Among the most valuable results of a thing are often those which are
classed as bi-products. This is true of a certain inevitable social effect
of Christianity. That effect is brotherhood.
The natural tendency of the Christian religion is to make men understand
the fact that from the beginning they were created brothers. As far it
fails to accomplish this task, it will have failed of its social purpose.
As far it succeeds, it will have wrought the foundations of the
better day.
Such is the tendency of the Christian faith, because Jesus recognized no
artificial and arbitrary barriers. The lines across which nations and
social classes scorned to step he threw out of his consideration, and
crossed them regardlessly. In his estimation of things, a man was a man.
He could be no more and there was no disposition to ever rate him as less.
The world has arrived at this viewpoint slowly, but as surely as it does
arrive at this viewpoint, its strifes will cease. Wars and troubles come
from clannish exclusiveness and class hatred and distrust.
When those who belong to such classes as capital and labor forget their
social differences and emphasize their fraternal relations, they will
forget that they were ever pitted against one another. The only way the
problem can ever be solved is by the elimination of the caste lines which
separate the contending elements. The employer must remember that the
workman is a capitalist in time and muscle, and the employe must remember
that his employer is also a workingman.