998

rather than the Church and Capital, there are two sufficient answers. First, because labor is a function of life, while capital is a function of things. "At the last analysis labor means the laborer.” Second, because laborers are the rule, and capitalists the exception. As Professor Ely says, "The labor movement represents mankind as it is represented by no other manifestation of the life of the nations of the earth, because the vast majority of the race are laborers."

999

8 L. A. Banks: "Common Folks' Religion," p. 59. 9 "The Social Application of Religion,” p. 66.

THE

II

ESTRANGEMENT

OF THE CHURCH AND THE WAGE-EARNERS

The most startling truth that can be told is lately being told so often that it is ceasing to startle us. It is this: that the modern Church and the wage-earning class are mutually estranged. Unless we move out of our fool's paradise in time, the present estrangement may at last develop a life-and-death emergency. For the Christian Church, if finally alienated from the working-classes, would not be Christian. And the labor movement, uninspired by Christian ideals, would be sordid in motive and chaotic in result. And society at large, with its two most potent forces thus perverted, would suffer disaster in its most vital interests. Such calamity may seen faroff, but the means of averting it are near at hand to-day, though they may not be to-morrow. It is the purpose of the present chapter to inquire as to the extent, the nature, and the causes of the estrangement in question.

1. As to its extent, we must first of all get clear of the notion that the Church is suffer

9

ing a general decline. A recent and widelyread book asserts the estrangement of the working-classes to be SO complete that "church-membership is steadily declining in proportion to population." Almost simultaneously with that statement appeared the notable Census Bulletin which reported that in sixteen years the membership of the churches of the United States had increased over 60 per cent., while population was increasing but 34 per cent. Nor can the former percentage be explained away by attributing it to immigration from Roman Catholic countries. For the Protestant church-membership has increased nearly 44 per cent., which is 10 per cent. faster than population. The writer quoted makes sweeping denial of the reliability of church statistics. In that regard it should be sufficient to note that such statistics usually afford inadequate rather than an excessive enumeration of actual adherents; witness the uncounted company of "brothers-in-law" and other supporters of the churches whose names are nowhere enrolled or reported.

Misleading inferences are also drawn from the proportion of wage-earners counted in Sunday congregations. It is thus overlooked that laborers, by the conditions of their life,

1 C. B. Thompson: "The Churches and the Wage Earners," pp. viii and 7.

are necessarily irregular in church attendance. Even when they so desire, they are unable to maintain the same frequency of attendance as other social classes. With the extensive industrial employment of women this consideration becomes an increasing factor. A grave error is also made by those who overlook the millions of our working people adhering to the Romanist, the Greek and the Hebrew faiths. While our present concern is with Protestantism, we must not count these non-Protestant worshipers among "the estranged." It is, however, a matter of grave import that several million lapsed Romanists are to be found among the workingmen of this country, while we have it on good authority that there is also a serious "drift from the synagogue."

Nor should we forget, as is often done, that two of the most numerous elements in the wageearning population are by no means estranged from the churches. First, there are the socalled "soft-handed" laborers-clerks, salesmen, book-keepers, and many kinds of "agents." Secondly, there are the manual laborers of all trades in the smaller towns and villages. These two classes, millions strong, together with the professional classes, who in their way are also wage-earners, probably constitute a majority of those who work for wages as well as a majority of adult church-members.

On the other hand, these wage-earners have little or no class-consciousness or group cohesion; they are not unionized, and their social and personal affinities are largely with the other social classes. In other words, these who are not estranged are also not the laborers who make the labor movement.

On the other hand, we are too complacent in citing the farmers as a class loyal to the Church. They are indeed laborers in the sense that they labor. But they are not "wageearners"; they are capitalists. "Farmhands," on the contrary, are wage-earners, and, we have much reason to believe, are also generally estranged from the Church. At the same time they sustain no active or direct part in the labor movement.

We have still to consider the manual laborers of the cities, together with railway and mine workers, These workingmen are class-conscious and unionized and are the movers of the labor movement. Are they estranged from the churches? Here we have come to the vital point in the modern social problem. Sadly be it said that the straws seem to indicate an adverse wind. President Plantz states that there were recently in this country 15,000,000 men between sixteen and thirty-five years of age, and that 6,000,000 were in touch with the Church and 9,000,000 out of touch with it,