Page:Can a man be a Christian on a pound a week? - Hardie.djvu/13

 In the New Testament, Acts of the Apostles, chapter iv., verses 32 to 35, I read:

Here we have it clearly brought out that the direct outcome of the teachings of Jesus upon those who lived nearest to His time, and who became His followers, was to make them Communists. These early Christians, found it impossible to retain possession of private property after they became Christians, since it raised artificial class distinctions in their midst and prevented the free play of that spirit of fraternal brotherhood which Jesus taught as one of the characteristics of the Kingdom of God. And if that was so in the earlier days of Christianity, it would be equally true of its later days if Christianity were still being preached and practised. What we have in its stead now is a structure of theology built up by priests in whom the spirit of Christ does not dwell. The modern ministry, I repeat, taken in bulk, occupies the same relation to primal Christianity as the Scribes and Pharisees did to the teachings of Moses in the day of Jesus. This, I know, is a strong saying, but these are not the times when men can afford to muffle the truth by wrapping it up in soft words or fine phrases. To lay a charge of materialism against a system which aims at making life everything and the things of life nothing betrays a woeful ignorance of the meaning of the word.