Month: October 2018

From the Archives

J. William Lloyd, “Forced or Free—The Two Socialisms” (1902)

October 2, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

THAT the drift of evolution is toward socialism few thinkers doubt. It appears in education, religion, industry, government, everything. All over the world free schools, free libraries, free reading rooms, etc., reveal a profound conviction that knowledge is a human birthright. In religion there is a rapidly accelerating tendency to waive dogma, leave creed to conscience, & concentrate on humanitarian work. Proposals to rub out sectarian lines & minimize sects are heard every day, and as a matter of almost unconscious fact such unity is every day being attained. Practically only some half-a-dozen sects remain, & these faded. […]

From the Archives

Joshua King Ingalls in “The Shekinah” (1852–1853)

October 2, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

Through long, long ages has labor sighed and toiled under a worse than Egyptian bondage. Its utmost stretch of memory can scarce recall its pastoral days, when it frolicked and gamboled with the herd upon the plain or mountain side. Enslaved by the gold of civilization, which itself has mined and coined, it is no less oppresssed in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, than it was in the days of ancient barbarism, or more recent feudalism. Nor has it scarce other hope than the oppressed Hebrew felt, when his demand for freedom was met by an increase of task, while at the same time he was compelled to furnish his own material. […]