Page:The unhallowed harvest (1917).djvu/99

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94
THE UNALLOWED HARVEST

benefit and enjoyment of Christ Church. It is only because you stand aloof and will not welcome him on equal terms that he does not feel so now. I hope that, eventually, your attitude will be changed; and, in that hope, I shall keep on inviting the poor to come to us, and I shall continue to preach the abolition of social distinctions in the Church."

It is not probable that the Reverend Mr. Farrar had any expectation of bringing the members of the vestry, offhand, to the acceptance of his views. If he had, it needed only a glance at their faces to show him that his words had had no convincing effect. Of course Emberly and Hazzard, both of whom had been with him from the beginning, showed marked signs of approval; but as to the others, their opposition to his theories appeared only to have become accentuated by his speech.

"That sounds to me," said the capitalist, "very much like socialism. I hope we are not going to have that fallacious and sinister doctrine preached to us, also, from the pulpit of Christ Church. Do I understand, Mr. Farrar, that you are a socialist?"

"A Christian socialist, yes," was the answer. "So far as socialism is in accord with the articles of our religion, with the canons of our Church, and with the message of Jesus Christ, I am a socialist. I believe, gentlemen, that socialism is coming, and that eventually it will be the policy of the state. It is foolish to blind our eyes to it. As it exists to-day there is much in its theory and propaganda that is anti-Christian. Some of its leaders are distinctly irreligious. Some of them are bitterly antagonistic to the Church. If such men as these are permitted to dominate the socialism of the future, religion and Christian morals will be in jeopardy. There is only one power on earth that can rescue society from such an evil, and that is the power of the Church. If the Church will but recognize socialism for the good that is in it; help to con-