PERILS. SOCIALISM. 145 



excessive iiidividiialisin among us; a certain self-asser- 

 tion, a contempt of authority, wliich forgets that duties 

 are co-extensive with rights. Anarchism is only ' ' indi- 

 vidualism gone mad. " This powerful movement, there- 

 fore, toward individualism, and especially its perceptible 

 tendency toward extremes, is favorable to the si)read of 

 socialism, as advocated by the Internationalists. 



3. The prevalence of skepticism, also, is significant in 

 this connection. A wide-spread infidelity preceded the 

 French Revolution, and helped to prepare the way for 

 it. A criminal in a prison on the Rhine left, a few years 

 since, on the walls of his cell, the following message for 

 his successors: "I will say a word to you. There is no 

 heaven or hell. AVhen once you are dead there is an end 

 of everything. Therefore, ye scoundrels, grab whatever 

 you can; only do not let yourselves be grabbed. 

 Amen." Not only does irreligion remove all salutary 

 fear of retribution hereafter, and thus give over low- 

 minded men to violence and excess; but, when a man 

 has lost all portion in another life, he is the more deter- 

 mined to have his proportion in this. There are Chris- 

 tian socialists ; but the Internationalists are gross mate- 

 rialists. The socialist, Boruttau, says : ' ' No man else is 

 worthy of the name of socialist save he who, himself an 

 atheist, devotes his exertions w4th all zeal to the spread 

 of atheism." The great increase, therefore, of skepticism 

 in this generation, and especially of doubt touching the 

 sanctions of the divine law, has prepared a quick and 

 fruitful soil for socialism, of the violent and godless sort. 



4. Equality is one of the dreams of socialism. It pro- 

 tests against all class distinctions. The development of 

 classes, therefore, in a republic, or the widening of the 

 breach between them, is provocative of socialistic agita- 

 tion and growth. Among the far-reaching influences of 

 mechanical invention is a tendency, as yet unchecked, 

 to heighten differences of condition, to establish social 

 classes, and erect barriers between them. In a sense, 

 classes do and must exist wherever there are resem- 

 blances and differences; but so long as the individual 



