Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/37

 THE CHURCH IN THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT 23

managed by men with time and money to spare. Even among the free churches a "bastard episcopacy, based on money only," grows up, with all the dangers of an ecclesiastical episcopacy and none of its spiritual power. The independence and self-govern- ment of the local churches, which are justly cherished by our most American denominations, will under such circumstances decay in fact, though still maintained in theory. These condi- tions are even now blighting the manliness and the Christian initiative of the churches.

The distribution of the national wealth also affects the income and efficiency of missionary and benevolent societies. If the income of the people sinks to the bare cost of living, there is little margin for missionary contributions. The widow's mites were large in the sight of God, but the trustees of the temple fund could not make them go very far. On the other hand the gifts of the rich, while often dazzling by their splendor, are actu- ally small compared with their superfluity and in proportion to the total wealth controlled by them. The best and steadiest givers, if properly educated to give, are people of steady income who have a fair margin above the immediate necessities of life. To put the case concretely, imagine two churches ; suppose that the aggregate income of the members in the one is about as large as in the other, say 5 1 50,000 a year. But in the one church this income is divided about evenly among 100 families, averaging $1500 a year; in the other there are 100 families receiving about $500 a year, and two families with $50,000 a year each. Under ordinary circumstances it can safely be predicted that the former church would give more steadily and liberally to missionary pur- poses than the latter.

If wealth concentrates in few hands, the churches will become more and more dependent on a few rich men for all larger under- takings. It would even now disturb the equilibrium of the denominations if some rich giver became alienated, or if he died and his heirs preferred another denomination. Such dependence of the churches on men of worldly power and often of worldly mind would contain the essence of that dependence of the church