CHRISTIANITY.
Aside from the fact of its divine origin and inspired teachers, the
doctrine of Christianity, the advent of the Messiah, was so opportune
that, even had he not been the true Saviour, but taught as he did and
as his disciples did, Christianity, by reason of the condition of the
civilized world, would have made rapid and permanent progress among
the “Common People.” Rome was at that time mistress of the world. Her
empire extended over the whole of Western, and a large portion of
Eastern civilization. Her conquering legions had carried their eagles
to the utmost confines of the then civilized portion of the Western
world.
The cultured Greek and the barbarous Briton, the learned Egyptian and
the warlike Teuton, alike felt the Roman yoke. Palestine was a province
of the great Roman Empire. Roman officials, Roman representatives,
and Roman soldiers ruled the people of Palestine with a rod of iron.
It had once been said that “to be a Roman citizen was to be a king.”
While the Roman Republic had ceased to exist, and the Cæsars ruled in
place of the old republican form of government, creating, as a result
of a monarchy, a nobility, class distinction, and “caste,” still the
traditions and the feelings of the Roman citizen remained with him. He
was a king in comparison with the conquered people of the provinces
which had been added to the Roman Empire.
The Romans were essentially warriors; cruel and oppressive,
merciless and masterful, at every period of the existence of the
Roman government, whether monarchical or republican. But under the
Cæsars there had sprung up a privileged class, the nobility, who
had accumulated vast wealth, surrounded themselves with an army of
retainers and servants, through whom they imposed upon the “Common
People” every kind of oppression imaginable.
This was not so much the case where the nobility came in contact with
only Roman citizens, but in every conquered province or country the
arrogance and cruelty of the representatives of the nobility of Rome
made absolutely wretched and hopeless the lives of the conquered people.
The Jewish people had become almost accustomed, as a race, to the yoke
of a conqueror. So often had they been oppressed, and so long, they had
learned that the ark of their hope and comfort lay, not in temporal
power, but in that hope of everlasting happiness which the Word of God,
delivered to Moses, insured them hereafter. This had resulted in the
creation among the Jewish people of a priesthood and a religious order
almost as powerful as the priesthood of ancient Egypt, which exerted,
with regard to spiritual and social affairs, though not in conflict
with the power of Rome, almost the same tyrannical power as Rome did by
the might of her legions in temporal affairs.
Between the grindstones of military despotism and priestly despotism
the poor Jew was ground until his very soul cried out in anguish. The
true religion, given to his forefathers, through that great teacher,
Moses, by God Almighty, had ceased to afford him comfort. “Caste”
had crept into the temple, as well as into the Roman government,
destroying, as it ever will, peace and happiness at home, security and
prosperity abroad. Therefore, when a voice was heard “crying in the
wilderness, Come, ye who are heavy-laden,” the ears of the Jew, the
Gentile, the barbarian, all the world over, were ready to listen and
follow the sweet music of hope created in the breasts of the oppressed,
which Christ brought.
The persecution of our Saviour and his sufferings arose and were
occasioned by the priestly “caste,” and executed, in that scene on
the cross, by the military “caste”--the Roman soldiers. “Caste,” and
the crime of it, is responsible for the crucifixion of our Saviour,
the Son of God. The “Common People,” in multitudes, followed Jesus,
and listened in rapt attention to the loving words of peace and hope
he brought them. It was the high priests of the temple who accused
him; it was the Roman governor who had him crucified, by reason of the
accusations of the priestly “caste.”
No fair-minded man, examining into the beautiful story furnished by
the existence of the Son of God on earth, can fail to recognize that
the loving, peaceful, kindly mission of our Saviour was made wretched,
resulting in his suffering and death, by reason of the _crime of
“caste.”_
Aristocrats and aristocracy have occasioned, from the beginning of the
world, nearly all of the sins, wretchedness, and misery of the children
of God; and when He sent His Son to save us, they crucified Him. In the
coming of Christ, the “Common People” of Palestine saw a gleam of hope,
a star to guide them to that haven of rest where neither priesthood
nor Romans ruled; that province where all should be bright, where all
should enter into perfect bliss. This sensation among the “Common
People,” starting like the ripples created by casting a stone into
still waters, extended and widened until it permeated every province of
Rome, making converts of the “Common People.”
The conquered provinces had felt the severity of the iron heel of
Rome upon their necks. The Roman nobles had driven so deeply into
the hearts of the conquered the idea that “to be a Roman was to be a
king,” and that the subjugated people, though morally and mentally
often the superiors of the Romans, were, by the power of the Roman
legions, the inferiors of the followers of the eagles of the Cæsars.
The utter uselessness and impotency of any outbreak upon the part of
the subjugated people, where resort to arms would be sought, was so
apparent, the futility of contending with the might of Rome was so
great, that the civilized world at that time was hopelessly suffering.
To contend with the trained and masterful soldiers of the Cæsars
would be productive of but one result--destruction, suffering, and
humiliation.
To the world, so bereft of all hope for relief from their sufferings,
from the oppressive Roman “caste,” His words and His teachings came
like the sweet, refreshing breath of heaven, bringing a salve to the
wounded spirits of the hopelessly oppressed masses. Christ, the Son of
God, was of the people. The earthly parents selected by the All-Wise
Almighty for the Son that He should send to save His people, were of
the lowly. Christ himself learned the trade of His father, and was
a carpenter; His every utterance, His life, the selection of His
disciples, was, like the Truth, democratic. In fact, Christ would
to-day have been pronounced a socialist. In the nineteenth chapter of
St. Matthew, twenty-first verse, we read: “Jesus answered, If thou
wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.”
In St. Mark, tenth chapter, twenty-first verse: “And Jesus, beholding
him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way,
sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor.” In St. Luke, twelfth
chapter, thirty-third verse, we find Jesus saying: “Sell that ye have,
and give alms.”
Imagine a minister of to-day, a teacher of the doctrines of this same
Jesus, rising in some good Episcopal church with the would-be noble
Astors seated in front of him, and proclaiming to them: “One thing thou
lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor.”
Think of a Baptist minister, before permitting John D. Rockefeller
and William Rockefeller to partake of the Holy Sacrament, commanding:
“Sell that ye have, and give alms.” Imagine the outrage, indignation,
of these many-millioned moneyed lords, if the son of a poor carpenter
should suggest to them, as Jesus did of old: “If thou wilt be perfect,
go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.” That meek and lowly
Jesus who came as a panacea for all sorrow, selecting fishermen to
abide with Him and be His associates, sitting at the table and breaking
bread with these fishermen, making of them “fishers of men,” teaching
to the world the equality of man by His actions and His life; He who
was in the beginning the God, the Saviour, could sit at the table and
live in close communion and association with fishermen. Will you, Mr.
Rockefeller, will you, Mr. Astor, good Christians that you are? Are you
following the doctrines of Him in whose praise you raise your voices,
Sunday after Sunday, in a hundred-thousand-dollar church, before an
aristocratic, well-bred, genteel, ten-thousand-dollar-a-year clergyman?
Would you, fair dames of fashion, assist at the coming into the world
of a child in a stable, whose cradle was a manger, whose curtain was
the straw thereof? You ladies of America, whose crests adorn your
carriages, affect to view with adoring eyes a hundred-thousand-dollar
painting of the Madonna and her child, yet gaze with contempt, and
avoid with averted glances, contact with the pure but poor wives and
mothers of our land.
St. Paul, who, of all the early teachers of Christianity, was probably
the “most respectable,” as soon as the angel of God appeared to him,
became converted to the doctrines of Him who was Truth personified,
and threw “caste” to the winds. In the seventeenth chapter of the
Acts, St. Paul, upon Mars Hill, at Athens, proclaimed the equality of
man; in the twenty-sixth verse, he says: “And hath made of one blood
all the nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.”
As God has made us all of one blood, how contrary to the teaching of
Him whom you say you follow, to endeavor to establish a theory that
birth makes a difference and inequality, that there is any peculiarity
about one drop of human blood that makes it better than another. The
teachings of the divine philanthropist, the Saviour of mankind, took
deep and permanent root in the minds of men, because the very essence
of it was that no matter whether the believer in those teachings be
a poor, oppressed Jew, or an outcast Gentile, or a Roman Cæsar, he
stood only before his God as an equal of any other of God’s children.
It was the leveling, the equalizing of rank and power that gave the
impetus, at first, to those truths which are the pillars of the faith
of the Christian nations of earth. “Come, ye who are heavy-laden,” is
the doctrine that appealed to the “Common People.” As lasting and as
abiding as the faith that we have in the Christian religion, so long
and enduring will be the sentiment of the human soul believing in the
equality of man. It has been so from the beginning, and will be to
the end, and surprise and astonishment at each fresh evidence of its
outburst is unnecessary. The plebeians of Rome, before the coming of
the Lord, asserted the same right, and would have sought the Sacred
Hill to establish a city of their own had not the patricians made
concessions. It is the same spirit that cost Charles I. his head, Louis
XVI. his head, the British Government this vast empire, and the same
spirit that, November 8, 1892, cost the Republican party its hold upon
power; because, in the minds of the people, that party was thoroughly
impregnated with the much-hated principle of the inequality of man.
The rich and powerful were the last to be converted to Christianity.
They trembled and said, as the Roman Governor did, “Almost thou
persuadest me to be a Christian,” but not quite, because the very
fundamental principles of the Christian religion are Love, Charity,
and Equality. Their conversion would mean the surrendering of their
cherished claim of “caste.” Many a conversion among the mighty, when at
last effected, was the result of policy upon the part of the converted,
who had commenced to feel the power of the “Common People” who had
listened and become imbued with the divine teachings of the doctrine of
Christianity.
Had it been necessary, as now, to pay salaries of from one to
ten thousand dollars to those teachers who, in the early age of
Christianity, promulgated the doctrines of their God, how few
conversions would have been made at all. These wayfarers, obeying the
divine injunction of our Saviour, to “go and teach all the people of
earth,” took no heed of the morrow. They did not teach in temples which
required thousands of dollars to build; they did not find it necessary
to be surrounded with luxury; they needed no vacations and excursions
to recuperate their exhausted natures. Had it been necessary for
those “fishers of men” to have carriages, temples, and salaries, the
Christian religion would have made exceedingly slow progress. There
were no Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, in the congregations that
surrounded the early teachers of the doctrine of the meek and lowly
Jesus.
We hear on every side (when this idea is advanced), proclaimed by
the gentlemen of the clerical profession, that “the conditions have
changed.” If such be the case, then history is terribly misguiding. We
are told of the luxuries that surrounded the rich of the Roman empire.
We read, in the Scripture, of Dives, and the rich men of that day. We
know--unless history is entirely in error--that Astors, Vanderbilts,
Rockefellers, existed then. But the early teachers of Christianity
loved their Lord and followed his footsteps, in that he came to give
hope, comfort, and rest to those who were heavy-laden.
The meetings held by the early followers of Christ were not “club
meetings,” at which expensive music entertained the audience.
The audience was not addressed by high-priced elocutionists, nor
entertained by the mental gymnastics of some word-painting acrobat.
Humbly and meekly, hopefully, trustingly, the people sought the
presence of that Teacher whose earnestness and faith was evidenced in
His life and manner of living. His words were blest, all untutored
as he was, with the eloquence of that truth with which his soul was
filled. He did not say to the people, “Give alms,” and at the same
time live in a brown-stone front. He did not say, “Take no heed of the
morrow,” and keep a bank account. He did not preach to his cold and
hungry brother that the Christian religion would give him comfort, and
keep the warm overcoat on his back while doing so.
In their very lives the early teachers of Christianity made the truth
of their own convictions apparent. Is it any wonder that in this, the
nineteenth century, doubt arises in the minds of the people? They doubt
the doctrine because they doubt the sincerity of the teacher. It is so
utterly inconsistent in a man to preach, “If thou wilt be perfect, go
and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,” while his hearers know
that within a few blocks of where this teacher lives in comfort and
luxury, some poor family is starving.
Let us find men to teach us, who, when they find a poor, shivering
wretch, but a brother, on the streets, will take off their warm coats
and throw them round his shoulders. Let us find our leaders in the path
made plain by the divine Master, taking off their shoes to clothe the
benumbed feet of the outcast tramp. Then, and when that day arrives,
there’ll be no such thing as “caste” and class distinction in the
house of God. Then will the house of God be sought by the multitudes,
as of old they sought the mount whereon the Lord did preach. When the
privilege of entering the house of God and occupying a seat therein
is not sold to the highest bidder, to furnish the ten-thousand-dollar
salary for the teacher of the doctrine of that lowly Master, who had
nowhere to lay His head, then will the multitudes gather to do the
bidding of the teacher. When there are no high places in the temple to
be sold to the representatives of “caste” and sham aristocracy, then
will the house of God be a home and refuge for the people. When the
charities of Christ’s church on earth are not controlled by snubbing,
scornful, shoddy aristocrats, when the wife of the poor man shall feel
welcome to give her mite, along with the contributions of the rich,
without enduring their scornful glances, and subjecting herself to the
insult of their assumed social superiority, then will the people become
charitable. The church, the Sunday-school, the church society, the
charitable committees, have all become impregnated with this crime of
“caste,” which crucified the Saviour.