Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-04-21
SUNDAY, APRHL e1, 1859.
Individual Respon sibilftY for
Wrong Doing.

No stronger testimony 10 tne g6Heral
elevation of character of the clergymen
of all denominations in the United states
could be had than The fact that the rare
lapsus of an individual member is seized
upon as genuine sensation. That there
should be found an occasional black
sheep among the vast number of men
engaged in the clerical profession is not
to be wondered at, and when wecom-
pare the paucity of individual in
stances OF misconduct with the great
number of men against whom the whis-
per OF slander is never heard, we ought
to honor profession which is so true to
the sacred inter ests intrusted to its care.
We all know with what avidity the
slightest scandal against men of the cloth
is seized upon by the ungodly and
magnifed and often distorted; how the
secular press is ready to open its columns
to give it publicity, and how the worldly
and irreligious and thoughtless use it as
lever to widen and extend popular
prejudice against ministers as class.
Yet the fact remains that the average
clergyman in this country is a sincere
worker in the field of religion and good
morals. The hundreds of thousands of
modest pastors, of whom we never hear
outside of their little fiocks, work con-
scientiously and laboriously to bring
their fellow-men into better life and a
higher state of being. Their own lives
are blameless and without guile, and the
good they do is the incentive to the per-
sonal sacrifices they are constantly max
ing for the benefit of their kind.
Their disinterested devotion to the duties
of their profession stamp them as men
who are worthy of the confidence placed
in them by their parishioners, and the
very rare instances in which that trust is
betrayed should no more operate to their
prejudice as class, than the occasional
cowardice of soldier should lower the
character of the military profession, or
therascality of few bankers should reflect
dipcredit upon the great mass of honest
men who are at the head of our financial
institutions. Scandal loves a shining
mark, and there is something in per-
yerted human nature which is especially
tickled when scandal strikes at a mem
ber of the religious profession. OF course
there is much less excuse for
minister giving way to vicious
passions than there would be for
a layman to go wrong. But then why is it
that we treat the lapsus of a minister
less in its individual character and re-
sponsibility, and lay it over against his
profession than we do in the case OF an
ordinary layman when he goes wrong.
The shoemaker and printer and black
smith ought to be good citizens and hon
est men, but some of them sometimes
make bad breaks. No one, however,
ever thinks of laying their delinquencies
over against the class or calling to which
they belong. II is the individual alone
who has to suffer the obloquy as we'll as
the penalty for his wrong-doings
and not his class or his trade.
True. neither of these callings is
especially devoted to the propagation of
morality or the spread of moral doctrines
yet they are all required to observe the
laws and to conduct themselves as good
and honest citizens. When they fall,
they fall alone, without any reflection
Whatever on their fellows or their peculiar
class. 1t is right that they should suffer
alone for their faults; and whilst we
would exact and expect higher tone of
morality and more circumspect eleva-
ton of conduct from the teachers of re-
igion, yet we do not see that
when black sheep falls from
grace his misconduct should affect
those Of his profession who have held
their high estate pure and unsullied, un-
less, indeed, the decentralization amongst
cIergymen should become so general as
to justify the charge that they as class
were derelicts. As We said, however, in
the opening Of this article, the cases OF
serious offense amongst the cIergymen of
the United States are so few compared
With the great number of members Of the
order who lead worthy lives and stand |
1ut as bright and shining examples, that
IN occasional scandal does not, in the |
eaat, reflect upon the great body Of the |
clerical profession.
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