WHAT I WOULD RADIATE TO THE WRONG DOER

For two years I was the chaplain for two homes where women who had led evil lives were sheltered and cared for. During part of this time I helped organize and conduct a midnight mission in one of the most degraded parts of a large eastern city. I have had a large and varied acquaintance with criminals of both sexes, of all ages and conditions, and have been the recipient of many strange and startling confidences of men and women whose integrity has never been questioned, and yet who, if their inner life were known, would have been execrated and ostracized.

As a result of these varied experiences and the knowledge that has come to me I am compelled to assert that I believe our present system of treatment of wrong-doers is not only unchristian but unwise and foolish, and that it fosters and cherishes some of the very wrongs we seek to prevent.

The attitude we take—that every evil doer loves his evil doing, sins because he wants to sin, is a criminal for his own pleasure—is absurd and foolish. And what wicked cruelties such an attitude leads us to commit. Socrates saw clearer than that centuries ago when he said: "It is strange that you should not be angry when you meet a man with an ill-conditioned body, and yet be vexed when you encounter one with an ill-conditioned soul!"

Most of us have a lot of maxims or rules that we apply to those wrong-doers who come under our ken, forgetful of the fact that the strange thing about human nature is that it doesn't fit your, or my, or any one's ideas or notions. It cannot be bounded, as you bound a sea or an island. It cannot be plotted or catalogued as you plot a lawn or catalogue a library. The only way you can read men and women is with sympathy and love—sympathy for their failures to measure up to your conceptions of manhood and womanhood; love for the undoubted good that you perceive.

All moral judgments must remain false and hollow that are not checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot.

Christ did not in the least abrogate the Seventh Commandment when he said to the woman taken in the act of adultery: "I do not condemn thee. Go and sin no more." In my opinion He wished to teach the lesson that the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of her accusers were also crimes.

All men that are drunkards are not equally culpable, deserving of hell-fire and to be swept there by quoting the Hebrew scriptures: "No drunkard shall inherit eternal life." The special circumstances must be considered, and God only is competent to do this. Whenever I hear these ready quotations, whenever I am tempted to use them in my dealings with my erring fellow-men and women I recall what George Eliot wrote in The Mill on the Floss.

The true brotherhood of man is that which takes upon itself all the weaknesses, all the burdens, all the woes, all the sins of the world of men and women. This is what Christ did! Ah, that we might perceive and realize it! This is what makes Walt Whitman so great a poet,—that he tries to teach us this lesson. This is what gave to Ernest Crosby his power, gave to Golden Rule Jones his influence. They felt the brotherhood, truly, really, deeply, even though imperfectly. Christ felt it perfectly. Can we not try to feel it? Whenever we behold sin in others it behooves us to remember that Paul said, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and that whenever we condemn sin in another we condemn some sin in ourselves. We are all sinners in some way or another. There are those who feel the oneness of human relationship so keenly that they have declared that when another did a wrong they felt it as if it were their own personal act. While I have not yet come to so close a recognition of my brotherhood to all men and women as that, I can deeply sympathize with the feeling. We all know how a brother feels if one of his own family—sister or brother—"goes wrong." He is grieved and disgraced. A burden is placed upon him. When we fully recognize the brotherhood we owe to all men and women I doubt not we shall then feel this personal sorrow and disgrace, which will lead us to seek our brother's speedy reclamation, with helpful sympathy and loving encouragement.

Only those touched with the essential spirit of the love that belongs to the Divine, or those who have sinned much, can know the great secret of human tenderness and long suffering towards the wrong doer that alone, at times, can help him. Oh for more of this human tenderness and sympathy, this long suffering and patience, this active principle of Divine Love that burns through all crusts and coatings of evil into the most secret corners of the heart where the good is enshrined, though forgotten.

I have just been talking with a prominent editor about a man in his office, competent, thorough, reliable, manly, a systematic worker and able to get the best results out of those in his department, yet who, once in a while, goes off on a terrible debauch. He will drink up all the money at hand, then draw out whatever he has saved in the bank (sometimes nearly a thousand dollars), engage an automobile, surround himself with dissolute companions, squander his money on them, then borrow from his friends, who, knowing that when sober he will pay back every cent, cruelly lend it to him, and thus "go the pace" until either money gives out, or physical endurance can no longer stand the strain. Then his true friends come and pick him up out of the gutter, or care for him in a hospital until he recovers.

As soon as he is sane and sober again he is overwhelmed with remorse and sorrow. He knows that he is ruining himself in every way and from every possible standpoint, yet there is that in him that seems to render him incapable of resisting these temptations to periodical sprees. He listens with true penitence to the cautions of his employers, his fellow workers, and to the heart-broken pleadings of his aged mother who fairly idolizes him—still he drinks.

What shall I radiate to such a man—to all such men? Can I ignore the degradation of their debauchery? Certainly not! Can I ignore the fact that, as a rule, when the downward path is once begun, the sober intervals grow shorter after each debauch, and that by radiating friendliness to such a man I am tying myself to one who will ultimately disgrace himself and me? Shall I cease to be his friend, in order to protect myself?

God forbid! To radiate friendliness is not enough. Seek to possess more than this, that you may radiate more. Greater than friendship is love. Love your friend as yourself. He is having a desperate struggle. Give him your love, your thoughtful, considerate, protective love. If necessary treat him as you would an insane person, for the highest medical experts now concede that "while alcoholic excess is a prolific source of disease and mental instability, disease and mental instability are even more provocative of the alcoholic habit." The greatest possible kindness to such an one would be to lovingly, tenderly, sympathetically lock him up. The insane man must be kept from doing himself and others an injury. Society must protect itself from the evil doer, regardless of his moral responsibility, but the "how" of that protection is one of the most important things in the development of the human race. As we now protect ourselves we show the barbarity of the aborigine, the cruel vindictiveness of the savage.

I am fully satisfied that the time will come when we shall so radiate Christian love one to another, and especially to our weaker brothers and sisters—whether their weaknesses manifest themselves in alcoholic excess, sexual sins, gambling, theft, drug-manias, or any other form of wrong-doing—that we shall prepare for them places where they may be properly cared for, and especially whenever they fear they are in danger of succumbing to their weaknesses. This method would not apply to those who are so enthralled by sin that they think they find great pleasure in the gross gratification of the senses, for such are doomed to suffer until they are forced to see their errors and turn from them with loathing, but there are others who are unwilling victims to appetite and evil habits. The burdens which weak humanity carries are many and complex, and sometimes even mysterious. It is known to the medical world that many wrong deeds and even serious crimes are committed by men and women under temporary abnormal mental conditions. In Scriptural times doubtless it would have been said that they were possessed with demons, but the modern expert calls such conditions manias of various kinds. Whatever the subtle cause of this species of insanity, it is generally admitted that the attacks are of a periodical nature, and that during the intervals the victims conduct themselves in accordance with ordinary standards. Condemnation and ostracism cannot remedy such evils, but true Christianity should prompt a method of treatment that will encourage and sustain rather than induce despair. Even ordinary so-called "sinners" are not reclaimed by avoiding them utterly. Those who go down into the slums and plague-spots of our cities would never rescue any of the "perishing" if they went grudgingly, and holding themselves daintily aloof in self-righteous superiority. No, they brave the pestilential radiation in perfect safety and carry hope to the fallen because they possess the mind of Christ, which is purity and love. This does not alter the fact that the pure and good naturally shrink from depravity and degradation, nor that it is expedient to protect the ignorant and innocent from association with those who radiate impurity, oftentimes, but since it is well known that society contains many men and some women whose private lives would not stand publicity, the only safeguard is to be fortified within with that purity and goodness which involuntarily resists evil and imparts good.