The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-02-19
Rev, Quincy Ewing Begins Se-
 rieS of DiSCourseS
SINS AGAINST INDIVIDUALS
Many Practical Truths Set Forth by the Preacher-Natura Assump- tons Are Not Always Logical.
 Some Homely illustrations.

Church of the Advent, yesterday delivered the first of a series of sermons on ''The Sins of Society Against Individuals" He chose for his text these two verses: Rob not the poor, because he is poor; neither oppress the afflicted in the gate" Prov, xiii %. "The destruction of the poor is their poverty" Prov. X: b.
 Mir. Ewing said:
 We hear so much constantly, and have sources, about the sins of individuals against society, that we are likely to overlook sins of quite another character the sins of society against individuals. It is not. perhaps, too much to say that most of us in thinking about the sins, the crimes and wrongs, of the world, proceed or the assumption that society generally as we know it represents just what ought to be; or at any rate, as much of wisdom and righteousness as can be, in our time and place; and that therefore. the only wrong-dong anywhere that needs preach ing and protesting against is the wrong doing of individuals who antagonize the SoNAdt oldiudlu DI IlBni+ 1ndI we assume to be so high and society so unfailing In loyalty to 1t, that nothing we think, prevents the millennial dawn of justice probity. peace and good will from breaking over our part of the earth, ex- cept the bad individuals here and there who decline to fill their obligations to so- ciety, as 1t fulflls its obligations to them.
 The assumption is natural enough. con sidering how many reminders we have that society needs protection against indi- vidual evil-doers Every policeman who stands on his beat every patrol wagon that rolls over the pavement, every crim- inal court, every jail, or lock-up, that confronts us, is such reminder, along with every headline in the newspaper that demands attention 10 some startling crime.
 "On the other hand, there Is very little. comparatively, to remind us that individ- uals need protection against society-no policemen, no patrol wagons, no criminal Judges no jails, and not great many newspaper headlines. When society suf- fers at the hand of an individual. if is a simple matter for society to make him suffer and conspicuous in his suffering; but when an individual suffers at the hand of society no matter how deeply. no mat ter how undeservedly, it is anything but A simple matter for him to make society suffer and conspicuous in it's sufferinp there is no policeman to arrest society. m patrol wagon to hustle it off in, no judge 10 condemn, no prison to confine it.
 So l say it is easy enough to account Tor the assumption, that all the evil-doine which concerns us is that of individuals against society-none of 1t that of society against individuals.
 False Assumption.
 But the assumption is false. nevertbe. less; and 1t is the falsity of 1t that want to insist on, this morning.
 Now, of course, when we speak of the sins of society against individuals oh. lection is likely to be made at once that there can be no such sins, nasmuch as society has no meaning apart from indi. viduals who make 1t what 1t is.. Ii is true enough as a general proposition, that so- ciety is what individuals make it; and likewise it is true enough as general proposition, that family is what its members make 1t; but, as a family may wrong, may deal unJustly with one of it's members, so may society wrong. so may society deal unjustly with some of the individuals who constitute 1t. The axio- matic general proposition that society is what individuals make it, need not be douted in order to maintain that the work. ing of the social machinery may at any moment grind to powder the individual who inadvertently gets in it's way. Let on the whole even so democratic: never theless, as they are administered from time to time in particular cases, they may be and ofter are most emphatically un- democratic The power of society as 1t is manifested practically is not a power equally distributed among individual units among men, regardless of who they are and what they have; it is a power very unequally distributed. The very rich have far more tBan their proper share of 1t. the very poor far less than theirs The major portion of it, we may say, is still possessed by those neither very rich nor very poor-the people marked by neither excessive strength nor excessive weakness. They are the people whose opinion we are really thinking of when we speak of public opinion; the people who enact or defeat proposed laws, whom every politician must win, If he expects office; whom all public officers obey from the highest to the lowest, except in those cases where corrupt officials are willing to risk the loss of public reward for the sake of some other that seems to them greater. There is here. in other words, in Alabama and Birmingham as elsewhere dominant middle class, how ever uncertain may be the lines which define it. and by the wisdom and will of this dominant middle class the things that be are for the most part ordained; upon the attitude toward justice. and righteousness and mercy of this domi- nant middle class depends whether or not the individual member of society shall be dealt with justly, rlghteously, merciful- ly by society.
 Our Laws.
 But. whatever we mean when we speak of society whatever we mean when we speak of the individual, this is a fact cer- tain enough fact of infinite illustra- tions. that society's attitude toward jus tlce. righteousness, mercy, is not the same in it's dealings with all individuals; and, because it is not the same, there must be failure on societys part to do