The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1910-02-13

men good by writings in a statute
book. And the Marian would there
fore expect to find the church sorrowed
and staggered by this ever trampins
host of men fling by In tragic process
sion TO punishment for their sins, DOT
bling and redoubling It's energies In
its own conseerated field. pouring Its
whole soul into cleansing this fouh-
tain OF immortality at It's head, striving
ever and ever harder to keep men out
of the clutches of Law and Punishment
by filing their hearts with the indi-
vidual yeariing to be good. But the
visitor would not always find that this
was so; and he would to his lasting
surprise, discover the church giving
part of Its energies and its means and
its enormous power over mems minds,
not to the eternal task OF making mon
moral, but to the far more insignificant
task OF making laws to punish men
when they were immoral.
Have we not here lost sight OF the
compass which was TO steer us true,
and so wandered from the course
which We know to be set for us? To
pause and look at this humming in
dustry of penal law-nlaking and the
tremendous agencies of punishment
that go hand in hand with 1t, may
well make us think so. We must be
struck With the pity of seeing all this
mighty energy going to the negative
and non-profitable side OF mans
morality account. 1t is not only that
the same vast energies could accom-
piish SO much genuine good II re-
leased to work on the other side, bu
that in themselves they are accom-
piishing, and can accomplish, nothing
positive, and hence represent only sc
much moral waste.
Morality. so the Christian church be-
lieves, is q positive and Individual
force, designed to raise men to fitness
for higher life. and in thfs sense
the law is utterly powerlcss to aid.
To avoid breaking the law is not
moralitr, as the church views NOR
atty. To keep out Of the penitenttary
is not morality. But as man think
eth, so is he. Morality must come
from within, never without: and the
7, man who desires to sin, but withholds
/ from fear of the law. is not moral
nan. And though you wrote laws
upon the books till the end of the
world, and though man kept every
one OF them to the letter, you have
not made q moral man of him. So all
this tremendous agency of Law ano
Punishment hardly touches the one
great problem always confronting tbs
moral leaders Of our race, which i:
simply how to make men better, no
: In the letter, but in the spirit.
Law and Punishment can, and do
help to give the name and form o
morality, and II moral leaders ar
satisfied with that, they may cry thei
airs we'll But II they insist on tn
! thing itself, as the church must dc
and set little store by the name an
form, as Christ set little store, the
: must go to the only place where thi
d thing can be found and watered, whic
oi IS the human soul.
or we confidently look forward to
he day when all these things shall
ey more clearly recognized than perhal
no they are now; when We shall lose OF
ha present childliSe faith in laws
ny moral agents: when we shall clean OF
no our social rottennesses at the foul
ID instead of vanly laboring to boil the
in the stream: when we shall see cor
VI stantly more and more clearly tn;
e" the one purpose of our being here
u all is the moral evolution of the RAJ
Or through the individual man. and tn
u whatever has nothing to do with tn
L doesn't matter; and when by health
re bodies and sounder physical life,
10 tho elimination of disease (who
Is subtle kinship with immortality Is q
&c ready becoming clear, by moro TIE
X marriage laws and the eStifpation
u, the unfit, by expanding enlightenme
$. in the home, and far the best of a
n by the cultivation of the indiVldt
II conscience and developing sense
r moral responsibility in every man
IS us as integral parts of a superb a
he everlasting design. Until the bright
10 visions of that day shine steadily
ef fore US. the race cannot BIO SAID
e. be pushing fast forward upon its bra
IL adventure, but is rather only mark
- time.
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