Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/787

 CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY. V.

WEALTH.

If ever sanity is needed, it is in economic discussion. From the time when the Roman plebs marched back from the Sacred Mount, agitation and indignant pleas for justice have won their victories through strikes or revolution, but only when men have refused to admit the decisions of those who were able to see the issue in its proper perspective. When some strong, honest man has appeared in whom both warring parties trusted, his foresight has repeatedly averted strife and reestablished industrial peace. And so it has come about that not the agitator but the arbitrator has been the real conserver of economic progress. But the weight as well as the need of sane judgment is doubled when the religious leader of a community undertakes the amelioration of economic distress. Too often, it must be confessed, the sympathies of a dominant religious order have been with the wealthy or the feudal class. Too seldom has the plea of the curate been heard in the convocation of the bishops. But when decision has fallen to those religious workers most closely in contact with the people, then, as when the curates of the States-General dealt the death blow to the first and second estates of France, traditional privilege has given away before a new public opinion.

Perhaps it is with an intuition of this fact that so often of late men have looked to Jesus as a source of industrial peace. It is not difficult to discover the beginning of a reaction against a purely materialistic sociology, and of the enunciation of teachings, which, whether their propounders are aware of it or not, are in many respects similar to his. It is no longer in the interests of a sanctified rhetoric that his name is so often used, for men who are bitterly hostile to the church and to the Christ of the church are respectful towards the Carpenter of Nazareth.