HOPE or THE EEPUBLIC. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD H. ROGERS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF LEGISLATIVE REPORTS AND PUBLIC ADDRESSES 
 UPON SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 FRANKLIN PRESS: RAND, AYERY, & CO. 
 1886. 
 
“Europe is marching toward the republic; but you young 
 men must not deceive yourselves. By the faults of govern¬ 
 ments, which sometimes yield when they ought to be firm, and 
 sometimes resist when they ought only to curb and direct, this 
 century will see only the period of transition, — a transition which 
 will be bloody, terrible, and which, I thank God, I am not to see. 
 The blending of social and political, of interior and exterior 
 problems, is such at this period that nations are fatally forced to 
 decide all questions by suppressing all. But violent suppression 
 and solution ar-e two things; and, shift them as you please, ques¬ 
 tions will still exist as tnreatening as ever. 
 
 “ It is only when the New World, which is already tearing the 
 flanks of the Old, shall have acquired enough of virility and of 
 wisdom to vanquish and to decide, that an economical republic 
 will bring back order and peace to our society .”—Address of 
 M. Thiers to a body of French students, 1868. 
 
 “ The old question is coming up again, the old faith is openly 
 set aside, and we are told that infallibility is at last found for 
 men, and resides in the majority. . . . We may despise the 
 present advocates of social democracy, and make light of their 
 sayings and doings; but there is no man who knows what is 
 really going on in England but will admit that there will have 
 to be a serious reckoning with them at no distant day. . . . Many 
 of us feel that any tyranny under which England has groaned 
 in the past has been light by the side of what we may come to, 
 if we are to carry the new political gospel to its logical conclu¬ 
 sion. . . . But, if we will not do this, is there any alternative, 
 since we repudiate personal government, but to fall back on the 
 old Hebrew and Christian faith, that the nations are ruled by a 
 living, present, invisible King? ''‘—Life of Alfred, by Thomas 
 Hughes. 
 
 2 
 
 « 
 
THE HOPE OF TH^.REPIJBUC:. 
 
 A WORKINGMAN’S VIEWS OE" TOE ’REtlATlbN OF 
 THE CHURCH TO THE STATE. 
 
 BY EDWARD H. ROGERS, CHELSEA, MASS. 
 
 [Revised and reprinted from the “ Labor Balance ” of July, 1878.] 
 
 Free institutions are yet on trial. The first cen¬ 
 tury of our national existence has indeed developed 
 glorious possibilities of success; but it has also re¬ 
 vealed exposures to evil, not only appalling in their 
 magnitude, but of a character hitherto unsuspected. 
 The dangers of an unemployed and poverty-stricken 
 class have suddenly burst upon us without warning. 
 These dangers originate almost exclusively in the 
 defects of our existing systems of industry and ex¬ 
 change ; and it has become a matter of profound 
 solicitude with all thoughtful persons, to ascertain 
 whether there are any forces in the world through 
 which a voluntary and peaceable solution of the 
 questions at issue may be found. 
 
 Until within a few years, the writer was unable to 
 answer this question to his own satisfaction; but he 
 has at length come to the clear conviction, that the 
 perpetuity of the republic depends on the application 
 of the principles of the Mosaic legislation, and of 
 the teachings of Jesus, to the management of our 
 material affairs ; and that this must be brought 
 about indirectly through the associated action of the 
 members of the church of Christ, in mutual care for 
 each other’s pecuniary welfare, thus gradually leaven¬ 
 ing society with the principles of the Decalogue, and 
 the motives of the Gospel. The laws of the original 
 church were avowedly so planned by Moses, both as 
 to the prevention and relief of poverty, that, if 
 
 f 
 
4 c * , TOT Hpp:^: ,OF THE BEPUBLIC. 
 
 obeyed^ tKefe' comld; i^pi, Jxa^ye been any permanently 
 poor clps (Dent. xv. 4, marg.). But the action of 
 the cliiireh wiH*^ ’ depend'toh, : the; interpretation she 
 puts on[t^ie gdJspe]*, insist r'^l^t,^ oh to the Old Testa- 
 ment^^'tt becomes ther'efbfe, to enter upon a 
 fresh iitveStigat^oii? 4he institutes of Moses and the 
 teachi,h^s ;of: bearing upon the exist¬ 
 
 ence *and *e:^tfen^dn* of'free institutions throughout 
 the world. 
 
 To aid us in this effort to examine the Bible anew, 
 we have at hand a scholarly treatise, written some 
 thirty years ago, very commanding in its excellences, 
 and equally marked in its defects, but which stands 
 in such relations to the recent rapid development of 
 opinion upon social questions in this country, and is 
 so representative in its character, as to require our 
 especial consideration. I refer to the w^ork of Pro¬ 
 fessor E. C. Wines, a social scientist of reputation, 
 and a Christian believer, entitled Commentary 
 on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews; ’’ extracts from 
 which are now laid before the reader. 
 
 “ This treatise is an attempt to analyze and to de¬ 
 velop systematically the civil polity of the inspired 
 Hebrew lawgiver. The civil government of the an¬ 
 cient Hebrews was the government of a free people. 
 It was a government of laws. It was a system of self- 
 government. The constitution of Moses was pervaded 
 with popular sympathies and the spirit of liberty. 
 The moderns are not real discoverers: they have but 
 propagated and applied truths and principles estab¬ 
 lished by the first, the wisest, the ablest, of legisla¬ 
 tors.” 
 
 After glancing at the ‘‘ two systems of civiliza¬ 
 tion that preceded the Hebrew culture, namely, the 
 Asiatic and the Egyptian,’’ and at the priestly caste 
 in Egypt, which was the treasury of the learning and 
 culture of that nation, and at the “ iron despotism, 
 both civil and ecclesiastical,” which it established. 
 Professor Wines continues: — 
 
 “ In the midst of this deplorable superstition and 
 tyranny there appeared a man endowed with a noble 
 genius, deeply versed in all the wisdom and folly of 
 those times, strong in the energy of his own thought, 
 and expressly raised up and qualified by Heaven to 
 become the reformer of his age That man was Moses, 
 
THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 5 
 
 the insjjired Hebrew lawgiver. By the wisdom of his 
 polity and the vigor of his genius, he overthrew the 
 whole degrading apparatus of political jugglery and 
 l>riestly despotism. He reduced the speculative ideas 
 of his own and the preceding ages to a single sublime 
 principle of simplicity. He recognized the welfare 
 
 AND HAPPINESS OF THE PEOPLE AS THE ONE SUPREME 
 LAW OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. He impressed a new 
 character upon his age and species. He gave a new 
 impulse to man, both in his individual and social ener¬ 
 gies; and he fixed upon his labors the indestructible 
 seal of a divine wisdom and beneficence.” 
 
 Should the reader of the foregoing quotations re¬ 
 call some of the features of the Mosaic statutes 
 which we have been accustomed to regard as harsh, 
 and demand an explanation which shall make them 
 consistent with the view here given, our author sup¬ 
 plies the answer. Alluding to the popular aversion 
 to Moses on account of these ungenial peculiarities, 
 he remarks, that the principle that laws ifiust be 
 relative to circumstances, that they must grow out of 
 the state of society, and be adapted to its wants, is 
 founded in reason, and confirmed by experience.” 
 In this connection he cites Montesquieu as observing 
 that the remarkable expression to be found in Ezek. 
 XX. 25, ‘‘Wherefore I [Jehovah] gave them laws 
 which were not good, and judgments whereby they 
 should not live,” “meaning that the institutions of 
 Moses were not absolutely the best, but that they 
 were relatively so, . . . is the sponge which wipes 
 out all the difficulties which are to be found in the 
 laws of Moses.” Under the light which is now 
 being thrown upon those times, it is evident that 
 some of these laws which we have been accustomed 
 to regard as severe were really ingenious and hu¬ 
 mane adaptations to existing circumstances. For 
 instance, the law of retaliation, which allowed an 
 eye for an eye, actually restrained revenge, and was 
 so intended ; because if there had been no limit 
 placed upon passion, that is, if law had not been 
 adjusted to the existing condition of society, two 
 eyes would have been likely to have been taken in¬ 
 stead of one. Or in the matter of divorce, in which 
 extreme leniency seems to have been exercised by 
 Moses, it may have been with a view to lessen the 
 
THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 probabilities of murder in cases of marital disagree¬ 
 ment. 
 
 With the quotations made above I heartily agree; 
 but I have now to notice expressions of quite a dif¬ 
 ferent character. Professor Wines repudiates the 
 idea that God intended that the Mosaic laws should 
 bind any nation but the Hebrews.’’ IS’ow, there is 
 a sense in which this is true: but in the sense in 
 which he means it, and with him nearly the whole 
 Protestant Church, it is not true; for the meaning 
 with which he writes not only excludes the Mosaic 
 laws in their statutory/orm from any appropriate 
 application to modern society, but also excludes the 
 very principles of the Mosaic legislation themselves, 
 and shuts out Christ’s use of them as well. The 
 summary style in which our author discards that 
 legislation concerning pecuniary affairs is shown in 
 the following sentence, in which usury is included 
 among various things, of which he says, ^‘None of 
 the reasons on which these laws were based have any 
 existence among us.^’ Now, remembering that usury 
 is one of the great foundation-stones of modern soci¬ 
 ety, and that, in connection with our gigantic debts, 
 it is confessedly causing profound alarm, set right 
 against this saying of our author another from one 
 of his opening paragraphs, as follows: — 
 
 “The Hebrew lawgiver is, in many respects, the 
 man for the present. He belongs not solely to the 
 past, as too common prejudice imagines. The great 
 principles of public and private law, which he not 
 only developed in theory, but reduced to practice, are 
 so many lessons of inspired wisdom, so many lights of 
 experience to guide the labors of statesmen and legis¬ 
 lators to the end of time.” 
 
 Is not the contradiction too plain to need com¬ 
 ment ? Can it be that a legislator who has not 
 only developed in theory, but reduced to practice, 
 the great principles of public and private law,” and 
 who has given therein ‘^so many lessons of inspired 
 wisdom ... to guide the labors of statesmen and 
 legislators to the end of time,” —can it be that he has 
 gone so far astray concerning one of the fundamen¬ 
 tals of life, that his laws in that regard have no les¬ 
 son for us ? Nay, rather, has not our author placed 
 
THE HOPE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 7 
 
 himself in a predicament by such a contradiction ? 
 But in the whole of this he is but the mouthpiece of 
 the whole Protestant world. What, then, shall we 
 say of that world ? 
 
 These things are written, not from a disposition to 
 criticise an individual, or denounce Christian people, 
 but from a profound conviction that our churches 
 are wrong concerning this thing; that this wrong is 
 the root of those great dangers which make the most 
 thoughtful fear for the perpetuity of our institu¬ 
 tions ; and that only as we right this wrong can we 
 save the republic. 
 
 From these remarks on the legislation of Moses, 
 we advance to the consideration of the relations of 
 the gospel to the questions in hand. I have talmn 
 the ground, in another publication more distinctively 
 religious than this, that the majestic progress through 
 Galilee, in which the Messiah made public proclama¬ 
 tion of the kingdom of God, was mainly material or 
 earthly in its character, and also communal, that is, 
 addressed to cities or communities; that, with the 
 single exception of the call to repentance (Mark vi. 
 12), there is no allusion to baptism, regeneration, or 
 any other rite or experience of an individual or 
 spiritual character. The twelve apostles and the 
 seventy disciples who were sent forth were in some 
 sense the representatives of the Hebrew senate and 
 house of representatives,-^ elders and congregation, 
 — as they are called in the Old Testament. They 
 appealed directly to the national spirit, and their 
 mission was in harmony with the general and justi¬ 
 fiable expectation by the people of an earthly king 
 to sit upon the throne of David, as foretold by their 
 prophets. 
 
 Inasmuch as the full consideration of the above 
 would take us away from our theme, I will now pre¬ 
 sent some of the limitations under which the Master 
 must unavoidably have labored, but which have not 
 as yet attracted the notice which they deserve. It is 
 generally supposed that Christ was frank and out¬ 
 spoken in speech, and declared plainly his message; 
 and this, in a sense, is true. He himself said, ‘‘In 
 secret have I said nothing’’ (John xviii. 20). Never¬ 
 theless, it is also true, and consistent with this, that 
 large portions of the interviews and conversations 
 
8 THE HOPE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 
 
 recorded in the Gospels were either in private, as 
 with Nicodemus; or to his disciples in the same 
 manner, as in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 1); 
 or by parable in his more general discourse; or enig¬ 
 matically, as when he replied to Pilate concernii^ 
 his authority as king. The deeper one sees into the 
 method and manner of Jesus, the clearer does it ap¬ 
 pear that the qualities of caution and reserve were 
 often exercised by him in conduct singularly con¬ 
 trasted with his usual winning address and simpli¬ 
 city of language; and it was his deliberate intention 
 to be thus guarded. He did not expect to be fully 
 understood. He meant by his words much more 
 than he intended them to convey to his hearers. 
 This veiled manner of Christ sprang justly from the 
 nature of his mission, which was, I apprehend, neither 
 more nor less than the entire reconstruction of 
 human society by the restoration of the Theocracy. 
 He was the most tremendous revolutionist the world 
 has ever seen. This purpose of his was directly con¬ 
 trary to the selfish interests of the Jewish hierarchy 
 and also of the Roman government; and, in the brief 
 period of six weeks from the time it was avowed, 
 Pilate was goaded by the Sanhedrim to consent to 
 his death. There is no doubt but that Jesus might 
 have lived to a ripe old age, and have died in high 
 esteem, if his preaching had been what the modern 
 church assumes it to have been, — limited to the spirit¬ 
 ual salvation of individuals. So far as we can see, he 
 might, at the last moment of his life, have availed 
 himself of the whole power of the Roman Govern¬ 
 ment by simply telling Pilate, if he had been free 
 to do so, that he did not propose to interfere with 
 any of the existing institutions of Judaea. BTxt he 
 did not do this, because truthfully he could not. 
 For conclusive proof of this, please refer to Luke 
 iv. 18-29, which gives the account of a discourse at 
 Nazareth, which, though apparently delivered at the 
 opening of his ministry, seems to have foreshadowed 
 the extraordinary scenes which transpired at its 
 close, during the preaching of the kingdom of God 
 throughout the Galilean cities. 
 
 The Hebrew world of labor was fast lowering to 
 the Gentile level of slavery, which was the irresisti¬ 
 ble tendency of the masses of the Roman Empire. 
 
THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 9 
 
 Debt was inevitable. Cbattelship unavoidably en¬ 
 sued, the debtor being sold to satisfy the claims of 
 the creditor. While the sabbatic periods were ob¬ 
 served, this bondage could not last over seven years; 
 but these had fallen into contempt. Christ an¬ 
 nounced his purpose ‘‘ to preach the acceptable or 
 sabbatic year of the Lord, to preach deliverance to 
 the captives, to set at liberty them that are bruised;’’ 
 that is, to liberate all the slaves, — a message which 
 was as offensive to the respectable classes of Naza¬ 
 reth as a similar errand would have been in South 
 Carolina twenty years ago. His own towns-people 
 attempted to kill him on the spot, hy throwing him 
 headlong down a precipice, just because of what he 
 said, and would unquestionably have done so, had 
 it not been for an extraordinary and mysterious in¬ 
 fluence which defeated their intention. The main 
 volume of his mission to men turned upon the re¬ 
 establishment of the kingdom of God, involving, 
 necessarily, such an expansion and application of 
 the Mosaic laws as would be required by the greatly 
 altered conditions of society. If the Komans had 
 known his intentions, they would not only have been 
 as ready as the Jews to put him to death, but they 
 would have taken the initiative. A free discussion 
 of social questions was impossible under the empire. 
 Their agitation involved such exposures to sedition, 
 that the Romans would not even permit the organi¬ 
 zation of fire-companies, but relied entirely for the 
 extinguishment of conflagrations on individual ef¬ 
 fort, aided by the soldiery. Such, however, was the 
 wonderful prudence of Christ, that he succeeded in 
 concealing his real aim in its ultimate form from the 
 Roman authorities, and so avoided their enmity. 
 The blindness which has hitherto obscured half of 
 Christ’s work is very astonishing. It is painfully 
 apparent in the case of the gifted author of ^‘Ecce 
 Homo,” who, writing with a view to quicken the 
 church to a sense of its duty to the laboring masses, 
 casts a deep shadow, where otherwise he could have 
 shed light, by ignoring the claims of the law upon 
 Christian believers, as follows: “Christ did not 
 leave a code of morals in the* ordinary sense of the 
 word, that is, an enumeration of actions prescribed 
 and prohibited.” But what did he mean by his ex- 
 
10 THE HOPE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 
 
 press declaration to his disciples ? — Think not that 
 I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. 1 am 
 not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Whosoever, there¬ 
 fore, shall break one of these least commandments, 
 and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least 
 in the kingdom of heaven.” Is not this leaving a 
 code of morals in all essential respects ? I submit 
 that he must be taken as sustaining the authority of 
 the Mosaic code, not only in its principles, but in 
 such specific application of them to the affairs of 
 men as the Divine Spirit shall from age to age sug¬ 
 gest. It may be true that he made ‘^only two or 
 three prohibitions and two or three commands;” 
 but, if these mandates were comprehensive, they 
 were sufficient. He loosened the sabbath; but he 
 strengthened marriage. He gave the church author¬ 
 ity over the secular affairs of its members (Matt. xvi. 
 19; xviii. 15-18), limiting his followers to an eccle¬ 
 siastical court in adjustment of their mutual dis¬ 
 agreements, with the assurance that their proceed¬ 
 ings would be recognized in heaven. He bound the 
 principle of labor cost or sacrifice into the conditions 
 which should control the reward of toil in the para¬ 
 ble of the laborers (Matt. xx. 1-16), wherein those 
 who wearily and anxiously waited till the eleventh 
 hour for some one to hire them were paid the same 
 as those who were first employed. He forbid his 
 followers lending on usury, but commanded them to 
 lend, looking not even for the principal again (Luke 
 vi. 35). He denounced the Pharisees for devouring 
 widows’ houses by usury (Matt, xxiii. 14). And in 
 what has taken the name of the great commandment 
 (John xxi. 15-17) he enjoined Peter, as the leader of 
 the twelve apostles, to feed his lambs, twice repeat¬ 
 ing the injunction. How, his introductory act hav¬ 
 ing been an invitation to his hungry followers “to 
 come and dine,” the whole proceeding becomes a 
 clear illustration of the truth that the material needs 
 of men must be blended with the spiritual element 
 in the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom. 
 
 It will, perhaps, be contended that these injunc¬ 
 tions were addressed to his Hebrew followers, and 
 therefore are not applicable to us Gentile believers. 
 It is true that the full force of some of the com¬ 
 mands he gave was remitted by him at the last sup- 
 
THE HOPE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 
 
 11 
 
 per, because of the rejection by the nation of his 
 authority as their king. “ And he said unto them, 
 When I sent you without purse and scrip and shoes, 
 lacked ye any thing ? And they said, Nothing. Then 
 said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let 
 him take it, and likewise his scrip; and he that hath 
 no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one ” 
 (Luke xxii. 35, 36). But they are conclusive in any 
 view as to his intentions, and plainly he would re¬ 
 new them again when the conditions should make 
 them appropriate; and that they are perpetual in 
 their final obligation is clear from the solemn arbitra¬ 
 ment of the judgment scene (Matt. xxv. 30-40), 
 where the test of fitness for heaven is made to de¬ 
 pend upon the exercise of Christian affection in re¬ 
 lieving hunger, thirst, nakedness, and imprisonment. 
 
 But, even if the presence of the Homans had not 
 prevented an explicit promulgation of the details of 
 the new dispensation, the proclamation of the Theoc¬ 
 racy was brought so abruptly to a close as to leave 
 no adequate opening for the full development of the 
 kingly claims of Christ. If he had been ‘‘ crowned,’’ 
 instead of being crucified,” no room for doubt as 
 to his intentions would have remained. Solomon 
 was unquestionably the type of his royal power, and 
 in the history of his reign the beneficent millennial 
 rule of Christ is dimly shadowed forth. 
 
 In the proverbs of this mighty prince we have a 
 re-afiirmation of the peculiar sociology of the Deca¬ 
 logue. lie eulogizes wisdom as well as piety; de¬ 
 nounces usury, and exalts the law (Prov. xxviii. 8, 
 10); and makes frequent and special mention of the 
 evils of suretyship, or giving bonds for others, show¬ 
 ing that he saw plainly that its tendency was to lead 
 men to rely on money instead of character; and in 
 doing this he condemns the practice of indorsing. 
 But he became involved in the commercialism which 
 he opposes, and his reign introduced the same evils 
 which are now threatening society. The glut of sil¬ 
 ver, popular discontent, and excessive taxation, are 
 repeating themselves in our own land from the same 
 causes. The organization of labor in the building 
 of the temple was the type and prophecy of the 
 course which Christ would have followed, if he had 
 not been prematurely “cut olf in the midst of his 
 
12 THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 days,’’ and it is also the course, which, by the most ob¬ 
 vious of inferences, he is now, at his second coming, 
 pursuing as an indispensable prerequisite to making 
 the earth a temple for his worship and service. 
 
 It follows, also, from the above premises, that 
 Christ must have acted and spoken with reference to 
 the situation of the disciples after his departure; and 
 his reserve was partly due to this cause. He well 
 knew that his rejection would dwarf his majestic 
 offer to restore the kingdom to the dimensions of the 
 gospel as delivered to the apostles, which was simply 
 the ‘‘good news ” of the kingdom to be re-established 
 at his “second coming.” As he preached the king¬ 
 dom, it was richly charged with the materialism of 
 Moses, even after making all allowance for the cau¬ 
 tion which circumstances imposed upon him. But 
 there was no possibility that his followers should 
 iucceed where he had temporarily failed. Therefore 
 their mission, so far as it related to organization, was 
 only tentative, or expectant of his re-appearance to 
 ;jomplete his work. I use the above language solely 
 with reference to the human side of the events under 
 discussion, placing no limitation on the divine fore¬ 
 knowledge or power, except such as is necessarily 
 connected with the freedom of the Jews to accept or 
 reject the offer of national salvation. 
 
 “And now he comes! The signs are sure. All 
 lands are armed for war. The mystic numbers are 
 fulfilled. He comes I ” 
 
 But how ? This is a most momentous question. 
 If we refer to the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of 
 St. Mark, we shall find, that, when Jesus made his 
 triumphal entrance into the temple, he did not at 
 once proceed to cleanse it, as would be inferred from 
 the other evangelists. But “when he had looked 
 round about upon all things, and now the eventide 
 was come, he went out unto Bethany with the 
 twelve; and on the morrow, when they were come 
 from Bethany, . . . they came to Jerusalem; and 
 Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out 
 them that sold and bought in the temple, and over¬ 
 threw the tables of the money-changers, and the 
 seats of them that sold doves.” 
 
 Several very important conclusions force them’ 
 selves upon my mind in view of the above state- 
 
THE HOPE OF THE REPtTXBlt/IS. 
 
 ments. The first is, that these executive acts, ^tJ^e 
 only ones which Jesus dM iir,' itn4h>e(liat<;j Vtpnnecthin 
 with the royal prerogativv's jyhkdJeth^ peQple^had vu^t 
 recognized, were entirely laUUriai in their character, 
 and they were a direct rebuke tof^ the 'p©pp?e .),’^r.di^ 
 obeying the laws of Moses in re^epeii’be;tO, yi^^ihgraiixi 
 selling: they were not exchanging"a^ tost, blit for a 
 profit. Next, that these acts, which I regard by all 
 the attending circumstances of their occurrence as 
 the culmination of the earthly side of our Lord’s 
 ministry, were performed on the second day, or, in 
 broader utterance, at the second coming of Christ, 
 and also that they were accomplished by him alone, 
 the people not assisting at all, or taking any part, as 
 •they did on the preceding day. This last circum¬ 
 stance I regard as a typical fulfilment of the predic¬ 
 tion in Isa. Ixiii. 3: ‘‘ I have trodden the wine-press 
 alone; and of the people there was none with me.” 
 
 Let us exclude from our apprehension of the man¬ 
 ner of Christ’s coming all ideas of his visible fleshly 
 appearance among men, and rest in the assurance 
 that the distress which now pervades all lands is the 
 result of his spiritual presence manifesting itself in 
 righteous indignation at the general contempt of the 
 laws which were intended to govern men in their 
 material affairs, as is indeed affirmed in a subsequent 
 part of the prophecy already quoted: ‘‘And I looked, 
 and there was none to help; and I wondered that 
 there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm 
 brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld 
 me.” 
 
 I take occasion here to express the opinion, that 
 all existing schools of prophetic interpretation are at 
 fault in their effort to ascertain the true meaning of 
 the Scriptures in respect to the future: first, because 
 of their failure to recognize the permanent character 
 of the economic principles of the Decalogue; second, 
 in the further failure to comprehend the truth that 
 Christ has brought life and immortality to light 
 mainly by revelations concerning the intermediate 
 condition; and, third, because of literalism. This 
 last error has forced the pre-Millenists to the absurd 
 conclusion, that the Lord, in the very act of estab¬ 
 lishing the reign of the saints upon the earth, is to 
 transfer them all in a body to heaven. These errors 
 
id ;< ' the republic. 
 
 ar^ still further intensified by the vain effort to bring 
 th^ pemctii^J vleW$ bf;tjie; apostles concerning the 
 Coining^ of the^XiOrdj,a? expressed in their letters, 
 into harmony with the Gospels and Apocalypse, on 
 the" bject; oj prophecy. The reason for their par- 
 tiah„khoVle^lge clearly stated by St. Luke in Acts 
 i. 7 : ‘' And he fOhri-st] said unto them. It is not for 
 you to know the times or the seasons, which the 
 Father hath put in his own power.” 
 
 For a full, and to me a satisfactory explanation of 
 the last things, divested of miraculous supernatural¬ 
 ism, so far as they refer to earthly matters, yet rever¬ 
 ent and believing in the highest sense, I feel privileged 
 in referring the reader to that remarkable book, 
 ‘‘Foregleams of Immortality,” by E. H. Sears. 
 
 I have been impelled to extend this allusion to 
 prophecy, by a conviction that post-Millenism, the 
 prevailing theory of the churches, practically neu¬ 
 tralizes Christian faith in the second coming of our 
 Lord: it amounts to an indefinite postponement of 
 the whole question, and it is one of the principal 
 reasons of the prevailing coldness and inefficiency. 
 Now, inasmuch as many minds will concede the theo¬ 
 retic soundness of the views which I have urged con¬ 
 cerning the relation of the gospel to the law, but will 
 fail to discern that the coming is imminent, that is, 
 that a tremendous crisis in human affairs is at hand, 
 I desire to draw their attention to the four closing 
 verses of the twelfth chapter of Kevelation, as con¬ 
 taining an intimation directly applicable to the 
 American churches, and having very definite rela¬ 
 tions to the future of the republic. These verses 
 are as follows: — 
 
 14. And to the woman were given two wings of a 
 great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, 
 into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and 
 times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. 
 
 15. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a 
 flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be 
 carried away of the flood. 
 
 16. And the earth helped the woman; and the earth 
 opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which 
 the dragon cast out of his mouth. 
 
 17. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and 
 went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which 
 keep the commandments of God, and have the testi¬ 
 mony of Jesus Christ. 
 
THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 15 
 
 Bearing in mind that the events of prophecy are 
 often intermingled, in the mystical language of the 
 Apocalypse, without strict chronological accuracy, 
 we can refer to the context in the sixth verse of the 
 same chapter for a preliminary statement that the 
 “flying into the wilderness” began with the perse¬ 
 cution of the apostolic churches soon after the birth 
 of the “man-child,” and that the dissemination of 
 the truth in this way has largely characterized the 
 gospel dispensation during the “1,260 days,” or pro¬ 
 phetic years. We shall then note the banishment of 
 Satan and his angels from Heaven, Hades, to the 
 earth, which brings us to verse fourteen, and to the 
 inference that the final exodus of the persecuted 
 church found its highest development in the settle¬ 
 ment of our own country to avoid oppression; the 
 “two wings of a great eagle,” our national emblem, 
 being sufficiently pointed to indicate that America is 
 the “wilderness” to which the last exodus was 
 made. The “nourishment” of the Church, or 
 “woman,” during the “time, times, and half a 
 time,” of verse fourteen, or the “1,260 days” of the 
 sixth verse, have expired, and they find the churches 
 of America presenting in a marked degree the evi¬ 
 dence of the divine favor in respect to numbers and 
 wealth. With the ending of the period above named 
 comes “the time of trouble” (of Dan. xii. 1), of 
 tribulation (of Matt. xxiv. 21), and of the great 
 earthquake (of Eev. xvi. 18); and the form that this 
 trouble is taking in our own country is symbolically 
 indicated in the three concluding verses I have 
 quoted. The character and aims of the first settlers 
 were high; but their descendants are fast becoming 
 spiritually debased by the acquisition of wealth, 
 through usury, in its varied forms: in this pursuit 
 they have imported millions of degraded Africans, 
 and have held them until recently in oppressive 
 bondage. Large numbers of Europeans have arrived 
 during the last fifty years, whose condition has not, 
 in any marked degree, been improved by the mere 
 possession of political freedom, as is proved by the 
 existence of the immense tenement iiopulaticns of 
 our great cities; while upon our western coasts the 
 incoming of the Chinese is fast convincing the public 
 mind that the peace and progress, not only of the 
 
16 
 
 hope oi' Tfifi BEPtiBtilO* 
 
 republic, but of society itself, is at hazard. Thes« 
 hordes of barbarous and uneducated people con¬ 
 stitute, to my mind, the ‘‘water as a flood,’’ which 
 the “serpent,” or Satan, has “cast out of his 
 mouth ” after the “ woman,” or Church, that he might 
 drown out, or “carry away,” all the good influences 
 of our religious and republican institutions. 
 
 The material or economical nature of the conflict 
 is indicated in the sixteenth verse. The “ woman” 
 is not represented as being helped or saved by her 
 piety, or by her spiritual gifts; but she is helped by 
 the “earth,” that is, by the wise and righteous use 
 she finally makes of the material forces at her dis¬ 
 posal in our immense continent and its vast natural 
 resources, designed by God for the common use of 
 all his creatures, without price. 
 
 The seventeenth verse describes an intense spir¬ 
 itual conflict, of which our country is to be the first 
 and principal scene, while the great Armageddon 
 contest of actual warfare rages in the Old World. 
 This conflict will begin when the Church denounces 
 usury, and withdraws itself from the present business 
 system of the world, — the mystic Babylon of Scrip¬ 
 ture, — in compliance with the command of Christ 
 in Kev. xviii. 4: “ Come out of her, my people, that 
 ye he not partakers of her sins, that ye receive not of 
 her plagues.^^ 
 
 Eeturning from this digression, — if it be one, —let 
 us endeavor to ascertain some of the remedial meas¬ 
 ures by which we may hope to mitigate the divine 
 displeasure, and put ourselves in harmony with 
 Christ’s instructions, to “occupy till he comes.” 
 There seem to be three ways of doing this: — 
 
 1. Through the associated action of individuals 
 under religious incentives, though not necessarily in 
 connection with a church. A few years since, Mr. 
 Charles ISTordhoff — a writer for the commercial 
 press, of recognized character and ability — visited 
 all the communes of the United States, and gave the 
 result of his observations and conclusions in a very 
 interesting book, entitled “ Communism in America.” 
 Mr. Samuel Leavitt of Kew York, a most compe¬ 
 tent authority, says of this book, “Its principal 
 value lies in the fact that it has overthrown for all 
 time the arguments of the Shakers, Oneidans, and 
 
THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 17 
 
 the extreme Fourierites, — that a socialistic life can¬ 
 not be maintained without destroying the marriage 
 relation.” There are seventy-two prosperous com¬ 
 munes in the United States, under the control of 
 eight distinct societies; viz., the Shakers, estab¬ 
 lished in 1794; the Kappists, in 1805; the Zoarites, 
 in 1817; the Amaiia and Bethel Communists, in 1844; 
 the Oneida Perfectionists, in 1848; the Icarians, in 
 1849; and the Aurora Communists, in 1852. They 
 number in all about five thousand persons, and are 
 worth about twelve million dollars. Mr. Nordhoff 
 has the reputation, which is sustained by his book, 
 of being a very fair and unprejudiced writer; and he 
 comes to the following conclusions: — 
 
 “ Communists do not toil severely. In a commune 
 no member is a servant. Communists are not lazy. 
 Communists live well. Communists are temperate, 
 and drunkenness is unknown among them. Com¬ 
 munists are tenderly cared for when ill, and in old age 
 their lives are made very easy and pleasant. 
 
 “ It is a fixed principle in all the communes to keep 
 out of debt, and avoid all speculative and hazardous 
 enterprises. None of the communes make the acqui¬ 
 sition of wealth a leading object in life: they are in 
 no haste to be rich. Communistic societies become 
 wealthy. The communal life provides a greater vari¬ 
 ety of employment for each individual, and thus in¬ 
 creases the dexterity, and broadens the faculties of 
 men. It gives independence, and inculcates prudence 
 and frugality; it demands self-sacrifice, and restrains 
 selfishness and greed, and thus increases the happi¬ 
 ness which comes from the moral side of human 
 nature.” 
 
 2. The second remedial measure by which we may 
 prepare for Christ’s coming is through the action of 
 the State. Our government, like that of the He¬ 
 brews, is the government of a free people. It is a 
 system of self-government. Our constitution, like 
 that of Moses, is pervaded with popular sympathies 
 and the spirit of liberty. In what respect, then, do 
 we differ from the standard by which we are compar¬ 
 ing ourselves ? In this, namely, that the Hebrew 
 constitution was not only a government of laws, but 
 of laws referring directly to the industrial and Jinan'- 
 cial condition of the common people. We have so far 
 followed in the steps of Moses, that we recognize the 
 
18 THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 theory, in both national and state constitutions, that 
 government should be of laws, and not of men. But 
 we have hitherto not only neglected to apply this 
 theory specifically to the transactions of industry and 
 exchange, but we are stoutly maintaining the right 
 of individual and corporate capitalists not only to 
 lord it as they please, over great bodies of laborers, 
 but also to dictate terms in the matter of railroad 
 transportation to influential mercantile and agricul¬ 
 tural communities. We do this in the most thorough 
 and effective manner in conserving ^‘property” as 
 the unit or base of our legislation; whereas the Bible 
 standard is that of manhood, or, more properly, the 
 family. It is true that our laws guard all classes of 
 citizens from personal violence; but the practical 
 effect of the laws concerning property is such as to 
 inure almost exclusively to the trading and moneyed 
 classes, because they do not apply to property until 
 after it has been distributed. They make no effort, 
 or pretence even, to shield the producer in his indus¬ 
 trial right. Neither the legislative nor the judicial 
 authorities of the State have admitted it to be any 
 part of their functions to provide for equity in the 
 distribution of labor and its reward; and in this re¬ 
 spect they reverse the Mosaic legislation, which made 
 as ample provision as the age permitted for relief 
 from excessive toil, and controlled the price of labor, 
 land, merchandise, and money, by the application of 
 the highest principles of ethics. Two consequences 
 follow from this disastrous omission: first, the en¬ 
 forced idleness of large numbers of the people, in 
 consequence of the introduction of machinery, 
 averaging at least a third of each year; and, second, 
 an absolute inadequacy of income, not only because 
 of this lack of steady employment, but also on ac¬ 
 count of the inherent defects of wages as a means of 
 payment, their aggregate amount not being suflScient 
 to purchase the things which the laborers have them¬ 
 selves made, thus causing the strange phenomenon of 
 glutted markets in the midst of a needy and often 
 suffering people. It has been ascertained by reliable 
 statistics, that the State of Massachusetts, which 
 probably pays the highest wages in the Union, only 
 averages four hundred and eighteen dollars a year. 
 As it is known that considerable numbers of skilled 
 
THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 19 
 
 workmen exceed this average, in prosperous years 
 by seyeral hundred dollars, what a pinched and nar¬ 
 row living must women and youths, and all who 
 compose the low-paid classes, have! These figures 
 might be graded down through the different States 
 until the colored laborers of the South are reached, 
 where the united effort of a whole family only yields 
 about two hundred dollars in cash per year. Will 
 the reader pardon me if I point out here an appalh 
 ing danger ? Cultivated society is stupidly arguing 
 against the exercise of violence by laborers, because 
 having the ballot in their hands, and being the most 
 numerous, they are assumed to have the means of 
 peacefully righting themselves by political action; 
 but I aver that this assumption is not justified by 
 existing facts, and, furthermore, that the governing 
 classes, as long as they deceive themselves by such a 
 specious theory, are in the condition of men who 
 lie down to sleep upon a railroad track. It is now 
 more than fifty years since the labor agitation began 
 in this country, and the results may b^e briefly sum¬ 
 marized as follows: — 
 
 Our partial and ineffective legislation concerning 
 the hours of labor, and our homestead laws, are all 
 the enactments we have that touch vitally the inter¬ 
 ests of industry. T^e ten-hours day was one of the 
 first requests.we made; and our whole factory popu¬ 
 lation are still pleading in vain for relief in this re¬ 
 spect. Our lien law is a cheat. Suing in court is a 
 mockery: the workman and all his family would 
 starve to death a score of times before he could re¬ 
 cover by a suit his wickedly withheld wage, which 
 is his living. The law that gave three years for the 
 redemption of a mortgage is repealed; and so is the 
 law limiting interest on money. The national Eight 
 Hour Law has been treated from the beginning with 
 unblushing contempt, and disregarded by whole 
 classes of officials having in charge large numbers of 
 working-people; and, finally, the intelligent skilled 
 workmen of the navy-yards and arsenals of the coun¬ 
 try have been deprived of its benefits by proceedings 
 equally arbitrary and unrepublican. It follows, also, 
 as an unavoidable consequence of our unhallowed 
 worship of property, and neglect of the family, that 
 we are rapidly sinking in this respect to the appall- 
 
20 
 
 THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 ing social conditions of the Old World. The sacred 
 privacy which should invest the home has been in¬ 
 vaded by the double occupancy of buildings by our 
 respectable working-people; and statistics of the most 
 reliable character prove that married women are 
 being more and more forced to add their labor to that 
 of their husbands to gain an ordinary livelihood. As 
 a practical fact, our law system does so work as to 
 enable a few money-holders to keep the people in 
 subjection therewith, and devour their labor; and the 
 case is growing worse and worse every day. 
 
 I maintain that the joint influence of the two 
 erroneous theories, viz., that the power of the State 
 should be limited to the protection of property after 
 it has been distributed, and that the Church has no 
 direct control over material affairs, effectually neu¬ 
 tralizes whatever political advantages the people pos¬ 
 sess. We may vote and petition until doomsday ; but 
 we shall accomplish nothing until this state of public 
 opinion is rectifled. The dreadful scenes which oc¬ 
 curred during the Pennsylvania railroad riots will be 
 liable to be repeated as long as the pathway of reform 
 is blocked with such disastrous errors. 
 
 The republic, if it would continue, must remedy 
 these deficiencies. I have shown the germs of the 
 social forces, which, in the vajdous religious com¬ 
 munes of the country, give us hope in these direc¬ 
 tions. It is my privilege now to call attention to the 
 fact that the Plymouth Colony, which was indeed 
 the moral seed-force of our national life, was unmis¬ 
 takably communistic in its origin, and that, in direct 
 connection with this fact, the advantages of recipro¬ 
 cal relations between men in material affairs have 
 been in operation in the Kew-England fisheries for 
 two hundred and fifty years. And what makes this 
 allusion the more pertinent is the fact that these 
 beneficent customs have been indirectly, but very 
 effectively, aided by the natural operation of the 
 marine laws of the United States. 
 
 I recollect as one of the most valuable lessons of 
 the early years of my life, that I saw, on one occa¬ 
 sion, eighty sail of the most perfectly constructed 
 vessels of their kind in the world, riding at anchor 
 in the port of Wellfleet, Mass., a town deeply imbued 
 with the Pilgrim spirit and character. Tfiese vessels 
 
THE HOPE OF THE EEPTJBLIC. . 21 
 
 could not have been worth less than two hundred 
 thousand dollars ; and they were owned almost ex¬ 
 clusively by their crews, numbering about a thousand 
 men. They were navigated on shares ; and the 
 whole business as it was conducted at that time fur¬ 
 nished conclusive evidence that the religious spirit 
 may work in harmony with the State in the applica¬ 
 tion of equitable economic law. 
 
 But while I believe in the right and duty of the 
 nation to act on those principles of large utilitarian¬ 
 ism, which would lead ultimately to equitable com¬ 
 merce, and while I feel that a necessity of the most 
 urgent character is upon us to take some of the pre¬ 
 paratory steps to that end, with reference to the cur¬ 
 rency, the tariff, telegraphs, and railroads, and also 
 secular education, blended with natural religion, I 
 frankly admit that the obstacles in the way of a full 
 settlement of a question of such stupendous magni¬ 
 tude as this on intellectual grounds, and through 
 political forces alone, seem to me to be insurmounta¬ 
 ble. 
 
 In considering the various local industrial com¬ 
 munes, the fact has presented itself, that those only 
 have had a marked success which have maintained 
 a deep religious life ; and, seen from this aspect, 
 these quiet, peaceful, and prosperous societies have 
 appeared like salt, tending to the preservation of 
 society, if by any means their influence could be 
 enlarged, and made general. And this brings me to 
 my third means of practical reform. 
 
 3. The chief remedial work which must needs be 
 done must be done by the Church of Christ. Every 
 movement for reform hitherto has sprung out of the 
 Church; and so must this movement begin. The 
 very existence of the national republic is due to the 
 fact that the members of the congregational churches 
 of England and America had previously voted for 
 two centuries in their local religious and civil organi¬ 
 zations. Our political freedom is an outgrowth from 
 the Church; and industrial liberty will come mainly 
 from the same source. Within the memory of living 
 men, the Christian Church has been aroused from 
 profound slumber to a sense of her duty to Pagans, 
 to drunkards, and to slaves: her final and greatest 
 work, in the re-organization of society on Bible prin- 
 
22 
 
 THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 ciples, still waits for such an outpouring of the Holj 
 Ghost as shall set the things of Christ, in this re¬ 
 spect, in their true light before her astonished gaze. 
 The Church must open her eyes to a sense of the 
 fatal character of the blunder which her Protestant 
 branches have committed in relinquishing all au¬ 
 thority over the temporal affairs of life. Sir. Glad¬ 
 stone, in thanking a German author for the dedica¬ 
 tion of his work to himself, writes thus: Germany 
 now holds the first place in behalf of the world in 
 asserting the necessity of limiting spiritual power to 
 spiritual thing si ^ In these words, England’s great¬ 
 est statesman undoubtedly expresses the prevailing 
 views of Protestants. I believe the position to be 
 utterly untenable, and, furthermore, that its con¬ 
 tinued application will be destructive, not only of 
 free institutions, but of the further progress of the 
 Christian Church. Do not misunderstand me on 
 this point. I do not believe in a Christian amend¬ 
 ment to our civil constitutions. It is one thing for 
 the Church to exercise power over the State, and 
 another and very different thing for it to carry its 
 spiritual principles into practice in its relation to its 
 own members by effective organization. 
 
 The economic question is so complex, that the con¬ 
 fusion of Babel pervades the counsels of reformers: 
 but Moses spoke clearly, and with divine authority, 
 concerning the fundamental principles which should 
 control society, in endeavoring to solve it; and, in 
 rejecting his authority in this matter, the Protestant 
 Church encourages discordant opinions, and also 
 forfeits her claim to the respect which mankind 
 universally accords to those who lift the race to 
 higher levels of human living. Her missions have 
 accomplished little that is conclusive in redeeming 
 men. The Sandwich Islands, the most successful of 
 them all, were converted to a spiritual faith, it is 
 true; but the social application of that faith was 
 neglected on principle, and the islanders are fast 
 perishing by the unavoidable consequences of their 
 contact with the mammonized business system of the 
 world, from the evil effects of which they were en¬ 
 tirely unprotected by their new religion. The same is 
 true of the North-American Indians, in whose case 
 the only success which has been attained has been iu 
 
THE HOPE OF THE BEPUBLIC. 2d 
 
 those instances where the missions have transcended 
 their own theories, and gathered their converts into 
 communities. 
 
 But a contrary and most favorable result has al¬ 
 ways been observable whenever the Church has used 
 the elements of voluntary but authoritative organi¬ 
 zation in her relation to worldly affairs. Quakers, 
 Moravians, and Catholics have touched with bold, 
 and measurably successful hands the industrial ques¬ 
 tion. 'The last-named has the most sacred claim to 
 the respectful consideration of Protestants by reason 
 of her tender care in providing labor for the poor in 
 connection with her conventual institutions during 
 the middle ages, and her modern missions, in which 
 labor has been organized and cared for on higher 
 principles than those of the market. 
 
 The last book of the Old Testament is profoundly 
 interesting to the student of Christian sociology, in¬ 
 asmuch as it demonstrates that the materialism of 
 Moses was intended to find its full expansion under 
 Christ. The prophet Malachi severely denounces the 
 tribe of Levi for failing to instruct the people in the 
 law. In chapter iii. verse 3, the coming of Christ to 
 his temple is directly associated with the purifying 
 and purging of the sons of Levi. They are accused 
 of causing many to stumble at the law,’’ and the 
 fearful consequences are pointed out that the nation 
 was cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, 
 even this whole nation,” in refusing to bring into 
 the storehouses of the Lord the offerings which the 
 law demanded, and in oppressing hirelings in their 
 wages. The central theme of this prophecy is di¬ 
 rectly in line with Christ’s language in Luke xvi. 11, 
 that God will not commit the true riches ” to those 
 who prove unfaithful in the unrighteous mammon. 
 I would urge the following considerations as motives 
 to bring the Church into right conduct in this re¬ 
 spect ; and in their support I will further quote from 
 Professor Wines’s book some statements which afford 
 the most ample proof that the cultured and wealthy 
 laity of the modern church have failed to realize the 
 directly practical nature of the responsibilities which 
 rest upon them as the representatives of the Levites, 
 who, it will be seen, were devoted to the affairs of 
 the i^resent life ; the spiritual interests of the people 
 
24 
 
 THE HOI'E OF THE EEPUBLIC. 
 
 under tlie Hebrew economy having been committed 
 to the high priests and the prophets, the Christian 
 ministry taking their places in the gospel dispensa^ 
 tion. 
 
 ‘ ‘ The Levites were not a mere spirituality. Certainly 
 they were the ministers of religion, and charged with 
 all the functions appertaining to the public worship of 
 Jehovah. But so close was the relation between the 
 law and the religion of the Hebrews, that all ecclesi¬ 
 astical persons were at the same time political persons. 
 Politically speaking, they were Jehovah’s ministers of 
 state : hence this tribe, as constituted by Moses, was 
 not only a priesthood, appointed to the service of the 
 altar, but also a true temi^oral magistracy, having im¬ 
 portant and vital civil relations. Besides performing 
 the ceremonies of public worship, it was destined to 
 preserve in its integrity, and to interpret in the seat of 
 justice, the text of the fundamental laws; to teach 
 these laws to all Israel; to inspire the people with a 
 love for them; and to bind firmly together all the 
 parts of the body politic. 
 
 “ The tribe of Levi, then, comprehended the learned 
 of all names ; the sages and professors of law and 
 jurisprudence, of medicine and physiology, of the 
 physical and mathematical sciences ; in short, all the 
 so-called liberal arts and sciences, the possession and 
 application of which constitute the civilization of a 
 country. It was to be the chief instrument of a con¬ 
 tinuing and progressive mental, moral, and religious 
 culture of the people. Its business was to produce, 
 preserve, and perfect all the necessary sources and 
 conditions of national civilization, to form and train 
 up the people of the country to be obedient, free, use¬ 
 ful citizens and patriots, living to the benefit of the 
 State, and prepared to die for its defence.” 
 
 Now, if we bear in mind that the professions here 
 described were required to give their services to the 
 people, so that any one who needed a doctor or a 
 lawyer could be served gratuitously, that they were 
 not even supported by a moneyed salary, as our 
 preachers and teachers are, much less allowed to in¬ 
 crease their income, or accumulate wealth by usury, 
 but depended entirely for their support on a share of 
 the crops coming to them in the form of tithes, we 
 can form some idea of the great work to which the 
 same classes are now called in free America, with 
 such additions to the list above named as shall bring 
 
THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 25 
 
 the mercantile, manufacturing, and agricultural lead¬ 
 ers of society, who may be members of the Christian 
 Church, to a full sense of their obligation to Christ 
 in this solemn crisis, to work with him in ‘‘fulfill¬ 
 ing the law,” so as to effectively abolish the present 
 despotic and usurious systems of production and 
 exchange, and thereby substitute the liberty of the 
 kingdom of God, based upon the Decalogue in its 
 twofold but closely interwoven relations, the mate¬ 
 rial and the spiritual. The exigency is a fearful one: 
 we cannot safely refuse to consider the claims of 
 labor, or delay action. The causes of the present 
 suffering are too deeply seated to be removed by su¬ 
 perficial remedies. The Catholic Church should use 
 the power which she has always claimed, by repeat¬ 
 ing her wise and successful colony on the Paraguay 
 in such localities as to empty our cities of their de¬ 
 pressed tenant populations. The Methodist Church 
 could gain a new spiritual impulse, and employ large 
 numbers of her intelligent and self-sacrificing laity, 
 by sending them into the South and West to organize 
 the freedmen into Christian communities after the 
 pattern at Amana in Iowa, insuring their education 
 and just treatment, .solving a most angry and per¬ 
 plexing social question, and giving the cause of mis¬ 
 sions throughout the world the benefit of successful 
 self-supporting example. 
 
 Wolves are increasing in the rural portions of 
 Catholic France, and forests are springing up on the 
 deserted farms of Protestant IS'ew England. On the 
 Pacific coast the evidence has become so convincing 
 that Asiatic immigration is dragging California down 
 to the level of China, that the great cultured and 
 conservative interests of society have reversed their 
 original opinion, and, for the first time in the history 
 of the world, are at one with the voice of labor in 
 protesting against its continuance. No nation is 
 under obligation, even by the Golden Rule, to love 
 another people better than itself : our own citizens 
 have the first claim upon our sympathies. It is clear 
 that we are passing through a great crisis. It will 
 be soon enough to welcome the Chinese in large 
 numbers, when we have so far reformed our Chris¬ 
 tianity, and our customs of business and labor, as 
 to turn their presence into a blessing by co-operation* 
 
26 THE HOPE OF THE EEPUBLIC. 
 
 instead of its cursing us by its competition. The 
 immediate providential aspect of this immigration is 
 not what the mammonized press of the day calls it, 
 
 — their Christianization ; but its outlook is in the 
 direction of our own conversion to the gospel of the 
 kingdom in its fulness as pertaining to the temporal 
 as well as the spiritual salvation of the people, by 
 making a startling revelation of our own social and 
 religious short-comings. The Chinese quarter of San 
 Francisco is a parasite which has fastened itself upon 
 our civilization, because we have done little or noth¬ 
 ing for the heathen world. It will, if the present con¬ 
 ditions of society should continue, certainly kill the 
 tree upon which it has fastened. But the principles 
 of the Bible, if applied, will not only save California, 
 but send out vigorous offshoots in the shape of Chris¬ 
 tian mission communities to China and other be¬ 
 nighted lands, thus defeating the malignant designs 
 of Satan, and redeeming the world for Christ. 
 
 ISTo effective remedy has been proposed for the 
 reconstruction of the South. It is evident that the 
 resort to force is out of the question. The reasons 
 which forbid its exercise are equally valid against 
 the maintenance of a great standing army to shoot 
 down the starving laborers of our railroads, or the 
 miserable tenant-house population of our great cities. 
 Republican liberty will certainly disappear with such 
 wholesale use of arms. 
 
 Christ has committed the keys of the kingdom to 
 his Church. His perfected Church is the Theocracy 
 restored, with himself as king. In the act of washing 
 the disciples’ feet he symbolized Christian labor, and 
 he claimed all power over things, as well as liearts, 
 
 Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things 
 into his hands ” (John xiii. 3); and he also expresses 
 very plainly in the prayer, Thy kingdom come, thy 
 will be done in earth as in heaven,” which millions 
 of believers daily utter by his command, that he 
 intends to guide his followers to victory in the solu¬ 
 tion of the two controlling issues of the present life, 
 
 — the labor and the money questions. The whole of 
 Christ’s victory, of which this is a part, is thus fore¬ 
 told : — 
 
 “ I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like 
 the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and 
 
i 
 
 I THE HOPE OF THE HEPUBLIC. 21 
 
 came to the Ancient of days. And there was given 
 him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peo¬ 
 ple, nations, and languages, should serve him : his 
 dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not 
 pass away, and his kingdom that \vhich shall not he 
 destroyed. . . . And the kingdom and dominion, and 
 the greatness of the kingdom under the w^hole heaven, 
 shall be given to the people of the saints of the most 
 High, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” — 
 Dan. vii. 13, 14, 27. 
 
 This vision can only be fulfilled when the Church 
 exercises as full authority over property as it now 
 does over personal character; when all property, so 
 far as land and the instrumentalities for the produc¬ 
 tion of wealth are concerned, is held by the people, 
 and used for them ; when it cannot be, as now, that 
 the increase of the wealth of the few is gotten 
 through the increase of the misery of the many, but 
 when the infiuence of the Church in transforming 
 the structure of society shall be such as to constrain 
 and to help every one who has charge of affairs to 
 consider the welfare and happiness of the people, 
 as Moses did, and to conduct business in such a 
 manner that all worthy and industrious persons will 
 have enough to satisfy their reasonable desires : in 
 short, only as the Church changes from its present 
 narrow and selfish individualism, subjective in piety, 
 and dwarfed in practice, to a broad and generous 
 objective voluntary communism, open, hearty, loving, 
 and fruitful, can this prophecy be fulfilled, and re¬ 
 publican institutions be perpetuated. 
 
 The author earnestly recommends to preachers and students 
 of prophecy, “ Like unto Me,” or the resemblance between 
 Moses and Christ, a discussion of the relation of the Church to 
 the People. It will be sent by the single copy, or quantity, at 
 three cents each. The “ Hope of the Republic ” is also ofi'ered 
 at cost. 
 
 Correspondence is solicited with reference to the work of the 
 “ Christian Labor Union,” and also the “ Golden Rule Alliance,” 
 an evangelical Protestant religious order, for purposes of life- 
 assurance and relief in sickness, with both of which he is olfi- 
 cially connected. E. EL. R. 
 
28 
 
 THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Chelsea, Mass., April 9, 1886, I 
 In issuing a second edition of this tract, it is incum-1 
 bent on me to notice appreciatively the fact, that the] 
 national government has ceased its opposition to the! 
 ‘‘ Eight-hour Law.’^ j 
 
 The many friends, in the ranks of labor and of cul-j 
 ture who have manifested their approval of its ten-j 
 dencies, are also gratefully remembered; among the! 
 last was the late lamented Kev. Charles T. Collens of] 
 Cleveland, O., whose sermon, entitled ‘‘The Modern 
 Migration of Nations; or. The Danger and the Duty of 
 the Hour,’’ is conceded by impartial judges to be sub-| 
 stantially a reiteration of the message of “ The Hope-] 
 of the Eepublic.” | 
 
 The above sermon has been adopted as a tract by] 
 the American Home Missionary Society of the Con-j 
 gregationalists, and extensively circulated in that] 
 Church. Its kind but radical character may be in-| 
 ferred from its closing paragraph, as follows: — \ 
 
 “If agencies are lacking to reach out and inter¬ 
 penetrate the masses with vital Christianity, we must 
 then organize such. There can he no doubt that the\ 
 masses will cling to such a Churchy and to such a\ 
 Christ so presented, and thus have all their turbulent, 1 
 selfish passions calmed into contentment. Who 
 knows ? Perhaps God has given us this peril, that, | 
 in its battle-test, Christianity may renew its youth, j 
 and burst in glory from the dead chrysalis accumuia-] 
 tions of many centuries. Certainly, unless this be I 
 done, there is danger ahead for this republic, against 
 which no legislation can protect it. By the word of 
 Christ, unless this be done, the judgments of God must 
 fall on millions of lost fellow-beings; and in that judg-j 
 ment a Church that sits apathetic cannot escape pen-] 
 alty. The blood of souls stains it.” 
 
 Note. — The prophetic allusions in the preceding essay have! 
 been perfected since its original issue, and some very important | 
 conclusions reached. They are embodied in a manuscript, of,| 
 which copies have been placed in the public libraries of Chelsea | 
 and Boston. The Chelsea book is marked R. 288; the Bates-] 
 Hall copy is '*''♦'5437.54. j 
 
 This book presents comprehensive statements from the Scrip-j 
 tures, showing that the Divine Being is about to make an] 
 extraordinary manifestation of judgment and mercy on the] 
 American continent. It is entitled “ Paradise and Gehenna; or,| 
 The Intermediate State of the Spirit World, and its Relations toj 
 the Present Life ” (Sociologie). 199 pp. 12®. j