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Show THE OLD CHURCH AND NEW FADS. Mr. William A. Hinds has very graciously mailed us a' copy of his "American Communities," which records the beginning and the end of forty new religions and sects established on communistic lines. In nearly every instance these new attempts to better bet-ter the social and spiritual condition of our race began with blare of trumpets and newspaper advertising. adver-tising. The effort was successful for a time only, when one after the other went down to ruin, or, eliminating the religious element, became joint stock companies under secular management. We wTell remember the laudations and praises showered- upon Dr. Dowie when he built up his great lace and other industries and made of Zion a model city, where no smoking, gambling, swearing swear-ing or "drinking" was tolerated, and also the shriek of derision which hailed his disastrous failure and the collapse of Zion. The capital error of all these Utopian dreams and of all Socialism is that they assume the possibility possi-bility of a perfect and sinless nature in the abstract masses of our race. The theory of these reformers, dreamers or fanatics fa-natics is that we will all do the right thing if affairs af-fairs are only well managed. The founder of a sect believes, consciously or "unconsciously, that he is sent of God, has a divine mission or has the supreme su-preme talent to reform society. The theory of the reformer or the dreamer is that cunning, greed, selfishness, dishonesty and cruelty eixst because of bad laws, of spiritual decay in communities or that social conditions are out of plumb. They assert as-sert that, if social condition were as they ought to be, rational men and women would be angels, and that all want and misery would cease to exist. But, as they are not, the reformer suddenly makes his appearance in our midst and cries aloud : "Behold, I come!" Then he delivers his message, is believed, trusted trust-ed and followed by the discontented, the restless and the fool. They are organized into a body called a congregation or a community, and begin to think they have a divine mission and are an exclusive people. They believe their nature to be regenerated and sanctified and that they are proof against the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil himself. . The result is for a time encouraging, and this encouragement confirms them in the persuasion that they are God's people. x For years there are prosperity, economy, peace and contentment. In every such case, however, complications are sure, sooner or later, to follow; human nature begins to exhibit its old side and its old faults ; dissensions, animosities, jealousies creep in and, in time, they awake and find it all a dream. ' If this be the doom and the end of every small religious community, of every sect, even when fortified for-tified by religious motives and a religious creed, what are we to think of national or even state socialism, so-cialism, which excludes the supernatural and is wedded wed-ded to materialism? We fear, from a study of the past, that the Socialists' dream of peace, order and contentment would end in an awakening to disaster and ruin. By the time the new order was e stablished, it would be discovered that a few smart devils had, to use the language of Wall street, "cornered the market." Then would follow a reign of terror, oppression op-pression and poverty like unto, that which occurred when France went mad and, in 1787, introduced national na-tional socialism and wrote on its coat of arms: "Ni Dieu, ni maitre" (No God, no ruler."). It is a good thing that Chicago, the most socialistic so-cialistic city in America, should have so close at hand the object lesson of Zion City as a warning against the madness of socialism. It is also deserving de-serving of note that the wrath of radical Socialists Social-ists passes by all the Protestant sects in its mad rush to get at the throat of the Catholic church, the foe of anarchy and the toiler's trust friend for time and eternity. |