ception of history, the doctrine of surplus values, of collective ownership, of the distribution of wealth among the workers, in short all of the material doctrines predicated on socialism. But there was little yielding on either side, and they found little common ground. When they advanced, in the argument, to that modified form of socialism advocated by some Christian workers, including Farrar himself, they found still fewer points of agreement. The rector contended that the ideals of socialism were entirely consistent with, and simply an evolution of the doctrines propounded by the Founder of Christianity who was, Himself, distinctly of the leveling type; that the materialism which had been injected into the socialistic philosophy was due entirely to the personal prejudices, and these in turn to the environment, of some of the great leaders of the movement, and was not inherent in the philosophy itself. He insisted that the anti-religious and unmoral, if not immoral, vagaries that had attached themselves to the socialistic faith could and eventually would be swept away, leaving a body of doctrine which might and ought to be adopted by every sincere advocate of the coming of the kingdom of Christ.
To which Westgate replied that Jesus Christ was not a socialist, that while the government of His time and country was honeycombed with corruption, and brutal in its oppression of the common people, He neither attacked it, nor made any attempt to reform existing political or social conditions. He condemned the rich because the riches of His day were mostly ill-gotten, and He pitied and tried to comfort the poor because they were, of all men of His generation, most miserable. But His chief concern, and His constant plea, was for the spiritual regeneration of the individual man. Moreover, that, since socialism declared the evils of society to be solely the product of blind economic forces, and not, in any sense, the result of individual unrighteousness, and since it denied any spiritual
