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 The 
 
 Chri^Han Conception 
 of Property 
 
 By 
 
 JOHN A. MARQUIS 
 
 Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
 Church in the United States of America 
 
 OCTOBER 
 19 16 
 
 :s3i 
 
( 
 
 The Chri^ian Conception 
 of Property 
 
 • * T- 
 
 Property and its management is one of the great questions of 
 our day, and Christianity must have something to say about it. We 
 are in an age when wealth is increasing at a prodigious rate, ami': 
 connected with its increase as well as with its possession many knotty 
 and serious problems, most of them moral, have arisen. There has*; 
 never been a day since men began to own things that they have"" 
 owned as many as they do now. The wealth of the Phiited States in" 
 the last 25 years has increased enormously and will probably keep 
 on doing so with even greater rapidity. As time goes by inventive"^ 
 men will continue to find new sources of wealth in unsuspected' 
 places. Coal was once black rock with no value whatever; now it 
 is wealth of vast value. The waterfall was once a sight, a thing 
 beautiful and wonderful to look at; now it is so much power to be 
 capitalized and sold on the market. Iron ore beds were once so 
 much unproductive land; now they are mines of fabulous wealth ; an(l . 
 so on over the whole face of nature. The more we know about our 
 earth the richer it becomes to us. We cannot stop this and would. , 
 not if we could. It is part of the mind of God for us. We were 
 told in Eden to take the earth and subdue it and rule it, and every 
 triumph of science over nature is a step forward in the program of 
 Paradise. 
 
 There is No Blessing So Blessed that a Curse Does Not Lurk On Its 
 
 Offside 
 
 But like everything else wealth is attended with difficulty and 
 travail. The devil is watching it as well as the angels and will turn 
 it to account if he can, and has had large success in doing it hitherto. 
 Property in its primal intent and in its essential nature is a God- 
 bestowed blessing, but like every other blessing will darken down 
 into a curse if it is not used according to the mind of the great Giver, 
 for, as some one has said, there is no blessing so blessed that a curse 
 does not lurk on its off-side. 
 
 So out of wealth and the thirst for its possession there has 
 l)roceeded the vilest troup of crimes and meannesses that have ever 
 disgraced our race; envy, strife, brutality, war, murder, worldliness 
 and neglect of God without measure. We are learning that one of 
 
the most dangerous things that can happen to society is for the 
 wrong kind of a man to get rich. Wealth in the wrong hands means 
 vulgarity and Godlessness sooner or later. Whence came strikes, 
 war between capital and labor, social bitterness, false standards of 
 success, hatred of the poor toward the rich and contempt of the poor 
 by the rich, disregard of God and inhumanity to man? Out of 
 property, not all of it but a lot of it. It creates artificial distinctions 
 that cuts society in two, and that try as we will we cannot keep out 
 of the Church of God. It is the source of more of the world’s un- 
 brotherliness than any other one thing, or all other things. 
 
 So the world needs a Christian philosophy of wealth, and needs 
 it sadly. What is the mind of Christ about this thing so potent of 
 blessing and yet so productive of devilishness? We are warranted 
 in assuming, as Christians we must assume, that the evil twist that 
 has been given to it is because we have left Christ out of account in 
 handling it. 
 
 Not the Extravagance of the Mohammedan But the Way the 
 Christian Acts With His Money that Pinches 
 
 More than this, a vast proportion of the world’s wealth is in the 
 possession of people who call themselves Christians, the very people 
 over whom the Church has most influence and for whose beliefs and 
 behavior she is most responsible. It is not pagan property that is 
 vexing society today, or at least it is not property in pagan lands. It 
 is almost entirely a Christian problem, for an amazing share of the 
 worldly goods of our planet is in Christian hands. We are not 
 shamed by the overfed worldliness of the Chinaman or the vulgar 
 extravagance of the Mohammedan or the financial tyranny of the 
 Hindu or even by the diamond bespattered shirt-front of the Hebrew. 
 It is the way the Christian is acting with his money that is pinching 
 us. It is a home problem, a family affair, and we need only to look 
 behind our own door to see how much linen is to be washed. When 
 Christian people extend their Christianity to their property the rest 
 of mankind will not need to concern us. 
 
 Christ Was Not an Economist 
 
 Now be it said before we go further that Christ was not an 
 economist. He was supremely a teacher of religion. Socialists and 
 capitalists have both claimed Him, but neither has any right to him 
 except to submit to him and obey him like other sinners. 
 
 But his religion infuses and controls all life, and because Christ 
 was a teacher of religion of necessity he had something to say on 
 
economics. Because man must have food to eat and raiment to put 
 on and houses to live in Christianity must have a word to say about 
 how these necessities are obtained and how they are used. They 
 belong to life and, therefore, are in the domain of His religion. But 
 beyond this our Lord had a great deal to say to people who had a 
 surplus, the prosperous of his day. He did not talk to millionaires 
 for there were none, but to the prosperous farmers and merchants 
 and shepherds who were about him. Then, as now, there were 
 people who had vastly more food than they could eat, more raiment 
 than they needed to put on, and for this reason they were an espec¬ 
 ially needy lot of sinners and called for extra instruction and warn¬ 
 ing. 
 
 Money is ‘Tainted” Quite as Much in the Way It is Used As in the 
 
 Way It is Acquired 
 
 Christ was as much concerned about how people used their 
 money as about how they made it. It could be “tainted” by wrong 
 use or non-use as well as by vicious methods of acquiring it. He had 
 no panacea by which the financial tyrannies and economic inequal¬ 
 ities and injustices of the world could be rectified. But while he 
 laid down no program he did enunciate some principles that must 
 govern all life, the possession of wealth included. Chief among 
 them was his law of love and service. Love in his view does not ex¬ 
 ist unless it expresses itself in sacrifice and service. A selfish love 
 is unthinkable. Because he loved men he gave up his life for them. 
 He had to do it. The fact of Blis loving made the cross inevitable. 
 This law governed the use of His wealth, and it must govern the 
 use the disciple makes of all he has. The man who witholds any 
 part of his life from the operation of this law has not caught the 
 spirit of Christ and is none of his. His property, like the talents of 
 his mind, the graces of his heart and the energies of his body, is not 
 owned for himself but for the good he can do with it. 
 
 Riches Are Always a Needle’s Eye Proposition Unless Held in Trust 
 
 In the Christian view of things, then, no man owns anything. 
 We are not our own but are bought with a price. As He surrended 
 Himself to us, so must we surrender all to Him and the uses of His 
 kingdom. We may put one-tenth into the treasury for specifically 
 religious and benevolent uses, but the nine-tenth we keep is as much 
 His as the one-tenth we give away. We are stewards not owners. 
 On the assumption that I love humanity as much as Christ loves me 
 what shall I do with my money? No Christian can escape this ques- 
 
tion. The only way we can give to Christ is to give to the world 
 for which Christ died. He made this very clear when he was here. 
 Wealth has no right to call itself Christian unless it submits to this 
 law. It is the acid test of our Christian quality. Riches are always 
 a needle’s eye proposition unless they are held and used as a trust for 
 Christ and in no other way. 
 
 Wealth is Given the Chance of a Thousand Years to Save Itself 
 
 Jesus never looked on money as a primary good, a thing to be 
 sought and possessed for its own sake. When it is wanted for its 
 own sake, as an end instead of a means to do good, it becomes a 
 snare and a menace. It blots out the sight of God, dulls the con¬ 
 science and blunts and dwarfs the whole spiritual nature. “How 
 hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God”; 
 riches that are only riches and not a means for carrying out the lov¬ 
 ing purposes of the Father. Without the right motive behind it, the 
 motive of love and service, wealth is like fire arms and edged tools 
 in the hands of children, a source of danger both to ourselves and 
 the community. The only way it can be saved from harmfulness is 
 to employ it for others in accordance with the will of Christ. 
 
 Christianity does not decry wealth; it only insists that it be kept 
 in its right place; as an instrument for promoting the kingdom of 
 heaven. God has given it a worthy place in his campaign for the 
 world when it submits itself to Him, It is a necessary factor in the 
 program of Christ, and never more so than today. There is at this 
 hour a door of dignity and honor and service open to wealth never 
 beheld before. God is giving it the chance of a thousand years to 
 save itself. Men of means, big and little, have an opportunity to 
 make their gifts tell for Christ and world redemption possessed by 
 no other generation of Christians the sun has seen. 
 
 Money-Making is the Genius of the Age 
 
 The Church has always made use of the salient characteristics of 
 the epochs thru which she was passed to advance her purposes and 
 push her campaign. Witness how she turned to account the spirit 
 of discovery and adventure that followed the voyages of Columbus 
 to America; the use she made of the printing press and the revival 
 of learning; the philosophic speculation of the i6th and 17th cen¬ 
 turies; the tidal wave of liberty and popular government of the i8th 
 century, and so on. We are a moneymaking age. Our men have a 
 genius for it possessed by none who have preceded them. Has 
 
J 
 
 1 
 
 Christ tid-claim'oh this'marvelous girt for 'aGq'uisitiohPnls Christian¬ 
 ity to make no signal use of this outstanding, unique feature of our 
 day? If not it will be a dead day, a truly dark age fn the history of 
 oun world and the kingdom of our Lord. But let the Christian coiv 
 ception of serving rather than of being served, of givings not hoard¬ 
 ing, have its way and this will be the brightest day mankind has seen 
 since Christ went on high. 
 
 * Let the pulpit bear down on this. The Church does not want 
 her people to make less rnoney, but to keep less of it and to realize 
 what they have it for, .to show their love for Christ by it and to use 
 it as He used His own life, not for His own sake but for .the sake of 
 the world. 
 
 Did Zaccheus Restore Only His Wrongful Gains? 
 
 Let us learn and teach that no man can catch the spirit of Christ 
 without awaking to the obligation money imposes. As soon as 
 Zaccheus got a glimpse at the meaning of Christ he thought of his 
 money and what he should do with it. He immediately proposed to 
 do the thing he felt his Master would want done. As soon as he had 
 a Christian experience he loosened up, a genuine mark of Christian 
 experience ever since. His idea was very rudimentary, to be sure. Of 
 course he had no business keeping mpney he had obtained wrong¬ 
 fully, and must restore it. But we imagine he was not long in the 
 Christian life until he learned that Christ had claims on the money 
 he had gotten.honestly, and if he were going to be Christ’s he must 
 loosen, up there also. 
 
 Nothing was said about how the Rich Young Ruler came by his 
 riches. It is assumed that they were legitimate. But Christ made it 
 clear that it was'not legitimate for him to hold them while there 
 were poor to be helped and his own soul wUs being damaged. 
 
 There is No Blessing By Itself in Being Rich 
 
 There is no blessing per se in being rich. On the contrary 
 there is distinct danger in it. The blessing comes from making the 
 right use of it. We must make it serve in order to make it safe, safe 
 for. ourselves and safe for society. One of its misuses is that it is 
 made a means to buy service rather than to render service. The 
 world’s idea has always been that the more people a man has work¬ 
 ing for him the greater he is; the Christian idea is that the more 
 people he is working for the greater he is. There is nothing blessed 
 about commanding service. On the contrary it is likely to vulgarize 
 and cheapen. The blessing is in rendering it. Wealth in the Chris¬ 
 tian view is simply so much opportunity to serve. 
 
i Not the Red Flag But the Cross is the Solvent of Economic Ills 
 
 It needs to be preached also that in this Christian conception of 
 property, and there alone, is to be found the solvent oCthe serious 
 econornic and social problems confronting our generation, and they 
 are acutely serious. Wealth must solve them for wealth has created 
 them. It is not the mind of Christ that the wrongs of society should 
 be righted by the poor rising up and confiscating the property of the 
 rich. Instead He laid it on the rich that they should realize their 
 responsibility and use their wealth so as not only to right wrong but 
 avoid it by installing righteousness. In the Christian conception ofdhe 
 matter the rich are responsible for the poor, for we are all respon¬ 
 sible "'for each other. The burden of the weak'is on-''the- strong; 
 Wealth’can meet the conditions that have arisen out of it by sub¬ 
 mitting itself to the Christ law of love and service, an'd if it do6s not 
 it confronts danger every hour. The red flag is ceaselessly before it. 
 
 The Alternative—Christianized Wealth dr Barrabas the Anarchist 
 
 Which of the twain will we have? Christianized wealth or 
 paganized disorder and anarchy? The Jews before Pilate rejected 
 Christ and chose Barrabas the anarchist. Are we confronted with 
 the same alternative? Is wealth in America making the same choice? 
 Many earnest souls think so.. Explosive materiaClies .beneath, the 
 social surface and fires of discontent and resentment and bitterness 
 are smouldering perilously- near. ^ Whether they ever break ^out to 
 the, disruption of society is for. the-men?of wealth, more than ^any 
 other>Glass to decide. The only way they can save thesmselvesjs, to 
 make their wealth sacrificial and lay it on Christ’s altar oC love ,and 
 service. There is grave reason to fear.that the .Christian grace of 
 self-denial is a lost art in America. .We have grown so, fat and pros¬ 
 perous that we have forgotten-the .meaning of sacrifice, and,such a 
 soil cannot grow great Christians. When society in^ the past has 
 gotten into this condition God has uprooted it and pushed men out 
 among the thorns and thistles to begin over again, as,He .drove the 
 first pair from Eden when they began to .use it for their own induU 
 gence. 
 
 
 The Heritiage of War—for America a Soul , Seared and Encased ,in a 
 
 Bloated Pocketbook " , 
 
 It is not only hard for a rich man to get into heaven but it seems 
 equally hard for him to know what is going on in the world beneath 
 him. As he grows richer he grows remote from his less fortunate 
 
fellows, and few men of wealth are aware of the mutterings and 
 scowls around them. Christ knows the common people better than 
 any captain of industry the world has ever seen, and when He says 
 ‘‘sell what thou had and give, take up the cross of sacrifice and deny 
 thyself” He is simply pointing out the path to safety. Our fear for 
 America is that while Europe is suffering and sacrificing in the 
 throes of her awful war we are merely content to make money out 
 of the world’s travail. If this be so we will come out of the war 
 vastly worse than Europe, for her people will receive the refinement 
 and chastening that always result from sacrifice and suffering while 
 our portion will be a seared soul encased in a bloated pocket-book. 
 Jesus Christ cannot do anything for us without the law of the Cross. 
 We might as well expect electricity to light our houses without wires 
 or lamps as to expect Him to save us from our perils without the 
 spirit and the fact of sacrifice. 
 
 Love and Service; Confiscated Wealth and Social Disruption— 
 
 Which? 
 
 So we come again to the old alternative of Pilate:—which of the 
 twain will ye have released unto you? Jesus with His sacrificial law 
 of love and service, or confiscated wealth and social disruption? The 
 choice, we repeat, does not lie with the agitator but with the man of 
 means. It turns on how far he is willing to be Christian with his 
 wealth. Will he go the whole length, or like the Rich Young Ruler 
 will he turn away sorrowful but doomed? The responsibility is his. 
 You can no more save wealth without Jesus Christ than you can save 
 souls without Him. Apart from Him it is bound to turn suicide and 
 destroyer. All down the ages it has eaten the heart out of every na¬ 
 tion and every social condition it has dominated, and it will do it for 
 us unless it is held and used in the spirit of the Master. God cannot 
 afford to let it survive unless he is allowed to control it. This is the 
 lesson of history as well as of the Bible. 
 
 Furthermore, wealth is in a mind today to.listen to this sort of 
 preaching. It is more serious minded, more sensitive to responsi¬ 
 bility than ever before, and waits to be led. The arrogant rich are a 
 distinctly diminishing company. Let the Church do her duty and in 
 love declare the will of Christ, and all this tremendous power can be 
 made constructive by being laid at the feet of Him whose right it is 
 to rule it. 
 
 Vol. XVII 
 
 THE COE COLLEGE COURIER 
 
 Entered in'the postoffice at Cedar Rapids. Iowa, as second class mail matter 
 
 Number 3