p. 141My Dear Mr. Blatchford,
You dispose pretty successfully of the outcry against paid agitators, but, of course, you must recognise that there is a little truth in the current invective against them. The agitators are not all disinterested men, like you; they are not all sincere, fervent, sympathetic, and talented, like the writer of “Merrie England.” Some of them, at least, are noisy, shallow, mercenary fellows, who spout Socialism from the love of notoriety, or the pleasure they find in tearing down things that are up. Perhaps, too, some of them find it an easy way of getting a crust of bread. At all events, you can excuse the strong things that may be said against yourself, considering there are men to whom they justly apply. You are evidently not one of those who disturb the general calm for the mere liking of the thing. I should judge that the “shaking of old and rotten institutions” gives you no particular pleasure, and that you would rather see the respectable rascality transformed. If you “bawl at shameful untruths, and trample on venerable shams,” it is not that you take delight in such a performance, but that your rage is rage against wrong, and your grief a grief excited by helpless suffering, and your denunciation the honest outpouring of an outraged sense of justice.
This being so, bear with the privileged classes if they rail, and with the oppressed classes if they surmise, and with the lazy classes if they murmur. Stand by your guns as long as you think your cause is right. Stick by the argument until you are shut up. Perhaps even this might happen, if you are the honest man you seem to be. Perhaps the field is wider, and the problem deeper, than you have yet realised; and on a maturer survey of the whole subject, you may come to the conclusion that Socialism cannot p. 142 be established by constitutional means—that if attempted by violent means, it must fail, and that even if it were to be established, peaceably or violently, it could not work out the good results you desire. Should you come to this conclusion, perhaps you may place your talents at the disposal of a higher movement, which contains both the promise and guarantee of all the excellent things you wish for the suffering race of humanity.
But one thing does grate upon me in this chapter on agitators—namely, that you should put Christ in their category. Oh, Mr. Blatchford, this is a terrible mistake! It brings Christ down to a depth, or puts the agitator up to a height, where neither belongs at all. Christ was no agitator, though he produced agitation. You recognise that he was not only a true man, but at the very head of the “salt of the earth,” to use your own expression.
This being so, we are bound to take him at his own estimate. He said, “I work the works of my Father; the works that I do, I do not myself; the Father who sent me, He doeth the works.” What agitator ever made a claim like this? Can you make it, Mr. Blatchford, in the very faintest degree? I should say you are too modest and honest and sensible a man for such a sacrilege.
Then it was not merely that Christ made this extraordinary claim, to be a worker of works which were not his own, but he allowed the reasonableness of his claim being treated as an open question. He referred the bystanders to the evidence of his claim. He said, “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.” You see he was not a fanatic or an enthusiast, carried away with sublime moral delusions. He was a rationalist in his mental methods: “The works that I do,” he said, “bear witness of me that my Father hath sent me.”
When you consider what these works were, you can see how perfectly sane was the claim he made that he was no human agitator, working out his own ideas, however excellent. The character of these works comes out very explicitly in connection with the interesting enquiry of John the Baptist, sent from prison, where he was confined, “Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?” We are informed that when the messengers arrived, “In that same hour Jesus cured many of their infirmities and plagues”; and then, turning to the messengers, said, “Go your p. 143 way, tell John what things ye have seen and heard, how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised” (Luke vii. 19-22).
Could any agitator, paid or unpaid, do such things as these? Which of them can say, “I came down from heaven to do the will of Him that sent me”? Which of them can challenge their contemporaries to convince them of sin? Which of them can say, “The Son of Man shall be put to death, and shall rise again the third day”? Which of them after death can induce their friends to go through the world proclaiming their resurrection, in the teeth of persecution, spoliation, and death?
You will remember that during the French revolution, a new religion was proclaimed, but the new religion did not catch on; and while the leaders were wondering what they should do to make it a success, Talleyrand said, “If one of you gentlemen will allow himself to be crucified, and rise again the third day, the thing will succeed.”
Now, Mr. Blatchford, I put these things to you because you evidently revere Christ, which you could not do if you thought He was an impostor and a liar. If He was no impostor, and made the claims, and did the things recorded in the gospels written by His companions and friends, then He was as far above the tribe of agitators as the sun is above the street lamps. If so, He was one of the facts of the world, one of the elements of the problem, and deserving of the consideration you accord to questions of labour and capital.
Why should you leave Him out? Perhaps you have not given him sufficient attention. He is the key of the position. If He is what He claimed, He is the light of the world, and the Saviour of mankind from all their woes. If this is true, Socialism is barred by His own words: “Without me ye can do nothing.”
I have shown natural reasons for recognising this to be a fact; how much they are strengthened by such a declaration. If Christ is true, Socialism is a false cry, although I believe on your part an entirely honest one. It is a cry that will lure the populace into deeper depths of woe than they are now in, and that perhaps it will take the arrival of Christ to extricate them from.
My talk may seem wild; it will seem otherwise when your eyes are opened to all the facts that are before the world. It surprises p. 144 me that shrewd and capable men discussing the world’s life should so totally ignore its most palpable ingredient; for the teachings of Christ are not only a power in modern society, but His personal reality is one of the most undeniable realities of human history. Oh, Mr. Blatchford, you are fired with noble impulses, but consider how bootless are all your proposals if this simple proposition should happen to be the truth, that Christ is the living and coming master of mankind.
You propose the election of labour members to Parliament, and with this view you are labouring to make the people Socialists, and earnestly recommending them to enroll themselves members of Socialist societies, and to agitate in committee rooms for the bringing out of Socialist candidates. Consider what a mistake it all must be if Socialism is impracticable, and Christ the coming reformer. You are then wasting English strength, diverting English industry from profitable objects, and embittering English life with dangerous class irritations and antipathies, by will-o’-the-wisp proposals that can only lure the working classes into deeper mire. With admiration and pity,
Your much-concerned, yet hopeful friend and neighbour,
JOHN SMITH.