The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1901-12-07
MRS. CUMMINGS CRITICIZED
FOR HER RECENT PAPER
To the Editor of The Spy:

To the Editor of The Spy:
| have followed che unfortunate cpl
sode which has been thrust upon the
public by Mrs. Cunning, with great
regret. All the more so perhaps, be-
cause of a general sympathy in her
religious belief
l think the matter as heretofore
treated in your correspondence has
left an undertone of irritation that is
likely to be injuriously felt for long
time
The question has so far been dis
Cussed in a superficial partisan way,
that has only irrtated and antagon
lied those interested in it.
Doubtless somebody has made a mis-
take l think it may be pointed out
in a way that should relieve the ten
sion that now exists. The Unitarian
faith and religion has, perhaps, more
than any other, exalted the personal
relation of Jesus to men, rather than
his divine relation.
In reading the sermon on the mount,
which Mrs. Cunning has brought so
personally to our attention in her let
ter of the 26 ult., we cannot fail to
be impressed with the intensely per-
sOnal character of the words of Jesus,
and the relation they seem designed to
express.
This is what Mrs. Cunning seems to
have failed to discover in her study
of the sermon on the mount. She has
taken the personal words of Jesus and
applied them Unfortunately to the
politics of government.
The safety of organized society, or
the fact even, of organized society,
formed no part of the mental concep-
ton that formulated those early rules
for personal conduct. Jesus did not
intend to say: IF man smite an Of
L
him another that he may smite rim
also" I cannot believe that Mrs.
Cunning would go so far in her appi-
cation of Christ's teachings. Such an
Interpretation and application of the
Sermon on the Mount would open
every prison door in the land and free
every evil-dOer who is now compensat-
ing the public for lack of conscience
and intelligence, by an unwilling re-
straint
Mrs. Cummings mistake was that
she got out of her sphere in attempt
ing to apply the teachings of the Ser
mon on the Mount to social govern
ment. 1t is the usual mistake of the
woman in politics. Government can
only be reached through the person
ality of its component parts.
IT, as she says, she used the word
martyr in its strictly dictionary sense
in her study of the causes that pro-
duced the man, then she had no cause
to raise the issue, and her remarks
lacked justification, inasmuch as every
one present knew the definition Of the
word. or had dictionaries in which they
could find It, and as a discussion it
did not interest the general public.
But presuming the discussion was le-
climate, she overlooked a very i'm
portant factor The fact that a man
was a martyr is a eulogy Of the cause
in which he died. For this reason it
was a singular lack of righteousness
that she should exalt that character
in man whom the nation had con-
demned to ignominious death for the
greatest crime that can be perpetrat-
ed against organized society.
THE divine pity of William McKin-
ley's forgiveness of his assassin, his
God-like words of care for the man
who made him a victim of the ConCen-
tTated evil of anarchists and traitors"
was and is. the expression of pure
" personal relation, having no assO-
citation or connection whatever to the
crime against the state as representa-
tive of law and order.
Loyalty to conscience. which seems
to have been the Inspiration of Mrs.
Cumings's Objectionable statement.
sinks into insignificance beside that
loyalty to law and order which alone
makes loyalty to conscience possible.
The man or the woman who can
recognize nothing higher or better in
the nations abhOrrence and hatred
of the deadliest enemy to its existence,
than ''vituperation and exciting the
evil passion Of retaliation" fails ut
terly to comprehend the relation of
government to the social state
While in the main I have no fault to
ind with the Christian ethics of Mrs
Cummings original statement, or of
their defense, il confined to their prop
er sphere, I think a single paragraph
in her letter of the 26th ult. indicates
( that she is not less human than some
of the rest of US Her statement that
she does not wish to hold any con-
troversy with a man of the stamp of
the Rev. James Boyd Brady" is GER
tainly not felicitous
AS Mrs. Gaming does not tell Of
what stamp the reverend gentleman
may be, we are left to Judge from his
published statements. As far as 1 can