The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-03-05
MORAL vs.. LEGAL SUASION.

innpXDectGQ
moral suasion in the furtherahce OF
moral reforms. The character analyzeo
lis that of Madame de Maintenon, the
lpious visionary who succeeded as wlIe
of Louis XIV, the woman who had
filled that place in the househoio OF
the corrupt monarch's earlier years.
Madame de Maintenon was religious
enthusiast who insisted that the jaded
roues of the court should be deVout
and having so played upon the super
stitions of the King that he became
fanatically eager to save what the
Bazaar writer calls his miserable little
SOUL" and compelled the mobiles about
him to turn from the dice and dance
to follow him to his knees. With all
the blind confidence of the woman with
a mission, the Queen forced her ascetic
religion upon the aristocracy OF
France. The result is told in these
words: $50 all the court, swearing in
whispers, betook itself to it's knees;
| each man sighed, prayed, aspired-be-
came the most detestable thing on
earth or in hell a hypocrite. 1gnor-
ance, and what was worse, Indifference
and blasphemy, cloaked by every sign
of devoutness, became the rule at court
mon, as she continued to be called, even
after her marriage to the King. Her
subtle insistence upon the terrors of
death pushed the frightened Louis into
! all sorts of good works; he aided her
! in the establishment of that wonderful
boarding school for girls at St. Cyr; he
even accompanied her when she visited
her proteges and exhorted the demoi-
selles on the subject of piety. He went
to innumerable religious services; he
prayed and tasted and gave himself up
to a hundred superstitions. There was
Iecstacy, and no ethics; there was emo
4 ton and no conduct. Louis XIV was
3passionately serving God for his own
profit, while his people were In condi-
ton which La Bruyere, with cruel
irony, describes thus: "One sees GER
tain savage animals, male and female
scattered over the country, of q liVid
hue, scorched and blackened by the
sun, bound down to the soil which they
constantly ranSack and turn over with
invincible obstinacy. These creatures
have a sort of articulate voice, and
when they raise themselves on their
feet they show a human face, and, in
fact, they are men, AT night they hide
themselves in their huts, where they
live on black bread, water and roots. :"
Now comes the moral, as it is strong
ly drawn by the analyst-a moral
which is as good for Hawaii as it Is
for any other part of the earth:
| When Madame de Maintenon insisted
upon making people good by force of
the laws of etiquette, which insisted upon
imitation, she simply created hypocrites;
when we To-Day insist upon making men
temperate pure by force of civil law.
and not by force OF their own educated
conSciences, we create not only hypo-
critics, but criminals. Yet we are contin-
ually trying to create the clean heart
and renew the right spirit by act of
Congress; We legiSlate for spirituality,
forgetting that the Kingdom of God
must be within us!
Looking over the wide field of moral
endeavor we can see no instance where
there has been a successful application
of laws against ingrained human vice
we do not speak of acquired crime
that has not been preceded by long
and willing absorption of religious and
moral ideas. The towns which accept
without remonstrance a sumptuary
code, what are they? Are they not
places inhabited by people brought up
est, Christian parents but by an hon
est, Christian community? Are they
not the places, the founders of which
planted their homestakes amid prayer
an6 praise; and where the dominating
note Is still the religious one? That
village In Maine where not a drop of
liquor is sold is a place where. through
long processes of moral suasion, the
ba n hpl
is a curse and where neither the crav-
ing of appetite nor of curiosity calls for
the indulgence of rum. In brief we
have a community where moral suasion
has prepared the way for legal suasion
the only community where legal sua
sion, as respects sumptuary law, is
of the slightest efficacy, and where it
practically enforces itself.
Why is 1t that in the larger cities of
Maine prohibition is such a failure? Is
it not because the cities are filed, or
chiefly filled, with a population which
has very different moral and religious
antecedents-very much less experience
with moral suaSion-than have the
smaller places? The active worldly
class hocks to cities from everywhere
and this includes an infusion of for
eigners who have been brought up to
believe that drinking alcohol is repu-
table social custom. Hence the Pro-
hibition law carries no terrors to those
who want to drink, or to let others
drink If they want to, and that class is
in majority.
The inference is that the true way to
Danish the devil of the still from any
place Is to make the population hate
and fear 1t; to teach the people to
avoid 1t; to create aspirations for what
Is good 80 that desires for what Is evil
may be repressed by the process of the
conscience. That Is Francis Murphy's
way; 1t Is the way Of the Christian re-
hgion itself. Were our churches estab-
i1shed by law or by an educated con-
science? Is the redeeming march Of
Christianity progressing because
swords have been drawn in It's behalf
or because the Gospel has been taught
wisely to the people? No one is COM
pelled by law to go to church; no one
is punished by law for staying at home
when the church bell rings-yet every
pulpit proclaims victory and foresees