Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1910-08-16

In a recent article DIR. Andrew d.
White draws attention to the Increase OF
crime in our country, especially crimes
Of violence. He declares that homicides
have increased during the last fifteen
years from 1000 year to nearly 10000,
giving us the bad eminence of leading all
civilized nations in the number of bloody
deeds done among us.
In discussing the cause of this lament
able condition he says, THE immediate
cause of the whole of this state of
things, with constantly increased disre-
spect of law. is, in my opinion kind of
sickly sentiment pervading the whole
country on this subject, which while 1T
claims to be humanity, is really the great
est cruelty, in that ii is mainly respon-
sible for all these murders. 1t is on ac-
count of this mawkish sentiment that
thousands of widows and orphans are in
Bereavement and poverty today"
DR.. White is quite right about the cause
of all these crimes of violence and the
general moral conditions from which they
spring. A mawkish sentimentality has
weakened moral convictions and lowered
respect for law. But what is the source
of all this mawkish sentimentality which
Is so widely prevalent? In locating the
cause Of pestilence 1t is not enough to
say that the disease spreads from certain
germs we must seek also the breeding
ground of the death-dealing germs. What
then causes this ''sicKly sentiment" which
DIR. White so justly deprecates?
In answering this question venture to
affirm that certain sort of popular re-
ligious teaching, with which both press
and pulpit have been filed for some time
past. has been, and is, a very fruitful
rf4n-z
land has abounded in preachers who have
never tired of disappearing both God s
love and Gods law. They have assumed
that the worst thing in the universe is
not sin, but suffering, and they haye laid
out all their strength and ingenuity to
remove all thought of pain and penalty
from the divine government. Sin they
have traced to the misfortune of ances-
try and environment, al they have made
Of It thing to be p:tfe,- E>Sther> con-
demned. Salvation they have taught was
a matter of moral culture, rather than Of
repentance and faith in Christ, and for
the absence of such culture they have
blamed the community in bulk rather
than any particular person who showed
a want Of it. Gods law they have con-
strued so as to allow as much indulgence
OF human desire as possible, and any sug-
gestion to the contrary they have de-
nounced as "Puritanic narrowness." In
their schemes OF moral culture they have
demanded the largest possible room for
amusement and pleasure, and the least
possible space for self-denial and duty.
They have minifed the future life and
magnified the present world talking much
on behalf of worldliness and much
against what they have learned from
George Elliot to call "otherworldllness.
They have insisted that family govern
ment should be matter of parental cod
ding of riotous offspring in order that
childhood might be happy" In both
the family and the school they have de-
clared corporal punishment should be
abolished. Very naturally they have de-
nounced capital punishment by the state.
and they have been ready to pour out
sympathy upon criminals and censure
upon those who deemed crime worthy Of
punishment. Having thus opposed pen
atty in all earthly and human govern
ments they have proceeded to deny II
any place in the divine government, re-
pudiating the doctrine of future punish
ment, scouting the idea of their being any
devil or hell in the universe. OF course
their sentimental system had to have at
its top a God to match it, and so these
sentimentalists have proceeded to substi-
tute for the God of the Scriptures. Ghe
God of holiness and Justice,) deity Of
their own ginning, good-natured,
easy-going God in whose spirit there was
no Indignation against sin, but only
maudlin love of sinners. In fact they
have made God in their own image ana