Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/647

 WORKINGMAN'S AUENAIIOM FROM THE CHURCH 627 REMEDIES.

Apply the Sermon on the Mount :

Have courage to apply the Sermon on the Mount to the social order of today.

The ministers of the church must make themselves familiar with the social and economic questions of the day :

Let the ministers study economics. Let them thoroughly inform them- selves upon the labor question ; then let them talk upon these things and not upon dead issues, such as those concerning Jonah and Lot.

Preach Christianity instead of theology. Preach of a heaven on earth :

Advocate and teach a heaven on earth.

Let the pastor have a personal relation with the needs of labor. Be our champion. Visit the laboring man and study his needs :

Ministers should mingle more freely with the poor and less with the rich. By doing so you can come in contact with the person, and can better judge for yourself of the best way of inducing him to attend church.

Why should I wish to go into a §200,000 church and listen to a minister who gets perhaps §3,000 a year for preaching one sermon a week, denouncing the poor railroad man who is striking that his brother-worker should have $2 per day .'

You must have their temporal welfare at heart and understand the great questions that interest them as nothing else can until these are settled.

Let the minister of the gospel visit the homes of the non-churchgoers. I believe many fail to attend church because the ministers fail to visit their homes.

It is interesting to notice here a cry from a laboring man in Newton, Mass., who echoes a sentiment we have already heard from Rev. Herbert N. Casson :

I would propose no remedy, and have no hope of social reform through the church as it exists today.

I have thus far given in detail many of the answers received in my research. None of the bitter things have been suppressed. The submitted declarations are a fair resume of the opinions received. Five indictments are made against the church :

I. The church is subsidized by the rich. The minister is, consequently, tongue-tied. The rich man's influence is so pow-