OPEN LETTER TO POPE LEO XIH. 101
Here is the answer, the only true answer : If men lack bread it is not that God has not done his part in pro- viding it. If men willing to labor are cursed with pov- erty, it is not that the storehouse that God owes men has failed; that the daily supply he has promised for the daily wants of his children is not here in abundance. It is, that impiously violating the benevolent intentions of their Creator, men have made land private property, and thus given into the exclusive ownership of the few the provision that a bountiful Father has made for all.
Any other answer than that, no matter how it may be shrouded in the mere forms of religion, is practically an atheistical answer.
��I have written this letter not alone for your Holiness, but for all whom I may hope it to reach. But in sending it to you personally, and in advance of publication, I trust that it may be by you personally read and weighed. In setting forth the grounds of our belief and in painting out considerations which it seems to us you have unfor- tunately overlooked, I have written frankly, as was my duty on a matter of such momentous importance, and as I am sure you would have me write. But I trust I have done so without offense. For your office I have pro- found respect, for yourself personally the highest esteem. And while the views I have opposed seem to us erroneous and dangerous, we do not wish to be understood as in the slightest degree questioning either your sincerity or intelligence in adopting them. For they are views all but universally held by the professed religious teachers of Christendom, in all communions and creeds, and that have received the sanction of those looked to as the wise and learned. Under the conditions that have surrounded you, and under the pressure of so many high duties and
�� �
