9l3 W. CUNNINGHAM^ D.D._, ARCHDEACON OF ELY^ ON 



absolute rule of the many over the few, even if those few be chosen 

 by the many, will be found the most grinding and penetrating 

 despotism that has ever been known since the creation of man. 



Mr. J. Schwartz, Jun., writes : — A considerable number of fellow 

 Christians would strongly dissent from the lecturer's sweeping state- 

 ments that " Socialism is inconsistent with Christianity " and that 

 " Christian anarchist seems almost a contradiction in terms." 



If Christ's teachings on social obligations to His generation are 

 taken to be of universal application then Tolstoy's deductions of 

 passive anarchism and other systems of Christian communism are 

 unanswerable. I think them mistaken because they underrate 

 the limitations imposed by Christ's manhood : His teaching, although 

 subject as regards worldly knowledge, to the limitations of a 

 Galilean peasant, is most wise as applied to the then existing 

 conditions. Interest on money He condemned because then, as still 

 in the East, it was wickedly usurous. Property then was the result 

 of force or fraud, not of industry and ability, and He said that it 

 should be given up. How wise a saying was " Resist not evil " to 

 the turbulent Jews hopelessly under the heel of the tyranny of Rome ; 

 what misery would they have avoided had they followed it. 



These teachings Christ did not intend to apply to a self-governed 

 modern state of which probably He had not the least conception. 

 The communistic community of the early Church was the natural 

 outcome of the mistaken notion of the speedy end of the world and 

 not an example for all time. At the end of the tenth century, when 

 Satan was expected to be let loose, a somewhat similar position was 

 created in mediaeval Europe. 



The power of Christ for all time is in His spiritual teaching and 

 ideal personality as ably put by our lecturer. All right-minded 

 people who know the facts, deplore the inequalities of wealth and 

 opportunity that have grown up. If the personal character of all 

 or even if a majority conformed to Christ's teaching, it would be 

 quite immaterial whether there was a socialistic or individualistic 

 form of society, all would be well. 



In dealing with the masses in their present state of moral and 

 mental development the rugged virtues of sturdy independence and 

 the pluck with which they face their cliificulties would soon wither 

 away under the blight of grandmotherly influence. 



The sensitive sentimental natures who inaugurate such movements 



