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Show RELIGION ID LABOR PRQBLEMSDISCUSSED The Rev. P. A. Simpkin Delivers De-livers Sermon on Subjects at Phillips Congregational. "RelIgion and Labor Problems" was the subject of an interesting discourse delivered deliv-ered by the Rev. Peter A. Simpkin In Phillips Congregational church yesterday forenoon. The text was from the world-old world-old statement that man "should eat bread In the sweat of his brow." The Rev. Mr. Simpkin spoke of th? significance sig-nificance of Labor day, both in Us em-phaslx em-phaslx upon the dignity of labor and the Increasing solidarity in practical ways of labor In Its conviction and its organization. organiza-tion. That, he said, will make the realization real-ization of larger rowards for toll and a compulsion to modulation of dlstrlbutl'in, but he added that there was a great error In that many fall to ;raco th tremendous tre-mendous Influence of the Christian religion relig-ion in the problem. The Uev. Mr. Simpkin Simp-kin said. In part: God lent dignity to labor. He has ever been the master workman, his tools the great universal laws, his energy the power of the vast machine. ma-chine. Labor was not a degrading thing when the Tiornlng stars sang together, nor was it when Adam went forth to till and Eve to spin. The degradation bf labor to slavery was the fruitage of elevation to over-lordship, over-lordship, tribal masters who by prowess of arm or. later, Inheritance, established that, autocracy whoso remnants have reached across the age to service in the last forms of that withering feudalism whose breakdown Is the mark of our 1m-mcdlato 1m-mcdlato time. Society is not Ideal, but It has Its Ideal and moves to It. Today the common manhood walks In dignity. Labor Is being awakene.1, it Is being educated. It Is learning to think: it will slowly but surely realize Its IcTeal. Those who vouid change the order of soclctv overnight are blind to the lessons of evolution In human history. The bringing of Individual and commercial life to Its ond Is - task for time, patience and experiment, for the growth of character more than bv legislative enactment. Religion, the religibn and Ideals of Jesus, will count In bringing to pass that ond. The man who Impertinently "berates the church because It does not enter Into the struggles of tho time does so unthinkingly. The business of the church, as a church, Is not the adjustment ad-justment of economics. Christianity Is the spring whence has come tho rich measure of life blessing men. The Christian religion has to do not with labor, but with life. That power which has lifted men from serfdom to citizenship in the free lands of the world Is the power of tho Ideals and laws of Christ isx-empllfied isx-empllfied in the lives of those whom it has propped and fashioned. |
