
 public opinion. 
 
92 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 It is the duty of the Church, as watchmen on the 
 walls, to bring home responsibility, and make everyone 
 whose conscience it can touch alive to the fact that, in 
 so far as he is a factor in the opinion of the town, he is 
 responsible for the evils which are permitted to exist. 
 It is the duty of the Church to bring home to every 
 owner that he is personally responsible for the con- 
 dition of the property from which he draws his rents, 
 and that he cannot rid himself of that responsibility by 
 appointing an agent to collect his rents. The agent 
 may stand between him and his tenants, but he does 
 not stand between him and the judgment of God. Mr 
 Chamberlain has said, the law should make it an offence 
 punishable by a heavy fine to own. property in a state 
 unfit for human habitation. Someone else has sug- 
 gested that owners of such property should be classed 
 with the sellers of unsound meat, and treated accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 But whatever the law may or may not do, the 
 Church should make it impossible for the conscience of 
 any Churchman to draw revenue from any property, 
 unless there is in connection with it all that is required 
 for healthy human life. 
 
 Duties of Occupiers. 
 
 But there is another side to the question. The 
 blame for existing evils does not all lie at the doors of 
 landlords and landowners. Not unfrequently landlords, 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 93 
 
 who have striven hard and spared no expense to render 
 their property fit for human habitation, have found their 
 efforts and their expenditure rendered futile by the 
 tenants. 
 
 In my parish there was a row of houses in wretched 
 condition, broken windows, broken plaster, filth, dirt, 
 squalor. The owner turned out the tenants, and turned 
 in carpenters, plasterers, and builders, and provided 
 every convenience. When finished, all was done that a 
 landlord could do to make decent homes. The greater 
 part of the row was let to the same class of tenant as 
 the previous occupants, and in less than 12 months 
 they were as dirty, as miserable looking, as squalid as 
 before. You may take a family out of a hovel, but if 
 the members of that family are vicious, dirty, undisci- 
 plined, the better house will soon become a filthy hovel. 
 There are types which cannot be suddenly reformed 
 even if their environment is changed. 
 
 Miss Octavia HilP describes the effect of admitting 
 persons of this class as tenants of a block of model 
 dwellings, and likens it to taking a bad girl into a 
 school. "Regulations are of no avail, no public in- 
 spection can possibly for more than an hour or two 
 secure order, no resident superintendent has at once 
 conscience, nerve, and devotion, single handed to stem 
 the violence, the dirt, the noise, the quarrels : no body 
 
 1 Booth, Labour and Life of the People, Vol. ii. p. 265. 
 
94 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 of public opinion on the part of the tenants themselves 
 asserts itself, one by one disheartened the tidier ones 
 depart, the rampant remain and prevail. Sinks and 
 drains are stopped ; yards provided for exercise must 
 be closed because of misbehaviour ; boys bathe in drink- 
 ing water cisterns : wash-houses on staircases, or stair- 
 cases themselves, become the nightly haunt of the 
 vicious, the Sunday gambling places of boys ; the yell 
 of the drunkard echoes through the hollow passages, 
 the stairs are blocked by dirty children, and the life of 
 any decent hard-working family becomes intolerable." 
 
 We find ourselves shut up in a vicious circle. The 
 influence of bad homes has formed bad habits and these 
 habits once acquired destroy good homes. Is there any 
 way out of the difficulty ? Can we convert the appa- 
 rently vicious circle into an ascending spiral ? Much 
 may be done by legislative coercion. 
 
 If the law enforce the responsibilities of those who 
 own houses, it is only fair it should enforce the respon- 
 sibilities of those who occupy them. The claim of 
 brotherhood carries with it the claim of brotherly living. 
 We need, as I pointed out in the first lecture, a fuller re- 
 cognition of the principle, that the enforcement of disci- 
 pline is not inconsistent with the recognition of brother- 
 hood. In the interest of the whole family each must 
 order his life so as not to harm the life of the commu- 
 nity. We are more and more recognising this principle 
 and embodying it in our legislation. We compel 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 95 
 
 parents to send their children to school, we have 
 extended the sphere of the law for better enforcement 
 of parental responsibility, and we enforce sanitary regu- 
 lations, and the removal of persons suffering from in- 
 fectious diseases \ 
 
 With the aggregation of population and the increas- 
 ing complexity of human relationships, industrial and 
 social, the need of restrictive legislation increases. A 
 man may ride his bicycle at 20 miles an hour along a 
 desolate country road, but if he ride down Fleet Street, 
 his pace must be sober, and that in the interest of others 
 as well as of himself The dweller in towns, for the 
 privileges he obtains, must sacrifice much of the right 
 to do as he likes, he must submit to the law for the 
 sake of the general well-being. I will not discuss 
 whether the law should be enforced through the land- 
 lord or the tenant, but, as illustrative of what may be 
 done in the direction I have indicated, I will describe 
 what is done in Berlin I 
 
 1 Few pieces of legislation have had more salutary effects than the 
 passing of the Children's Charter, and the action of the Society for 
 the Prevention of Cruelty in enforcing it. Law has often an educative 
 influence, and the law in question, by making it less difficult to prove 
 neglect and enforce penalties, has quickened the sense of parental 
 responsibilities among those who interpreted parental liberty as parental 
 license, and it is raising the recognised standard of parental duty. 
 While we cannot legislate in advance of public opinion, legislation 
 can quicken the pace of the laggards, and raise their practice and 
 their sentiments nearer the average level. 
 
 2 The following paragraph is abbreviated from A Study in 
 Municipal Government by James Pollard. 
 
96 the homes of the people. 
 
 Illustration from Berlin. 
 
 Every house proprietor is bound, when he finds his 
 tenants keeping their dwellings in a filthy state, to warn 
 them to cleanse them forthwith ; if they decline, eject- 
 ment follows. If the landlord neglects his duty the 
 Sanitary officer will order out the inhabitants and cleanse 
 the house at the landlord s expense. The inhabitants 
 are removed to shelters where they and their clothes 
 are cleansed. They pursue their avocations, the shelter 
 being their temporary home, and if out of work are 
 employed and paid for what they do. After a few 
 weeks they are allowed once more to betake themselves 
 to a home of their own, all the better for the lessons 
 they have learned. When people continue incorrigibly 
 dirty they are drafted off to the sewage fields, or some 
 other department of public work, where their earnings 
 are used, in the first instance, to defray the cost of 
 their own keep, the balance being applied in the next 
 place to the maintenance of their families, who pass 
 under the care of the authorities. And all this is done 
 with the assent and approval of the general population. 
 And with the result, that "you may go through the 
 quarters of the city where the very poorest live — you 
 see many signs of poverty, scanty furnishing in the 
 houses, poorly clad men and women, children running 
 barefoot — yet they are clean, and for the most part 
 even tidy. You will see all this, but you will find 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 97 
 
 nothing corresponding to the filth and squalid wretched- 
 ness which meet you any hour of the day or night in 
 the poorer parts of our English towns \ 
 
 In the Middle Ages the Church preached a crusade 
 for the recovery of the Holy Land from the infidel 
 which stirred men to deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice. 
 That is a type of service and sacrifice which belongs to 
 an age that is past. 
 
 The Knight's bones are dust 
 And his good sword rust, 
 
 but the spirit which animated him must ever live in 
 Christian men and seek new forms of sacrifice and 
 service. In the coming 20th century the Church may 
 well preach a yet nobler crusade for the regaining 
 home life for our people, winning true homes wherein 
 Christian life shall be possible, winning them back 
 from the grasp of jerry builder, slum landlord and land 
 monopoly, and driving from them filth, foulness and 
 disease. Under the smoky canopy of a modern city 
 
 1 Our Provincial towns can adopt Bye-laws which would enable 
 them to control the number of persons in every tenement house 
 where more than one set of tenants use the same front door and 
 would also give them additional powers over the sanitary arrange- 
 ments, cleansing and ventilation. Unfortunately the Act which confers 
 these powers makes these adoptions optional. I know one Corporation 
 in the North of England which has adopted these powers and has 
 allowed them to remain a dead letter, the reason alleged being that 
 the Inspector of Nuisances would require an additional helper and 
 that would cost £75 a year. Therefore the town which stands head 
 of the list for overcrowding lets things alone. 
 
 E. H. L. 7 
 
98 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 there lie opportunities of nobler self-sacrifice and devo- 
 tion to duty, and to the cause of the weak and helpless, 
 than ever feudal times afforded. 
 
 " Sigh not for the old heroic ages back ; 
 
 The heroes were but brave and earnest men. 
 Do thou but hero-like pursue thy track : 
 
 Striving, not sighing, brings them back again. 
 The hero's path is straight to do and say 
 
 God's words and work in spite of toil and shame ; 
 Labours enough will meet thee on thy way, 
 
 Do thou forsake it not to seek for them." 
 
 The Church must inspire Democracy. 
 
 I do not say the Church as an organised body should 
 perform the work ; the method of our age is to work 
 through elected bodies, and for the community as a whole 
 to act through its representatives. It has been wisely 
 said, that it is by common action that a healthy spirit 
 becomes common, and the tone of public opinion may 
 be more healthy when the Town Council engages in 
 doing good, than when doing good is the monopoly of 
 individuals, or of Societies, or of Church organisations. 
 If nations have been ennobled by wars undertaken 
 against an enemy, towns may be ennobled by work 
 undertaken against the evils of poverty. 
 
 Town Councils will engage in doing good when 
 public opinion is sufficiently strong, and when public 
 opinion is powerful enough the difficulties which the 
 private ownership of land occasions will be equitably 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 99 
 
 solved. The first practical work is to rouse Town 
 Councils and those who elect them to the sense of their 
 powers, to make them feel that the reason of their 
 being is not political but social, that their duty is not 
 the salvation of the pockets of the rich, but the salva- 
 tion of the poorer and weaker members of the com- 
 munity. And surely it is the special function of the 
 Church to create a righteous public opinion, to infuse it 
 with a lofty ideal of duty, and direct the popular will 
 towards noble aims. And the Church will best do its 
 work as watchman on the walls if it never holds its 
 peace, and if they who mention the Lord keep not 
 silence. 
 
 We live in an age of Democracy, and the form by 
 which Democracy works is by choice of representatives 
 to do its will; the people of the whole nation, the 
 citizens of each town, by the choice they make, give 
 their mandate as to what they desire done, and also 
 what they wish left undone. Mazzini, one of the ablest 
 prophets of Democracy, has said, "that not till Demo- 
 cracy becomes a religious movement can it hope to 
 carry the victory." But what is religion in its practical 
 bearing on life ? In its negative aspect it is refraining 
 from evil : in its positive aspect it is the service of man ; 
 and may it not be that Democracy will become religious 
 by working and labouring through its representatives 
 for the elevation of men, in recognising as its duty the 
 winning for all the fullest and best life possible ? Here, 
 
 7—2 
 
100 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 if it include more than the mere material aspect of life, 
 it may find vent for enthusiasm ; here, noble aspiration 
 after a high ideal, and this ideal it is the business of the 
 Church as watchman on the wall to persistently pro- 
 claim, and give men no rest till it becomes the ideal of 
 the man in the street below. And if in pursuit of this 
 aim Democracy comes to recognise that it is endeavour- 
 ing to realise among men the eternal laws of that God 
 who created and who governs the world, His eternal 
 principles of righteousness, justice and love, principles 
 which find their fullest expression in the revelation of 
 God given in Christ, then that aim will become a faith. 
 It will become a faith which will not be baffled by failure 
 or impatient of slow success, for it will be supported by 
 confidence in its yet unseen and distant ends, knowing 
 that it is working for the realisation of the eternal 
 principles of God and the doing of His will, working on 
 assured lines to an assured end, a faith in ultimate victory^ 
 like the faith of Isaiah, which will cause it neither to give 
 nor take rest till it make our Jerusalem, our cities, a 
 praise in the earth. Thus through love of the brethren 
 whom it has seen, Democracy may be led upward to 
 the love of God whom it has not seen. 
 
 The Need of Personal Work. 
 
 The Church has yet other work to do beyond en- 
 deavouring to inspire Democracy with an ideal and 
 urging it to use its collective powers to secure more 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 101 
 
 healthy homes; other work than bringing home their 
 responsibilities to the consciences of landlords and 
 tenants. The Church must seek among its members for 
 volunteers, for those who will give personal service in the 
 Avork of reclamation. Numbers have lost the true idea 
 of home and home life, their children are growing up 
 without its influence, and they can only be won back to 
 true home life by personal influence. 
 
 There is need that those who recognise Christ in 
 the poor, and who have the requisite gifts of patience 
 and tact, should spend themselves in the service of 
 saving and reclaiming. It is easy to stand on a plat- 
 form and denounce the slum landlord or dirty tenant; 
 it is much more diflicult, but much more after the 
 fashion of Christ, to do as Miss Octavia Hill and her 
 helpers do, take some one set of people, a row or a 
 street, and week by week as you go round to collect the 
 rents make friends with the people, and quietly, 
 steadily encourage the higher and nobler aspirations 
 which exist in even the degraded. Where the relations 
 of life are reduced to a mere cash nexus, the absence of 
 human sympathy, of personal knowledge and friendship, 
 hardens life. The building up of character needs 
 personal service and personal love. Centuries ago the 
 Church exhorted the faithful who possessed wealth to 
 make noble use of it by emancipating slaves, the Church 
 of to-day may well teach the faithful that wealth can 
 be put to fewer nobler uses than the rebuilding of slum 
 
102 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 property \ and that leisure can scarcely be better em- 
 ployed than in endeavouring to free our brethren who 
 dwell in the slums from the evil influences which 
 surround them. 
 
 In proportion as Christians who have wealth and 
 leisure come in personal contact with the lives of their 
 poorer brethren they will become conscious that much 
 more than sanitary dwellings and a good water supply 
 are needed, that the whole life needs brightening. The 
 increasing division of labour makes work more and 
 more monotonous, and the life of even the well-paid 
 artisan living amid a labyrinth of dreary streets where 
 every house is alike is very duU^ It is dullness, the 
 want of variety, the want of having learnt the art of 
 spending his hours of leisure wisely, which often drives 
 him to the public-house, or low saloon, or anywhere 
 where he can find something which will relieve the 
 dull monotony of life. Better playgrounds than the 
 streets are needed for the children, clubs are needed 
 for the young men and young women, and (more than 
 the institutions themselves) those who will teach 
 
 1 Even under the adverse conditions which have been gene- 
 rated under our land system the rebuilding of slum property need 
 not be an unprofitable investment even financially. The Improved 
 Industrial Dwellings Company pay 5 per cent, and have reduced their 
 indebtedness. 
 
 Miss Octavia Hill has renovated old cottage property so that the 
 owners have received a fair return on the expenditure. 
 
 2 Compare C. H. Pearson's National Life and Character. 
 
THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 103 
 
 them to use such places as something more than 
 the means to pass an idle hour, in a word, to regard 
 them as opportunities of cultivating higher tastes 
 and pursuits. University Settlements are a step in 
 the right direction, good as far as they go, but as 
 yet they have barely touched the life of the people. 
 The rich surround themselves with works of art, the 
 poor have none, and so few opportunities of seeing any, 
 that they have not learnt to understand or admire them. 
 The well-to-do have many pleasures to occupy their 
 leisure hours, music, science, literature and change of 
 scene by means of travel. A share in these the poor 
 need\ The dwellers in the East end of our towns will 
 not be converted by missionaries and tracts sent by 
 dwellers in the West end. The dwellers in the West 
 end must go to the dwellers in the East themselves, 
 share with the East those pleasures which give interest 
 and delight to the dwellers in the West, and make 
 
 ^ " I believe that there are some persons, not careless or unkind 
 persons only, but what may be called professional philanthropists, 
 who hold that any attempt to provide the poor with music, flowers, 
 amusements and the like is merely foolish and sentimental, and that 
 our duty to them lies only in the more serious region of education, 
 religion, and so on. This is a point of view which I can never quite 
 understand. I cannot understand how a man can feel himself so 
 separate from his fellow creatures as to think that the pleasures 
 which are quite worth his attention in his own case can become mere 
 superfluous trivialities in the case of the poor men, women and 
 children who have so few pleasures of their own." Extract from a 
 speech of the Duke of Albany at Liverpool, Jan. 20, 1884. 
 
104 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 up the fulness of their life. When the dwellers in the 
 West go thus to the dwellers in the East they will be 
 themselves converted, for they will have turned to 
 Christ and accepted His yoke of personal service, and 
 the dwellers in the East, recognising the true helpful- 
 ness of the Christian life, will be converted too. 
 
LECTUHE lY. 
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TOWAEDS THE VICES 
 OF OUR TOWNS. 
 
 Rev. XXL 10, 11. 
 
 He carried me away in the spirit to a great and high 
 mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy 
 Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, 
 having the glory of God. 
 
 Rev. XXII. 3, 15. 
 
 And there shall he no more curse: hut the throne of God 
 
 and of the Lamh shall he iii it; and his servants 
 
 shall serve him. 
 Without are dogs, arid sorcerers, and whoremongers, and 
 
 m^urderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and 
 
 maketh a lie. 
 
 The Church by its selection of passages for the 
 lessons for Septuagesima^ desires to set the direction of 
 our thoughts, and impress upon our minds the fact that 
 the purpose of creation is to find its fulfilment in the 
 New Jerusalem, the holy city. 
 
 1 Preached on Feb. 2nd, Septuagesima Sunday. 
 
106 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 It is very remarkable that when we, who live in an 
 age in which mechanical inventions and the application 
 of scientific discoveries to the satisfaction of human 
 desires have made town life the life of the greater por- 
 tion of civilised man, look back to the ideal of a perfect 
 social state which gladdened the hearts of Christians 
 in the very earliest age, we find it depicted as life in 
 a city, and that the Apostle, gifted with the deepest 
 spiritual insight, drew as his picture of Heaven — the 
 Christian's ultimate goal, the culmination of his desire 
 — a city, the ideal of which comes from Heaven, from 
 God, but which descends out of Heaven and is built 
 on earth. 
 
 At the end of this 19th century the Church, face to 
 face with the problems which arise from the massing 
 together of men in cities, needs to reassert this ideal, to 
 bring it back from * above the deep blue sky,' whither 
 hymn-writers and preachers have relegated it, and 
 declare that the Church's ideal of truly happy human 
 life is life lived in the full variety of the social relation- 
 ship of a busy city, where the Throne of God is set up 
 on high and men serve Him. 
 
 The Christian Vision of the Ideal City. 
 
 Ideals, when vivid and intense, have a wonderful way 
 of working out their own fulfilment, they set the direc- 
 tion of effort. What men hope for, that they become. 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 107 
 
 and men are what their aspirations are. What men look 
 for, that they work for, and prophets try to establish 
 their own prophecies \ 
 
 If this ideal of the heavenly city captivate once 
 again the imagination of the Church, and become the 
 expression of its hope, and Churchmen as a body re- 
 cognise that it is the purpose of God that there should 
 be such a city built on earth, that in spite of the 
 difficulties the task is possible, because it is the will 
 of God the thing should be done, then the ideal will 
 become an inspiring faith, and the energies of the 
 Church will be concentrated on building up the city 
 of God, and in definitely working to bring our present 
 cities nearer that ideal. 
 
 We who live amid the unbrotherly contrasts which 
 exist where men are massed together, and witness 
 every day the extremes of selfish luxury and squalid 
 poverty, and are familiar with the signs of city vice ; the 
 half-starved stunted children selling the evening edition 
 which gives the latest betting to harsh-featured men 
 and women ; the painted harlot plying her awful trade 
 under the glare of the gas-lamp ; the drunkard reeling 
 home an object of terror to the woman he has sworn to 
 love ; or the still more degraded spectacle of the squalid 
 mother with a babe in her arms pushing her way into 
 
 1 The effect of the ideal of the Christian city and the need of 
 giving form and shape to the ideal are well worked out by the Eev. Canon 
 Barnett iu a Sermon on Civic Duties in Lent in London. 
 
108 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 a bar — we who live amid such sights need to have our 
 hearts and our courage sustained by faith in the vision 
 of the ideal city, by the belief that that city is no mere 
 dream but really exists, in archetypal form, in the mind 
 of God, and that, if we bend our energies to realise it, 
 we are in very truth fellow-workers with God\ 
 
 We do want renewed faith in the ideal city of 
 S. John's prophetic vision as the heaven the Church is 
 striving to win for men 2. 
 
 The Christian Liturgy. 
 
 And we need men who, allied to the faith and ima- 
 gination of an Isaiah or a S. John, have the accurate 
 disciplined knowledge of an age accustomed to look at 
 facts, and observe them, so as to ascertain the sequence 
 of cause and effect, and master their relationship. In 
 sociology, as in natural science, it is by obeying nature 
 we acquire the power of mastery and control. We 
 want men who, servants to truth and facts, will point 
 the way to the realisation of their vision of the Divinely- 
 ordered city. Such men it is surely the business of 
 the schools of theology in our Universities to train. 
 We need also the revival of the old idea of the word 
 
 1 2 Cor. vi. 1. 
 
 2 The nineteenth century has been an age of physical science, the 
 twentieth century is likely to be an age of social science, of 'young men 
 seeing visions and old men dreaming dreams ' of the city of God on 
 earth. 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 109 
 
 Liturgy {Xecrovpyla), which embraced the performance 
 by the citizens of public duties. Christians who live in 
 the 19th century require to realise that participation in 
 the Liturgy in church should be regarded as a prepara- 
 tion, and inspiration, for the performance of the Liturgy 
 out of church — their duties as citizens. 
 
 Evils which result from Vice. 
 
 In the previous lectures I have spoken of some of 
 the problems of city life which result from the circum- 
 stances which beset men's lives — irregular employment 
 and the evil environment of wretched and crowded 
 homes, and have indicated, as far as I have been 
 able, what should be the attitude of the Church in its 
 efforts to change the environment. As the Christian 
 Faith teaches us that God is our Father, and that all 
 men are members of one family, it is the duty of the 
 Church to constantly proclaim that in the city, and 
 among the citizens, our relationships should be those of 
 family life, and the Church of Christ can never rest 
 content till those relationships are realised in the con- 
 ditions of our city life. 
 
 Bishop Westcott has truly said, "For us, each ame- 
 lioration of man's circumstances is the translation of 
 a fragment of our Creed into action, and not the self- 
 shaped effort of a kindly nature. It answers, as we 
 believe, to the will of God : and the faith which quick- 
 ened the purpose is sufficient to accomplish it. Our 
 
110 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 citizenship, the type of every social privilege and duty, 
 exists in heaven. That ideal underlies, limits, trans- 
 figures our earthly citizenship." 
 
 To-day I wish to speak of a different class of problems. 
 Not of those evils which arise from the unbrotherly 
 conditions of the outward circumstances of life, but of 
 those which are the developments of evil tendencies in 
 men, and which manifest themselves in vices which exist 
 in a more glaring form in cities, or find in cities a soil 
 more congenial to their growth. 
 
 It may be said that all the evils of city life are due 
 to the vices of men, and that if the Throne of God were 
 set up in the city, and all men served Him, all forms of 
 evil would disappear, justice and righteousness would 
 prevail in every relation of life, there would be no 
 grasping greed, no idleness, no neglected children, no 
 selfish luxury, no grinding the face of the poor, no 
 abject poverty. That is true. Nevertheless there are 
 vices which are specially marked when men congregate 
 in large numbers. Drunkenness, Gambling, Immo- 
 rality, and dissipation generally — they are vices which 
 S. John mentions as outside the walls of the ideal city, 
 not permitted to enter therein. How can the Church 
 help to cast them out of our cities ? These vices are not 
 confined to cities, but they assume a more aggravated 
 form in them, therefore their consideration raises the 
 further question as to whether there is not some special 
 evil in city life which tends to their aggravation. 
 
towards the vices of our towns. ill 
 
 The Attitude of the Church. 
 
 Concerning the attitude of the Church towards 
 these evils there is no doubt, the Church condemns 
 them, and, like all infringements of the moral code, 
 these vices are highly anti-social. "Drink and betting," 
 said the President of the Trades Union Congress at 
 Norwich, " are far worse enemies of the working classes 
 than all the capitalists put together." That is, in his 
 opinion, produce more evil and social mischief than the 
 good which the celebrated drastic collectivist resolution 
 would effect — even were its desire realised. 
 
 The Church has waged war with all these vices for 
 nineteen centuries — a warfare which has been waged 
 with varied conditions of success — nevertheless they 
 exist, and are firmly entrenched in our cities. 
 
 The fact that the Church condemns these vices, and 
 has done so for ages, makes it difficult to avoid the 
 commonplace and the conventional ; yet it is impossible 
 to speak of the problems of city life, impossible to treat 
 of the work of the Church in rebuilding our cities 
 according to the Divine plan, without some reference 
 to the vices which do so much to spoil our cities and 
 cause misery among the citizens. Pardon me if I 
 only reiterate what you already know. These vices 
 not only exist to-day, but their mighty strength is 
 the greatest of all obstacles to the realisation of the 
 holy city for whose building we long and pray — the 
 
112 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 manner in which they thwart our desire, as well as 
 logical necessity, compel me to speak of the attitude of 
 the Church towards them, and how it can best combat 
 them in this present time. 
 
 Intemperance. 
 
 First, Intemperance, the most visible of all in its 
 effects. Intemperance is the disgrace and shame of 
 our country, and its greatest weakness. The world 
 knows that. Other nations taunt us with that. " It is 
 a blessed thing for the world that you Anglo-Saxons 
 are a drunken race. Such are your powers, and energy, 
 and talent, that otherwise you would have become the 
 masters of the world," was the stinging remark of a 
 foreigner. 
 
 Those who live in to^vns, and know the lives of their 
 fellow-citizens, feel that it is almost impossible to 
 exaggerate the evils and sorrows which this terrible 
 vice produces. It would be easy for me to describe in 
 lurid colours scenes of misery and wretchedness I have 
 seen as a consequence of this vice, which ruins so many 
 homes and degrades so many lives, but I forbear lest I 
 should seem to those who are not behind the scenes to 
 exaggerate, and the suspicion of exaggeration under- 
 mines sympathy and hinders conviction, and especially 
 does it do so with members of a University, who have 
 a dread and distrust of sensationalism. As evidence of 
 the magnitude of this vice I will appeal to the testi- 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 113 
 
 mony of men of eminence whom none will regard as 
 prejudiced fanatics. 
 
 Mr Gladstone's remarkable statement is doubtless 
 familiar: "More evils are wrought by Intemperance 
 than by the three great historic scourges of war, pesti- 
 lence and famine, and this is true for us, and is the 
 measure of our discredit and disgrace." Ruskin says : 
 "The encouragement of drunkenness for the sake of 
 profit is one of the most barbarous methods of obtain- 
 ing money ever practised by the bravadoes of any age 
 or country." The late Duke of Albany said : " Drink is 
 the only terrible enemy England has to fear." The late 
 Lord Shaftesbury said : " The more I travel up and 
 down the country the more I am convinced of the 
 necessity for Temperance organisations. I am per- 
 suaded but for their existence we should be immersed 
 in such an ocean of immorality and vice, as would make 
 this country uninhabitable." 
 
 The late Lord Chief Justice Coleridge said : " I can 
 keep no terms with a vice that fills our gaols, destroys the 
 peace and comforts of homes, and debases and brutalises 
 the people of these islands." Justice Hawkins says: 
 "Nine out of every ten cases of violence that come 
 before me are caused by Drink." The late Sir Astley 
 Cooper, M.D., said : " I never suffer ardent spirits in 
 my house, believing them to be evil spirits. If the 
 poor could only see the white livers and shattered 
 nervous systems that I have witnessed as the result of 
 
 E. H. L. 8 
 
114 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 their use, they would know that spirits and poison 
 meant the same thing." The late Sir Andrew Clark 
 said: "As I think of the evils produced by strong 
 drink I feel almost disposed to give up everything and 
 go forth on a holy crusade, beseeching men to beware 
 of this enemy of the race." The late Richard Cobden 
 said : " Every day confirms the conviction that the 
 Temperance question lies at the bottom of all social 
 and political reform." The late John Bright said : " If 
 for ten years England could get rid of strong drink she 
 would in that time become such a paradise as we should 
 hardly recognise." 
 
 Let me also appeal to the unimpassioned evidence 
 of figures : 
 
 Annual Expenditure on Drink, £138,000,000; or, 
 £3. lis. 6d. per head. 
 
 Number of Houses licensed for Sale of Drink, 
 180,000 ; or 1 in 38, and 1 for every 200 people. 
 
 The convictions for Drunkenness last year amounted 
 to 190,000. 
 
 Killed by Drink, according to Dr Norman Kerr's 
 estimate, 120,000 annually. 
 
 Made insane : Number of lunatics last year in our 
 asylums whose insanity was definitely traced to Drink, 
 2,056. 
 
 Made Paupers; of 1,014,000 Paupers a considerable 
 portion reduced to poverty by the drunken habits of 
 themselves or their parents. 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 115 
 
 Wounded in other ways: by loss of occupation, 
 reputation, affection, comfort, character, money; an 
 immense multitude, of whom there is no statistical 
 record. 
 
 That is evidence enough of the extent to which 
 Intemperance prevails. But what is it which gives to 
 this vice its power — a power so great that, notwith- 
 standing the visible evils which it occasions, intemper- 
 ance continues among the citizens of the city ? 
 
 Causes of Intemperance. 
 
 Ancient records demonstrate that in all ages and 
 among all races, whenever and wherever men have 
 discovered the art of making intoxicating drink, the 
 pleasurable bodily sensations which drink occasions have 
 possessed a strong attractive fascination for men. Wine 
 maketh glad the heart of man. The cause of drinking, 
 and of the drunkenness which it occasions, is the desire 
 of that kind of pleasure. It is a form of bodily gratifi- 
 cation — of self-indulgence. 
 
 All habits strengthen by use, but there is a subtle 
 influence in all forms of alcohol which undermines the 
 power of self-control, and causes free indulgence in this 
 kind of pleasure to exercise an irresistible fascination, 
 which makes men victims of the appetite, and binds 
 them in the bondage of an awful slavery — and not only 
 do they suffer themselves, but they transmit to their 
 
 8—2 
 
116 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 children an increased desire for this form of pleasure, 
 and a weakened power of self-control^ — a terrible form 
 of legacy. 
 
 The attractive power of the fascination for intoxi- 
 cating drink is increased by bodily debility, therefore 
 the conditions under which the poorest section of our 
 citizens live, the crowded rooms, the vitiated atmo- 
 sphere, increase the craving for stimulating drink which 
 will for a brief space invigorate the jaded forms and 
 rouse the dulled faculties. They drink to " forget their 
 poverty and remember their misery no more." Also 
 that monotony of toil which, owing to extreme division 
 of labour in modern industry, confines the life work of 
 a man to some one simple operation, one single act, 
 such as cutting wire into lengths, or pulling a lever, 
 and doing that thousands of times a day and millions 
 of times a year, does create a longing for excitement 
 which finds its readiest satisfaction in drinking and 
 gambling. These predispositions to yield to the fasci- 
 nation of intoxicating drink are enormously aggravated 
 by our social customs, which have connected indulgence 
 in the pleasure which intoxicating drink gives with all 
 
 1 How far the widespread desire for stimulants which characterises 
 the EngUsh race is to be regarded as the accumulated result of ten- 
 dencies transmitted through many generations is somewhat difficult 
 to determine. Uncivilised races, who have relatively untainted natures 
 in this respect, are nevertheless attracted even more strongly than 
 Englishmen by the pleasurable sensations of alcohol, and are even less 
 able to resist its fascination. 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 117 
 
 forms of social intercourse ; and the evil is still further 
 intensified by the multiplication of the means of grati- 
 fication. Hence the cruelty of multiplying places for 
 the sale of drink among the poorest, the circumstances 
 of whose lives increase the power of the fascination of 
 this kind of indulgence, and who suffer most from its 
 gratification. While I mention poverty, monotony, and 
 the facilities afforded for the sale of drink, as tending 
 to increase the fascination of this form of self-indulgence 
 and therefore contributory causes, I think that a certain 
 school of writers exaggerate when they describe them 
 as the causes of Drunkenness, and are under a delusion 
 when they speak of their removal as the means whereby 
 Drunkenness can be, and will be, driven out from the 
 city. Lessen the fascination and you will lessen the in- 
 dulgence, but you will not have destroyed the power of 
 the fascination. 
 
 The assertion that poverty is the cause of Drunken- 
 ness, and not Drunkenness the cause of poverty, is in 
 part a reaction from the opposite exaggeration of those 
 intemperate advocates of temperance who attribute 
 every social evil to drunkenness ; in part the result of 
 the desire of those who realise the evil effects of econo- 
 mic conditions to attribute all evils to that cause; a 
 mistake as great as the other, and more mischievous, 
 because it tends to soothe the conscience, and weaken 
 the sense of responsibility, by the excuse that drunken- 
 ness is more a man's misfortune than his fault. 
 
118 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Admit to the full that the vitiated air of over- 
 crowded dwellings increases the desire for stimulants 
 and excitement, and that improved dwellings would 
 reduce the liability to drunkenness, yet the fact remains 
 that where all the external advantages are possessed 
 drunkenness is not eradicated, and still drags its victims 
 down to poverty. In the worst slums, and among the 
 worst contributions to its squalor, are to be found those 
 who were reared in every comfort, who commenced life 
 with regular employment, and who had every hope of a 
 happy and successful career. Drink has caused their 
 poverty, and not poverty their drunkenness. 
 
 There are those who have had all the advantages of 
 University training, with all the interests in life which 
 it develops and the variety of pursuits it opens up, 
 there are men who have taken high honours, there 
 are numbers of titled ladies, educated ladies, women 
 of the middle class and professional men, who have been 
 stung by the serpent which lieth at the bottom of the 
 wine-cup — who have been degraded and impoverished. 
 
 Probably scarce one of those whom I am now 
 addressing does not recall with sadness some relative 
 or dear friend who is dead, or worse than dead, in 
 consequence of the power of strong drink. Drunken- 
 ness is not confined to any one class, it exists among 
 the rich, the middle class, the artisans and the labourers. 
 It is more conspicuous among the poor, because, living 
 more in the street and under public view, they are less 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 119 
 
 able to hide it, and the tolerance of this vice by the 
 public opinion of their circle renders them less anxious 
 to do so. More than change of environment is needed, 
 and therefore the casting out this vice requires a twofold 
 work, an attack on the primary cause and an attack 
 on the secondary and contributory causes. 
 
 Attitude of the Church to the Primary Cause. 
 
 What the attitude of the Church should be towards 
 the primary cause is clear. The pleasurable sensations 
 which intoxicating drinks occasion cannot be destroyed, 
 but their power to fascinate can be diminished by rousing 
 conscience to the sin of this form of self-indulgence. 
 Here, as in other city evils which we have considered, 
 the first duty of the Church is to arouse the conscience 
 of her own members, and bring home to them the con- 
 viction that self-indulgence which ends in drunkenness 
 is a shame and disgrace — a sin in the sight of God. 
 
 It may be said everyone admits this. They may 
 assent to it in theory, but certainly the consciences of 
 many Churchmen are not very sensitive on the subject. 
 During the last 50 years there has been a considerable 
 quickening of conscience, and it is now regarded as 
 shameful and utterly inconsistent with Christian pro- 
 fession for Clergy, Churchwardens or Church Officers to 
 be intemperate. We realise the progress which has 
 been made when we read such a book as Dean Ramsay's 
 
120 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character, or any 
 other work which gives a glimpse into the social life 
 and opinions of the early part of the century. 
 
 But we need to go further and quicken the con- 
 science till every member of the Church realises, that 
 not only is intoxication inconsistent with Church mem- 
 bership, but that the self-indulgence of frequent drink- 
 ing, even though it stop short of intoxication, is wrong \ 
 
 As long as Churchmen look upon high living as 
 right for those who can afford it, so long will the poorer 
 portion of our citizens regard bodily self-indulgence as 
 one of the legitimate aims of life. The disciples of Christ 
 must be the salt which prevents the corruption of the 
 public opinion of the city. If the salt have lost its 
 savour wherewith can it be salted ? 
 
 1 I do not say the Church should regard total abstinence as a 
 necessity for consistent membership. The New Testament does not 
 support such a contention, and the attempt of some to set up a 
 standard which the New Testament does not sanction will inevitably 
 produce a reaction and do harm, as departure from truth always does. 
 But the Church can, and should appeal, as S. Paul does, to the con- 
 science of her members, and ask each to consider whether he thinks 
 in view of the present distress he should give up what is lawful, 
 because the exercise of his liberty may strengthen those drinking 
 customs which are a cause of stumbling to weaker brethren. 
 
 I do not attempt to dictate on this subject to any man, believing 
 it to be one specially open to the apostolic rule, " Let every man be 
 fully persuaded in his own mind." 
 
towards the vices of our towns. 121 
 
 The Church and the Secondary Cause. 
 
 But conscience when quickened to the evils of the 
 vice of Intemperance is roused to pity for the victims 
 of the vice. In the last 50 years, as the conscience of 
 the Church has been gradually quickened, the Church 
 has become more active in its efforts to rescue the 
 victims of Intemperance. It is unnecessary to demon- 
 strate the growth of Temperance Societies, Police-court 
 Missionaries, and the formation, in thousands of parishes, 
 of Clubs, and the erection of places of recreation, where 
 those who seek recreation may obtain it without being 
 exposed to the fascination of intoxicating drink. A 
 great and a noble work has been done and is now 
 being carried on. But those who are in the thickest 
 of the battle would be the first to say that more is re- 
 quired, that here, as in other city evils, the Church, its 
 own conscience roused, must exercise its prophetic office, 
 and lifting up its voice proclaim with unwearying re- 
 iteration the facts of the vice of Intemperance. The 
 Church must demonstrate, again and again, how the 
 conditions of social life are contributory causes, and 
 thus stir the consciences of all men and create public 
 opinion in favour of such reforms as will lessen the 
 evils. " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" is 
 the principle which the Church recognises as Divine, 
 therefore the Church must never weary of proclaiming 
 the want of consideration for the true welfare of the 
 
122 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 citizens which our present licensing arrangements ex- 
 hibit. 
 
 It is not for the Church as such to say what shall 
 be done. As I have said before, every ' how ' is always 
 a matter for dispute. Whatever individual Churchmen 
 or Church Societies may approve, the Church, as a cor- 
 porate body, is not wedded to any one scheme. It is the 
 work of individuals, and of the representatives of the 
 nation, to frame schemes of reform, the Church's business 
 is to arouse public opinion to the magnitude of the evil 
 the ruin of city life, the violation of God's law of right 
 living. But when proposals of reform are made the Church 
 must make its voice heard in support of righteousness 
 and justice, even for brewers, distillers and publicans. 
 
 If not the direct business of the Church, it is within 
 its province to bring together all citizens whose con- 
 sciences are quickened, and who are willing to help to roll 
 away the stones of temptation, in order that by consul- 
 tation they may ascertain how far they are agreed and 
 can cooperate. Such work is especially needed at this 
 juncture when divisions among temperance reformers 
 are the chief hindrance to reform. 
 
 There is a large consensus of opinion on the part of 
 those whose consciences are aroused, and there are many 
 lesser reforms concerning which there is little if any 
 dissension. The crucial difficulty is, how the number 
 of licensed places of temptation can be reduced with 
 equity to those whose licenses may be suppressed. 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 123 
 
 Surely Churchman and Nonconformist, Liberal and 
 Conservative should join hand in hand to secure the 
 reforms on which all are agreed as necessary for the 
 well-being of the city, and men who are in earnest ought 
 to be able by reason and forbearance to arrive at an 
 equitable settlement on the subject of compensation. 
 
 A leading statesman in the upper house of Parlia- 
 ment said not very long ago, "this question has got 
 into the hands of the politicians, and all you Rev. and 
 Right Rev. gentlemen won't be able to get it out of 
 party politics." That is just what the Church should 
 endeavour to do. 
 
 Amid the clouds which rendered dark and gloomy 
 the opening days of January 1896, the one bright 
 gleam which cheered our hearts was the manner in 
 which the nation stood united, and, in the face of the 
 dangers which threatened, sank all party differences. 
 Surely there is now an opportunity for the National 
 Church, which should know no party in the State, no 
 divisions among men, to use its position to bring toge- 
 ther men of all parties and sections, and endeavour to 
 rescue this question of the reform of our licensing laws 
 from the manoeuvring of party politics, and raise it to 
 its proper position as a national question of the first 
 importance. In the drunken habits of our people there 
 is a danger greater than any foreign foe, one which 
 yearly slays more victims than a war, and which 
 devastates the homes of our cities. 
 
124 the attitude of the church 
 
 Gambling. 
 
 As is the attitude of the Church to Intemperance, 
 so must be its attitude to Gambling. 1. Direct appeal 
 to the conscience of her members. 2. An endeavour, 
 by the help of those whose consciences are aroused, to 
 remove the conditions which strengthen the tempta- 
 tions to Gambling. I need not follow out the argument, 
 it would be to repeat what I have said with regard to 
 Intemperance. I will merely emphasise one point. 
 While Drunkenness is not increasing Gambling is a 
 growing evil\ It was the vice of the well-to-do, the 
 upper and middle classes, then it spread to the artisans 
 and infected every workshop and factory; now it has 
 infected the women and the children. This is partly 
 the consequence of the facilities now given by tele- 
 graphic communication, and the manner in which they 
 are used by the press for circulating betting news among 
 those who previously had few inducements to indulge 
 in the vice ; partly because of the monotony of toil con- 
 sequent on extreme division of labour, and the dreary 
 sameness of life in the working class streets of our 
 
 1 "It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to mark the precise 
 point where the legitimate exercise of forethought on the part of a 
 shrewd business man passes into the speculation of the gambler : but 
 as in so many departments of ethics the path of safety and honour 
 will be found, not in drawing any hard and fast line, but in the care- 
 ful guarding against the gambling spirit." Pastured of the Synod of 
 the Presbyterian Church of England. 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 125 
 
 towns, which creates a craving for some form of excite- 
 ment ; partly because of the increased rush of modern 
 life and the speculative character of business ; partly 
 because the Church has not aroused the consciences of 
 her members to the evil of the idolatry of covetousness. 
 If the idolaters who worship at the shrine of covetous- 
 ness are to be cast out of the city, the Church must 
 see that their conscience is awakened to perceive that 
 this haste to get rich, this desire to reap where they 
 have not sown, whether it be on the Turf or on the 
 Stock Exchange, is inconsistent with the worship of 
 Christ, and is out of harmony with Christ's revelation of 
 the true laws of life. As long as the Church invites to 
 its public functions, and treats as faithful members, those 
 who are notorious on the Turf, or known as successful 
 gamblers on the Stock Exchange, it will be powerless 
 to stem the tide of Gambling, for the salt will have lost 
 its savour \ 
 
 ^ Many rubrics relating to ritual which had become almost obsolete 
 have been revived. We want the spirit of the rubric concerning 
 notorious evil livers revived and acted on, "If any be an open and 
 notorious evil liver, or have done any wrong to his neighbours by 
 word or deed, so that the congregation be thereby offended, the 
 Curate having knowledge thereof shall call him and advertise him, 
 that in any wise he presume not to come to the Lord's Table until he 
 hath openly declared himself to have truly repented and amended his 
 former naughty life. " If a notorious evil liver may not be admitted to 
 the Lord's Table, a notorious evil liver, however high placed, should 
 not be admitted to ecclesiastical functions. 
 
126 the attitude of the church 
 
 Immorality. 
 
 As with the vices of which I have spoken so with 
 Immorality, which like them is a form of self-indulgence 
 deeply seated in our nature ; there must be the direct 
 appeal to the conscience, and effort, by those who realise 
 this evil and its degradation, to stir public opinion to re- 
 move such incentives and temptations as tend to immoral 
 actions. Here, as in Gambling, the Church is in our day 
 called to renewed effort to rouse the conscience and re- 
 establish the standard of purity; for in that general 
 questioning of all human institutions which has cha- 
 racterised our age, marriage and the moral obligation 
 of purity have been freely attacked. These attacks have 
 been popularised by literary achievements and psycho- 
 logical plays which abound in doubtful situations, and 
 thus the authoritative standard of purity has been 
 weakened and the popular tone lowered. 
 
 The Church must emphasise the sanctity of the 
 marriage tie, and the Divine character of the Home as 
 God's training school for true citizenship. 
 
 Influence of Towns on Vice. 
 
 But why do towns form a soil specially favourable 
 to the development of these vices ? There is Drunken- 
 ness in the country, but there it rarely ever leads to 
 that degradation which is, alas ! so common in towns 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 127 
 
 where every vestige of self-respect is lost, every article 
 of furniture sold or pawned, and the children, neglected, 
 run wild, half-starved, and in rags. It is only in the 
 towns that miserable drunkards, like Jane Cakebread, 
 are convicted for the hundredth, or two hundredth time, 
 and seem lost to all sense of shame. There is Gambling 
 in the country, but it is much more widespread and 
 more demoralising in the towns. There is Immorality 
 in the country, but, as prostitution, it is in the towns 
 more glaring, more demoralising in form, more ruinous 
 in its effects. 
 
 Irresponsible Selfishness. 
 
 I think the cause is to be found in that irresponsible 
 selfishness which is developed where men are congre- 
 gated together in large numbers. In the country each 
 man knows his neighbour and takes an interest in his 
 affairs, and knows that his neighbours reciprocate by 
 interesting themselves in his doings. This makes the 
 restraining influence of public opinion strong. 
 
 In towns the individual is lost in the crowd, he 
 neither knows nor cares about his next-door neighbour, 
 and his neighbour does not care about him or his 
 affairs. Each man goes his own way, and, so long as he 
 does not come in conflict with the law, does what is 
 right in his own eyes. Though living amid a crowd the 
 townsman lives a more isolated and selfish life. ' I make 
 no neighbours and keep myself to myself,' expresses the 
 
128 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 townsman's idea of correct conduct. In towns, people 
 are very unwilling to express disapproval of a neigh- 
 bour's conduct. They may see a neighbour is getting 
 into bad company or giving way to self-indulgence, and 
 may regret the fact and pity the family, but they will 
 rarely interfere, or attempt to exercise any influence. 
 It is no business of theirs, a man can do as he likes. 
 Thus a valuable restraining influence is lost. 
 
 The isolation of town life is increased by the migra- 
 tory habits of the peoi3le. Who is my neighbour ? is a 
 question which loses much of its moral significance 
 when the neighbour is perpetually changing. The very 
 ease of removal from street to street facilitates the 
 massing together of the evil-disposed ; like draws to 
 like, and the vicious, living among the vicious, are unre- 
 strained by any opinion or example better than their 
 own. 
 
 This spirit of each one having a right to do as he 
 pleases, at any rate as soon as he earns wages, is detri- 
 mental to home life\ Boys and girls in their teens 
 have no hesitation in leaving home when the fancy 
 takes them, and parents, aware that independence will 
 be early claimed, exercise little authority in the years 
 which precede wage-earning. This weakening of family 
 
 1 "Earning wages before reason is developed and principles are 
 confirmed, children laugh at parental control, and in seeking to become 
 their own masters, become the slaves of their own master passions." 
 Dr Guthrie, The City. 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 129 
 
 ties, and of the sense of mutual responsibility, has much 
 to do with that too common neglect of children which 
 is such a sad feature in town life. 
 
 This idea of every man having a right to be a law 
 unto himself, and live his own life in his own way, is 
 essentially selfish, and is at the root of much of our 
 class divisions and jealousies. Each class lives in its 
 own way, knowing little and caring little for other 
 classes. The rich live by themselves at one end of the 
 town in comfort and luxury, and think little of the 
 influence their lives exercise on the lives of other 
 classes ; the very poor live at the other end of the town, 
 having little personal knowledge of the rich and little 
 sympathy with them. 
 
 Separation — isolation — each man doing what is 
 right in his own eyes — are all anti-social and utterly 
 unchristian, and it is for the Christian Church to 
 endeavour to break down these barriers, and bring 
 home to each man, that he is his brother's keeper, that 
 all are children of one Father, members of one family, 
 and that the true life of man consists, not in selfish 
 isolation, but in realising the fellowship of brotherhood. 
 
 These problems of town vices make it clear that 
 the real reform of town life needs something deeper 
 than the mere change of environment, needs quickened 
 conscience and a loftier, nobler ideal of life. This is 
 another way of putting what the revivalist preachers 
 called the need of conversion ; this is what they meant 
 E. H. L. 9 
 
130 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 when they proclaimed that the heart of stone must 
 become a heart of flesh. The heart hard as stone, on 
 which sin and suffering and wrong make no impression, 
 becoming filled with the warm blood of a new life — 
 that higher ideal of life which comes from Christ — 
 must become sensitive to every evil, every wrong. 
 
 We may solve the problem of the unemployed, 
 reform the Poor Law, secure sanitary dwellings, and 
 increase the opportunities of brightening life by making 
 artistic, scientific and literary interests possible for all; 
 we may diminish the outward temptations to Drunken- 
 ness, Gambling and Impurity ; but after all, the deepest 
 need of man is the development of the spirit in man, for 
 without that, selfishness and self-indulgence, which are 
 the root of all the evils of our city life,' will exist in 
 undiminished strength, and assume new forms. 
 
 "Your Fouriers failed 
 Because not men enough to understand 
 That life develops from within." 
 
 All other things, all changes of environment, are 
 like rolling away the stone which closed the grave of 
 Lazarus — they made it possible for him to come forth 
 when the word of Christ gave life. But there must be 
 the word of Christ if man is to be raised to nobler life, 
 Christ speaking to the conscience of men, convincing 
 them as to the true principles of life, the true way of 
 living. 
 
 Thus then the deepest, greatest need of our towns is 
 
TOWARDS THE VICES OF OUR TOWNS. 131 
 
 religion, for that can develop the spirit of man, that is 
 the mightiest power in the battle against selfishness — 
 that is the power which in its varied forms has all 
 along the ages more than any other power enabled 
 man to sacrifice self and surrender his will — belief in a 
 power higher than his own, whose will must be his law, 
 and in whose service is his true delight. Yes. S. John's 
 vision of the perfect city is a true prophecy. When 
 Drunkenness and Gambling and Immorality and Selfish- 
 ness are cast outside the city walls, it will be because 
 within the city, the Throne of God is set up on high, 
 and His servants serve Him. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : PRINTED BY J. AND C, F, CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
Theological Semmary-Speer 
 
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