It Hardie with assassinations and incendiarism. is no longer possible for serious-minded people to misunderstand the quality and temper of the leaders of the Socialist movement, although they might dread the advent of the day when their ideals should prevail so far as to place the government of this or any other country in their hands. Socialism and the churches. So far, then, we have taken note of two outstanding features of the life of to-day, the decline of the churches and the rise of Socialism. We have not inquired whether the two are connected, or whether Christianity is likely to survive this process of dissolution and change. But let me say here as emphatically as I can, that what appears to me to be going on in this decline of one set of institutions, and the rise of another, is simply the revival of Christianity in the form best suited to the modern mind. I am aware that few have yet seen this to be the case, but before long every thoughtful mind will be compelled to see it. What is really at stake, it is the object of the following pages to show. It is a noteworthy fact that so far the Socialistic movement has received but little encouragement from the churches, and, to a considerable extent, has developed in antagonism to them. In this country, to be sure, the Christian Social wing of the High Church Party has identified itself more or less closely with the Labour movement, and many of the clergy have openly professed themselves Social с ists. But such clergy are only a small minority of their order, and it could hardly be maintained that they are in any sense necessary to the movement; it could go on quite well without them, and they know it. Taken on the whole, it must be confessed that the Free Churches have done less for the movement than the High Anglicans. No doubt this is partly due to the traditional alliance between Nonconformity and the Liberal party, an alliance which proved very useful to the present Government at the last General Election. The Free Church Council is a Liberal political caucus, and this fact may yet prove its undoing. It is hardly to be supposed that the young Free Churchmen of keen social sympathies who are coming into public notice will care to lend whole-hearted support to an organisation which is at the beck and call of the political party which represents in a preponderating degree the interest of the bourgeois class. On the other hand, there would appear to be an essential antagonism between democracy and sacerdotalism. If the case which I hope to present for Christianity in this book is the true one, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that sacerdotal Socialists are Socialists not because of, but in spite of, their sacerdotalism. On the Continent this is recognised much more fully than here. Here the clergy are much more in touch with the body of the nation than is the case in France, or Italy, for example. In these countries the opposition between Socialism and clericalism is ex treme, and there is not the slightest likelihood of a better understanding. History has taught the leaders of the democracy not to expect much from Roman Catholicism, or, indeed, from Protestantism either. In every country it is the same story: The churches are one thing, the Socialist movement is another; and, despite individual instances of clerical Socialism, official Christianity is not only quite distinct from Socialism, the two are antagonistic. Socialism and the Kingdom of God. Is there any necessity why this should be so? I think not, although I have little hope that there will be much change for a good while to come. There is good reason for the antagonism, and the reason is that the churches have been captured to a large extent by the forces which Socialism seeks to destroy. The churches have largely forgotten their own origin, and, so far, there is not much indication that they are likely to recall it. We are thus confronted with a most curious and anomalous situation: The Socialism which is developing so generally in antagonism to conventional Christianity is far nearer to the original Christianity than the Christianity of the churches. The objective of Socialism is that with which Christianity began its history. Socialism is actually a swing back to that gospel of the Kingdom of God which was the only gospel the first Christians had to preach; the traditional theology of the churches is a departure from it. I do not mean, of course, to make the foolish statement that primi tive Christianity was identical with the Socialism of to-day; it was not, but it was far nearer to the Socialism of to-day than to the official Christianity of to-day. Indeed, we may say that its aim and purpose were so nearly akin to those of present-day Socialism, that the latter may, without the least exaggeration, be described as the inheritor of the true Christianity. This is a comprehensive statement but I hope to make it good. CHAPTER II THE KINGDOM OF GOD I. IN JEWISH HISTORY The evangel of primitive Christianity. —The ordinary church-goer nowadays takes for granted that Christianity as he knows it is the religion which Jesus brought to the world, and represents what the original followers of Jesus believed and taught. So far is this from being the case, and so well do biblical and historical scholars know it, that it is astonishing to witness the immobility of the churches in presence of the facts. Christianity began as the glad tidings of the Kingdom of God. Its Founder did not invent this name, and neither He nor His followers knew that they were promulgating a new religion which would last for many centuries after His death, and would become interwoven with a new civilisation. It can hardly be necessary to say that it never occurred to them to call it Christianity; that was a much later development. All that Jesus did, as we are told in the gospel records, was to begin preaching among His countrymen of Israelitish race the glad tidings of the Kingdom of God. He did not find it necessary to explain |