discoveries and the beginning of a world trade. "The possibilities of a
world commerce," says Dr. Lindsay, "led to the creation of trading
companies; for a larger capital was needed than individual merchants
possessed, and the formation of these companies overshadowed,
discredited, and finally destroyed the guild system of the mediæval
trading cities. Trade and industry became capitalized to a degree
previously unknown.... This increase of wealth does not seem to have
been confined to a few favorites of fortune. It belonged to the mass of
the members of the great trading companies.... Merchant princes
confronted the princes of the state and those of the church, and their
presence and power dislocated the old social relations."[22]
This enormous increase of wealth manifested itself in every form of
senseless luxury. Of refinement there was little; pleasures were coarse,
indulgence was beastly. "Preachers, economists, and satirists," says Dr.
Lindsay, "denounce the luxury and immodesty of the dress both of men and
women, the gluttony and the drinking habits of the rich burghers and of
the nobility of Germany. We learn from Hans von Schweinichen that
noblemen prided themselves on having men among their retainers who could
drink all rivals beneath the table, and that noble personages seldom met
without such a drinking contest. The wealthy, learned, and artistic
city of Nürnberg possessed a public wagon which every night was led
through the streets, to pick up and convey to their homes drunken
burghers found lying in the filth of the streets."[23]
Such were the manners of the house of mirth at the beginning of the
sixteenth century. It might be supposed that when luxury was so riotous
the poor would have plenty, but that is never the case. Profusion at the
top of the social ladder means poverty at the bottom. The world has
never yet been so rich that waste did not work harm to the neediest.
Even if the poor had been actually no poorer in these flush days than
they had been when manners were simpler, the glaring contrasts would
have been maddening. But multitudes of them were, no doubt, not only
relatively but positively poorer; the destruction of the guilds of
labor, the displacements in industry, had left great numbers not only of
the peasantry and the artisans but also of the poorer nobles in
practical destitution. The organization of society was giving strength
to the strong and weakness to those of no might--thus exactly reversing
Mary's prophecy of what her royal Son should bring; and those who were
thus dispossessed and scattered felt, and had a right to feel, that the
social organization under which such things could be done was
antichristian.
"While," says Dr. Lindsay, "the social tumults and popular uprisings
against authority, which are a feature of the close of the Middle Ages,
are usually and rightly enough called peasant insurrections, the name
tends to obscure their real character. They were rather the revolts of
the poor against the rich, of debtors against creditors, of men who had
scantly legal rights or none at all, against those who had the
protection of the existing laws; and they were joined by the poor of the
towns as well as by the peasantry of the country districts. The peasants
generally began the revolt and the townsmen followed, but this was not
always the case. Sometimes the mob of the cities rose first and the
peasants joined afterwards. In many cases, too, the poorer nobles were
in secret or open sympathy with the insurrectionary movement. On more
than one occasion they led the insurgents and fought at their head."[24]
The uprising against the church was due to the fact that the church,
instead of being the friend of the poor, had become their social
oppressor. Through all these social mutterings runs the outcry against
the priests, and this was not because the priests were teaching a false
theology, but because they were grinding the faces of the poor. Not only
in Germany, but all over Europe this cry was heard. "The priests," says
an English reformer, "have their tenth part of all the corn, meadows,
pasture, grain, wood, colts, lambs, geese, and chickens. Over and
besides the tenth part of every servant's wages, wool, milk, honey, wax,
cheese, and butter; yea and they look so narrowly after these profits
that the poor wife must be accountable to them for every tenth egg, or
else she getteth not her rights at Easter, and shall be taken as a
heretic." "I see," said a Spaniard, "that we can scarcely get anything
from Christ's ministers but for money; at baptism money, at bishoping
money, at marriage money, for confession money,--no, not extreme unction
without money! They will ring no bells without money, no burial in the
church without money; so that it seemeth that Paradise is shut up from
them that hath no money. The rich is buried in the church, the poor in
the churchyard. The rich man may marry with his nearest kin, but the
poor not so, albeit he be ready to die for love of her. The rich may eat
flesh in Lent, but the poor may not, albeit fish perhaps be much dearer.
The rich man may readily get large indulgences, but the poor none
because he wanteth money to pay for them."[25]
This revolt against priestly oppression was by no means, however, an
irreligious uprising. It was characterized by intense religious feeling,
with which, as Dr. Lindsay says, "was blended some confused dream that
the kingdom of God might be set up on earth, if only the priests were
driven out of the land." Among a populace so ignorant it was, of course,
inevitable that the social revolt should take on fanatical forms. Wild
zealots arose, drawing the multitude after them, and inciting the people
to revolution. Hans Böhm, a wandering piper, had visions and went forth
as a preacher of righteousness, railing against priests and civil
potentates. True religion, he declared, consisted in worshiping the
Blessed Virgin, but the priests were thieves and robbers, the Emperor
was a miscreant, "who supported the whole vile crew of princes,
overlords, tax gatherers, and other oppressors of the poor." He
predicted the coming of a day when the Emperor himself would be forced,
like all poor folks, to work for days' wages. The people flocked by
thousands to hear him preach, but his day was brief.
They burnt him at the stake, but multitudes venerated him, and made
pilgrimages to the chapel which had been the scene of his triumph. The
"Bundschuh" revolts which broke out in Elsass and spread through
Switzerland and Germany were of a similar character. Then came years of
famine, which deepened the popular disquiet, and which help to explain
the fact that "on the eve of the Reformation the condition of Europe,
and of Germany in particular, was one of seething discontent and full of
bitter class hatreds--the trading companies and the great capitalists
against the guilds, the poorer classes against the wealthier, and the
nobles against the towns."
These were the social conditions in the midst of which Luther appeared.
It was on this turbulent flood of social unrest that the Reformation
was launched. When the great reformer's voice was heard, denouncing
priestly misrule and hierarchical tyranny, these were the people who
listened, and they interpreted his words by their own experience. If his
quarrel was largely with theological or ecclesiastical abuses, theirs
was mainly with industrial inequalities, but it seemed to them that he
was fighting their battle. Indeed, his brave words gave fit utterance to
their hopes. For, as the historian reminds us, Luther's message was
democratic. That must have been its character if it was, in any proper
sense, a return to "the simplicity that is in Christ." "It destroyed the
aristocracy of the saints, it leveled the barriers between the layman
and the priest, it taught the equality of all men before God, and the
right of every man of faith to stand in God's presence, whatever be his
rank and condition of life. He had not confined himself to preaching a
new theology. His message was eminently practical. In his 'Appeal to the
Nobility of the German Nation' Luther had voiced all the grievances of
Germany, had touched upon almost all the open sores of the time, and had
foretold disasters not very far off. Nor must it be forgotten that no
great leader ever flung about wild words in such a reckless way. Luther
had the gift of strong, smiting phrases, of words which seemed to cleave
to the very heart of things, of images which lit up a subject with the
vividness of a flash of lightning. He launched tracts and pamphlets from
the press about almost everything, written for the most part on the spur
of the moment, and when the fire burned. His words fell into souls full
of the fermenting passion of the times. They drank in with eagerness the
thoughts that all men were equal before God, and that there are divine
commands about the brotherhood of mankind of more importance than all
human legislation. They refused to believe that such golden ideas
belonged to the realm of spiritual life above."[26]
When, therefore, the religious reformation was fairly launched, a great
uprising of the poor people speedily followed. It seemed to them that
the return to Christ meant, for them, the breaking of yokes and the
enlargement of opportunity, and they proceeded to claim for themselves
some portion of the liberty that belonged to them. Their demands, as
voiced in their "Twelve Articles," were by no means extravagant, from
our point of view. The abuses of which they complained were flagrant,
the rights they claimed were far less than are now, even in despotic
Russia, fully granted to the humblest people. And they protested most
earnestly that they "wanted nothing contrary to the requirements of just
authority, whether civil or ecclesiastical, nor to the gospel of
Christ."
It would, however, have been unreasonable to expect that such people
would confine their protest within the bounds of law and order. It was,
in fact, a revolution, and it discerned no way to its goal but the way
of violence. That, indeed, is the path that most of the seekers after
liberty have felt constrained to take.
What was Luther's relation to this uprising? It cannot be said that he
had kindled the flame, but he had fanned it to a conflagration. And yet
when it began to rage, he found himself unable to control it. It had
come to pass, in the exigencies of the warfare he was waging, that his
allies were the German princes. Only through them, as he believed, could
he hope to win the fight he was making against the Roman hierarchy. If
he put himself at the head of the peasants' movement he would alienate
the princes, and it seemed to him that the Protestant cause in Germany
would he stamped out in blood. And therefore, after vainly attempting to
quiet the insurrection, with whose principal aims he had confessed
himself in sympathy, he turned upon the peasants in almost savage wrath,
and in his tract "Against the Murdering, Thieving Hordes of Peasants,"
he urged the princes to crush the insurrection. "In the case of an
insurgent," he says, "every man is both judge and executioner.
Therefore, whoever can should knock down, strangle, and stab such
publicly or privately, and think nothing so venomous, pernicious, and
devilish as an insurgent.... Such wonderful times are these that a
prince can merit heaven better with bloodshed than another with prayer."
The princes followed Luther's counsel, and the peasants' uprising was
put down with relentless severity. Thus ended in blood the movement
which promised to make the church the champion of social freedom. It
seems, as we look back upon it, a tragical issue. What these poor people
asked for was really only a crumb or two from the table of the lords of
privilege; they thought that the brotherhood taught by Jesus warranted
them in expecting it, and they seemed to hope that the church of Jesus
Christ, when purified from formalism and superstition, would support
that expectation. It must have been a bitter disappointment to them. And
it is a sorrowful reflection that the great hero of the Reformation
fell, in this matter, so far below the Christian ideal.
Doubtless his strenuous repugnance to revolutionary methods was a good
trait in his character; but surely revolutions are sometimes
justifiable, and it looks, at this distance, as though this one was as
nearly so as most of those that have succeeded. If Luther had put his
great heart and mighty will at the head of this movement which he
confessed to be most righteous, it might have succeeded, and
Protestantism, in its beginnings, might have made a firm alliance with
those whom Jesus Christ recognizes as his representatives in the earth.
But it was hard for him to believe that the poor of this world, chosen
to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, were stronger allies than
the German nobles. He thought that he must have the support of the
princes, and he turned his back on Christ's poor.
It was a melancholy conclusion, not only for Luther but for the cause
which he represented. "It is probable," says Dr. Lindsay, "that he saved
the Reformation in Germany by cutting it free from the revolutionary
movement, but the wrench left marks on his own character as well as in
the movement he headed." One wonders whether success won at such cost is
worth having; and whether, if he had gone down with the peasants in
their struggle for freedom and opportunity, the sacrifice would not have
brought a larger and fairer Reformation.
It was the coming reformation to which your attention was called, and we
have kept our eyes for a long time upon the past. But this history has
been uttering, through the entire recital, its own prophetic word.
Conditions have greatly changed since the sixteenth century; but we are
still confronting the same issue which forced itself upon the church in
the days of Luther. Many of the disabilities and wrongs under which the
common people were suffering then have been removed, but the poor are
still with us, and the cries of millions of overworked, underfed,
pale-faced men and women and children have entered into the ears of the
Lord of Sabaoth. There ought not to be any poor people in this country;
if it were a thoroughly Christian country there would not be. If there
were those who because of mental or physical defect were unable to care
for themselves, we could easily provide for their wants, and in the
exercise of such compassion we should find an abundant reward. If there
were those who because of idleness and vice were indisposed to provide
for themselves, we should find a way of inspiring them with a better
mind. But, if this were a thoroughly Christian country, there would be
no willing workers dwelling anywhere near the borders of want. There are
resources here which are ample for the abundant supply of all human
needs; if ours were a completely Christianized society, the needs of
those who were able and willing to work would be abundantly supplied.
We are often told that this is already done; that there are no poor in
this country save those who are either incompetent or indolent or
vicious. If that could be proved, the question would still remain
whether the incompetency and the indolence and the viciousness may not,
to a considerable degree, be the effects of causes for which society is
responsible, and which, in a thoroughly Christianized society, would not
be permitted to exist. But it cannot be proved that poverty is wholly
the fault of the poor. The fact is that a very large number of those who
are doing the world's work to-day are receiving less than their fair
share of the wealth they produce.
It is true that there are many laborers who earn large wages. Compactly
organized labor unions have been able to secure a favorable distribution
of the product of their industry. But we are often reminded that but a
small percentage of the laborers of this country are organized; and the
wages of those thus unprotected are often lamentably small. Many
attempts have been made to find out what is the average wage of the
average workman; our census reports contain very carefully prepared
statistics. I have taken pains to go over some of these, and here are
the results.
In the textile trades, with 661,451 workers, the average weekly wage of
all workers is $6.07; of men over sixteen, $7.63; of women, $5.18; of
children under sixteen, $2.15.
In the iron workers' trades, with 222,607 workers, the average weekly
wage is $10.46.
In the boot and shoe trades, with 142,922 workers, the average for all
is $7.96; for men over sixteen, $9.11; for women, $6.13; for children
under sixteen, $3.40.
In the men's clothing trades, with 120,950 workers, the average for all
is $7.06; for men, $10.90; for women, $4.88; for children, $2.61.
These weekly wages are obtained by dividing the annual wage by 52. Often
the weekly rate is much higher, but for many weeks the workers are
unemployed; the only fair estimate is that which is based upon the
annual wage.
Have we any right to be content with conditions like these? Is the
average wage of the average worker, as it is here indicated, all that he
ought to ask? Should society wish him to be content with such an income?
Sit down yourself and figure out just what it would mean to be obliged
to maintain a family of four or five on such a stipend as is indicated
in any of these trades--even those best paid. Find out how much should
have to go for rent, and how much for food, and how much for the
plainest clothing, and how much for doctor's bills, and school books,
and street-car fare, and how much would be left, after that, for books
and church contributions and the wholesome pleasures which we ought to
count among the necessaries of life. Life can be maintained on such an
income, but is it the kind of life that we wish our fellow men to live?
And is there any need that life, for the humble laborer, should be
reduced in this rich land to its lowest terms? With the marvelous
productiveness of fields and mines and forests and waters, with the
immense development of machinery, by which the wealth of the nation is
multiplied, might we not have an organization of industry and a method
of distribution which would give to the army of manual toilers a much
larger average income?
That is the question they are asking, and it calls for a candid answer.
Their needs are not as dire as were those of the German peasants of the
sixteenth century, but they are real and serious needs. Now, as then, a
tremendous industrial revolution has dislocated industries and
demoralized and impoverished many; now, as then, the concentration of
capital in great companies has destroyed small enterprises and left
many who were once thrifty stranded and discouraged; now, as then,
glaring contrasts in condition excite the resentments of the needy; now,
as then, the propertiless are wondering whether this is the kind of
thing that the church has been looking for when she has prayed that the
kingdom of God may come. And there is a feeling now, as there was then,
among the millions of the toilers, that the church which assumes to
represent Jesus Christ needs to be reformed, in order that through its
testimony and its leadership the kingdom of God may come.
It is sadly true that there are many among these toiling millions who
are embittered against the church, who have no faith in it, and no
expectation that any good will come out of it; but the great majority
are not hostile to the church; at worst they are indifferent, and this
indifference is due to their belief that the church no longer represents
Jesus Christ. Toward him there is often a pathetic outreaching of hope;
if the church would come back to the simplicity that is in Christ and
would plant itself on the Sermon on the Mount, it would quickly win
their loyalty. And I cannot help feeling that now, as in the sixteenth
century, there is in the minds of the toiling millions "a confused dream
that the kingdom of God might be set up in the land," and that the time
is ripe for it. Nor can I deem it possible that this great expectation
of the multitude will now be disappointed. The church of this day must
be able to see that this call of the poor and the humble is the call of
its Master. It is with the weak and the needy that he is always
identified; service of them is loyalty to him; neglect of them is scorn
of him. It is his own word.
The coming reformation will be signalized by a great change in the
attitude of the church toward the toiling classes. It will not turn its
back on them, as it did in Luther's day; it will not maintain toward
them an attitude of kindly patronage, as it has done in our day; it will
recognize the fact that its welfare is bound up with them; that the
barriers which separate them from its sympathies and fellowships must be
broken down, at whatever cost; that it must make them believe that the
church of Jesus Christ is their church; that it needs them quite as much
as they need it; that it is a monstrous thing even to conceive that a
church of Jesus Christ could exist as a class institution, with the
largest social class in the community outside of it.
The coming reformation will consist in the awakening of the church to
its social responsibilities. It will see more clearly than it has ever
yet seen, that those who pray that the kingdom of God may come, and who
are responsible, as citizens of a republic are responsible, for the
answering of that prayer, must see to it that justice and liberty and
opportunity are established in the land. The church of Jesus Christ,
with a passion that is born of loyalty to its Master, must set itself to
the task of realizing, in the social order, the principles of his
teaching. That was what the peasants of the sixteenth century called
upon it to do; and for answer it turned and smote them to the earth. It
will not repeat that blunder, which was nothing short of a crime. It
hears the same call to-day, and when it obeys, as obey it must, it will
save its own life and that of the nation with whose destiny it is put in
trust.
VII
Social Redemption
The New Reformation will be wrought out with weapons that are not
carnal. One of the lessons that the church has learned, in the nineteen
centuries of its history, is that it must keep itself free from all
suspicion of entanglement with physical force.
That statement needs qualification. It is not universally true. The
Greek church, as we have seen, is still fatally involved in political
complications; the Roman church, while forced to abstain from the use of
the temporal power, has maintained its right to use it; and other state
churches, as those of England and Germany, retain some hold upon the
political arm. But we are speaking of the church in our own country; and
of the American church it is true that it has ceased to rely upon the
power of the state. The entire divorce which our constitution decrees
between the government of the church and the government of the state has
become, with us, a settled policy, which we do not wish to disturb. It
is doubtful whether intelligent Roman Catholics in the United States
would be willing to have this condition changed, and no other Christians
would for one moment consent to it.
What the church does in the way of improving social conditions must,
therefore, be done by purely moral and spiritual agencies. Society is
not to be Christianized by any kind of coercion. The church cannot use
force in any way, nor can it enter into any coalition with governments
that rest on force. "It is not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,
saith the Lord," that the kingdoms of this world are to become the
kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. It is as irrational to try to
propagate Christianity by coercive measures of any description, as it
would be to try to make plants grow by applying to them mechanical
pressure.
Nor can the church undertake to dictate or prescribe the forms of
industrial society. Its function is not the organization of industry. It
would not wisely attempt to decide between different methods of managing
business.