IT is painfully manifest that at present we are passing through a critical time of national trouble. One trouble has already come upon us in the great Coal Strike, and another is looming ahead in the probable passing of a Home Rule Bill for Ireland. These are both matters that call for serious reflection, and much prayer to the Most High that for His own name’s sake He would stretch forth His hand for our deliverance. We have sinned grievously as a nation, and are calling down severe chastisements upon us.
At the date of writing (21st March), we are still in the midst of the Coal Strike which has affected the whole country from end to end for three weeks. Over one million miners have gone out of work, with the inevitable result that there has been a considerable amount of destitution among a multitude of families who were little able to meet with such an emergency. Other trades have also been seriously affected as a consequence. Numbers of men have been thrown partially idle and have suffered much loss of wages, which they could ill afford. The Strike has also had the effect of raising the price of coals, and adding considerably to the expense of households. In one way or another, few households in the country have escaped the undesirable results of this far-reaching Strike. It has every appearance of a national chastisement for sin.
It is not our intention here to enter into the precise matters of dispute between coal owners and miners. Certainly everyone is at liberty in a free country to exercise his judgment and form an opinion on such matters, without prejudice. But the discussion per se of work and wages is outwith the province of a religious magazine such as ours. We desire simply to note the general moral evils of the present situation and the warnings they are fitted to convey.
Lack of Unity
First, it is plain that there is a deplorable lack of unity between employers and employed. The relation of master and servant is clearly recognised in Scripture as a divinely ordered one. There is nothing essentially arrogant in the position of a master, or degrading in the position of a servant. Each situation is honourable in itself, and is necessary to the well-being of society according to divine arrangement. It is very clear, therefore, that, when parties, standing in this relation to one another and necessarily having mutual interests, do not work together harmoniously, but adopt an antagonistic attitude, the whole frame-work of society is in danger. One cannot fail to see that the want of harmony, so conspicuously seen in the present case, is only an example of what actually exists in other trades throughout the kingdom.
Tendency to Throw Off the Order of Servant
Secondly, it may be observed that entirely apart from the question of just grievances, there is a great tendency at the present time to throw off the order of servant altogether. All men desire to be masters. The ancient and Scriptural distinction of superiors, inferiors, and equals is being contemned, and a phantom of universal equality, sought after. We have the greatest possible sympathy with the trials and struggles of the poor, but we cannot shut our eyes to the dangers of revolutionary ideas. If there has been such a thing in the past as the tyranny of the master, let us be on our watch against the opposite extreme of the tyranny of the servant. The thing is certainly possible, and the whole controversy between employed and employers may resolve itself into a contest for the old, corrupt principle, “Might is right”—the party who can wield the greater power coming out dominant.
Disregard of the Word of God
Thirdly, we cannot fail to observe that the present state of matters is largely due to a widespread disregard of the Word of God in several important particulars.
The Kind of Gospel Preaching
(1) The kind of gospel preaching, that is common in the present day, has contributed its own share to the production of the present strained relations. Salvation by works, not grace, is the popular theme, and the observance of the relative duties between man and man is insisted on, as if it were the veritable pathway to eternal life. And yet by an apparent paradox this sort of preaching has never produced the works that it inculcates, in any proper degree. In fact, it has strengthened the very evil it professes to seek the removal of—the selfishness of the human heart. It proceeds upon the principle that men are not “dead in trespasses and sins” by nature, and that they are capable of doing much spiritual good by their own efforts, with a little divine assistance, and so it flatters them into a high opinion of their own powers and possibilities. It may produce some mechanical benevolence at times, but it does not destroy the root selfishness of the fallen heart, which can only be done on the principle that the sinner stands in need of a new birth—a new creation—the teaching of the old but real gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus it comes about that masters and servants, who are imbued with this doctrine of salvation by works, are nurtured in a doctrine of pride and self-love that can only produce conflict, loss, and misery in the issue. “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” The famous Dr. Chalmers in his early days preached salvation by morality with great earnestness, but he saw no good impression upon his parishioners. It was only when his eyes were opened to see himself a fallen sinner, and he began to preach salvation by grace through faith in “Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” that he observed abiding impressions upon the minds, and a real change in the lives, of his hearers.
Disregard of the Lord’s Day
(2) Then, the disregard of the Lord’s Day has contributed to the present result. We cannot say definitely to what extent, great or small, the Sabbath is infringed upon in connection with the working of coal mines. One thing we know, a great deal of the coal is in process of transmission from one part of the country to the other on the sacred day of rest. This interference with the Lord’s Day, which has become so widespread an evil, brings its own retribution. Scientific men speak of the violation of the laws of nature and the inevitable penalty that follows. We have greater authority to say that every violation of the moral law of God carries with it a certain penalty which will be inflicted in due time upon the transgressor, if he do not repent and change his ways. At the present moment, not only those in connection with the coal industry are suffering to a great extent, but also others, such as the Railway Companies, who are flagrant violators of the Lord’s Day. It would be interesting to discover how many Sabbath-days’ profits have been swallowed up by the financial losses at the present crisis.
Many are the lessons that this national trouble would teach us. It would impress upon us the importance of adhering closely to the Word of God, and the true gospel of salvation by Jesus Christ. It is only in the measure in which we adhere to this, by the divine blessing, that we can maintain a right spirit between man and man. “The grace of God which bringeth salvation” alone can enable us to keep the second as well as the first table of the moral law—”Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,”—”to do justly and love mercy” as well as to walk humbly with our God. This trouble would also teach the necessity of a careful regard to the sacredness of the Lord’s Day, as a day of rest and worship. One sin may ruin a man for time and eternity. “He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all” (James ii. 10), and the one sin of Sabbath desecration may bring disaster upon an industry, a community, a nation. Let us be awakened ere it be too late. Again, we are warned that we have within our own heart as a nation enough to bring us to destruction. A coal war might lead to a civil war, if God allowed the passions of men to burst forth: “Except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain” (Ps. cxxvii. 1). The Lord must be our keeper from inward as well as outward foes. But if we forget Him, and set at nought His Word, we have no security from complete ruin (Ps. xix. 17).