Page:The Necessity of Atheism (Brooks).djvu/236

234 James S. Woodsworth, a former minister, speaking for the Canadian 'Labor Party, exclaims: "The Church a class institution what does the Church do to help me and those like me? The Church supported by the wealthy, yes, 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.' The well-groomed parson, with his soft tones prophesying smooth things, well, I'm glad I'm not in his shoes!"

James Simpson, secretary of the Canadian Labor Party, makes this statement: "I found that the conditions which called for radical change if the social and economic security of the people was going to be established did not concern the Church. As an institution it was concerned in establishing an outlook upon life that would induce men to do the right, but, if the right was not done, there was very little distinction drawn between the wrong-doer and the right-doer. This lack of distinction did not apply so much to what were re-regarded as moral indiscretions as it did to the larger failures to recognize man's relationship to man in the industrial and commercial activities of life. Labor thinks the Church is insincere. It Is an exceptional case for a minister to take a stand on the side of the workers, even when the issue between the employers and employees is a clear case of the former trying to enforce conditions upon the latter which are unfair and inhuman."

A. Fenner Brockway, the political secretary of the Independent Labor Party in England, writes in this manner: "The hymns of the Church are obsolete; the sermons are very rarely worth listening to; the forms of worship are unrelated to life; and such inspiration as comes from the devotion and beauty of some church services and buildings can be found ever more intimately and fully in the silences and beauty of nature."

George Lansbury is another Englishman speaking for British Labor, and he tells us that, "Ordinary working