early Christian movement, a change by which in the course of time the projectors came to abandon their early cause and to swerve around to a directly opposite position. Starting out as socialistic, the movement became religious; starting out as purely republican, it became monarchistic and theocratic; starting out as political it became moral. In general it was a change from radical to conservative; from a contemplated revolution to a moderate reform."[1] Upon such a conception of Christianity is based the argument of some for a return to the original conception of Christianity—a Christian socialism. This indeed is a defective ideal. But this is not the view of any one of the schools, but simply of many individuals writing and speaking as such without the sanction of any special organization.
UNSOCIALISTIC CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM.
At the other extreme, the agitators are numerous who would modify the present order of things but whose ideals, so far as they are formulated, would not necessitate any essential changes. These are socialists in the sense of Proudhon's definition—in the sense that we are all socialists. Indeed the original school of English Christian socialists formulated no definite condition of society as an ideal. They were primarily interested in concrete programmes of action for immediate social amelioration. Theirs was not at all a speculative interest and they constructed no vague general theories for ultimate conditions. Similarly there are many at the present time who, dissatisfied with the results of the extreme individualistic conception of Christianity, strive for a collective or social interpretation of Christian principles. Some of these are liable to the charge of mere sensationalism; others—"prophets of righteousness"—are so vague in their own ideas as to preclude any characterization of their ideals. They merit the term "prophet" simply because no one can interpret them. Still others merely repeat with variations the old copy book truism—"Be good and you will be happy." It may however be improper to test the ideals of Christian socialism by those of the
- ↑ Ibid., p. 195.
