Page:Can a man be a Christian on a pound a week? - Hardie.djvu/11

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2. That the teaching of the article is materialistic, and means that if a man has private property he is not a Christian, but that if he owns property in common with others he is. (The same).
3. That in early days of Christianity slaves were set free by their Christian masters. (The same).
4. That the article is an attack upon temperance and thrift, and a glorification of the idle, happy-go-lucky tramp. (Rev. Mr. Hibbert).
5. That Christian employers should pay their workfolks good wages. (Anon).

1. THE CHURCHES AND THE GOSPEL.

If the article is right, then the Churches generally do not properly understand what the Gospel of Christ is, and their work is, to a large extent, futile. (Rev. Mr. Shaw.)

I can imagine how presumptuous it must appear to the clerical mind to find a mere ordinary layman arraying himself against them in matters of theology, and yet a considerable acquaintance with Church life and a sincere desire to understand what Jesus taught has driven me irresistibly to the conclusion that modern Churchianity is not only un-Christian, but anti-Christian. I can find no points of correspondence between the teachings of Jesus, as contained in the New Testament, and the teachings of the modern pulpit. Nor does the life of the average minister of the Gospel differ materially from that of the ordinary man of the world. When the world shouts for war, the pulpit leads the cry. The acquisition of money by the unscrupulous hordes who infest the Stock Exchange is undertaken with the blessing of