In every public library in England and many in America you will find an assortment of pamphlets published by these organizations, and scholarly volumes endorsed by them, in which the stock misrepresentations of Socialism are perpetuated.  Some of these writings are brutal—­setting forth the ethics of exploitation in the manner of the Rev. Thomas Malthus, the English clergyman who supplied for capitalist depredation a basis in pretended natural science.  Said this shepherd of Jesus: 

A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents, and if society does not Want his labor, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and in fact has no business to be where he is.  At Nature’s mighty feast there is no cover for him.  She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders.

Such was the tone of the ruling classes in the nineteenth century; but it was found that for some reason this failed to stop the growth of Socialism, and so in our time the clerical defenders of Privilege have grown subtle and insinuating.  They inform us now that they have a deep sympathy with our fundamental purposes; they burn with pity for the poor, and they would really and truly wish happiness to everyone, not merely in Heaven, but right here and now.  However, there are so many complications—­and so they proceed to set out all the anti-Socialist bug-a-boos.  Here for example, is the Rev. James Stalker, D.D., expounding “The Ethics of Jesus,” and admonishing us extremists: 

Efforts to transfer money and property from one set of hands to another may be inspired by the same passions as have blinded the present holders to their own highest good, and may be accompanied with injustice as extreme as has ever been manifested by the rich and powerful.

And again, the Rev. W. Sanday, D.D., an especially popular clerical author, gives us this sublime utterance of religion on wage-slavery: 

     The world is full of mysteries, but some clear lines run
     through them, of which this is one.  Where God has been so
     patient, it is not for us to be impatient.

And again, Professor Robert Flint, of Edinburgh University, a clergyman, author of a big book attacking Socialism, and bringing us back to the faith of our fathers: 

     The great bulk of human misery is due, not to social
     arrangements, but to personal vices.

I study Professor Flint’s volume in the effort to find just what, if anything, he would have the church do about the evils of our time.  I find him praising the sermons of Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, as being the proper sort for clergymen to preach.  Bishop Westcott, whether he is talking to a high society congregation, or to one of workingmen, shows “an exquisite sense of knowing always where to stop.”  So I consulted the Bishop’s volume, “The Social Aspects of Christianity” and I see at once why he is popular with the anti-Socialist propagandists—­neither I or any other man can possibly discover what he really means, or what he really wants done.