THE CLUTHA PRESBYTERY AND THE OUTLOOK.
THE ORIGEST OF THE TROUBLE,
The following is the full text of the article '* Religion "and Crime," by "J. B." (Rev. John Brierly, 8.A.), which appeared in the London Christian World, and w£3 reproduced in the Outlook of July 21, and formed the subject of discussion at la c t Friday's meeting of the Clutha Presbytery: The other day. passing up Ludgate Hill, the present writer saw a thief taken in the act. There was a sudden rush ; half a dozen hands " held the struggling wretch until a policeman, appearing at the nick of time, took over the capture. " Got it in his hand, has he?" said the grinning officer as, seizing the culprit by the collar, he marched away with him, followed by the crowd. '''He's got pinched," eaid an urchin to a group of companion*., who entered heartily into the je=t. Everybody seemed interested. The incident was a relief to the monotony of the day. Meanwhile the indnidual who formed the centre of it was cleariy not enjoying himself. He was a type of the London vaunen — of its lowest class, undersized, with bent shoulders, squalid ; hunger and despair looking out of his eyes. The most astonishing part of the affair, to one onlooker nt least, was the perfect ease with which it seemed to fall into a prearranged system of things. Everything and everybody appeared to be. ready for tha-t thief. The British Constitution, the law court, the magistrate, the policeman, the prison were all waiting for him. They were there in anticipation of his procedures ; he performed his share in a business, every detail of which had been previously thought out. The catching and immurement of thieves, is not that a feature of civilisation? Society knows exactly the part it has to play. "Three months' hard,' endured by the prisoner and paid for by the nation, will perfectly settle the account. But is the account settled? Have we done with our criminal when we have caught and gaoled him? It may after all appear that this is the beginning rather lhan the end of the matter. We have, let u-i remember, a criminal class in London alone equal to the population of a large town. Has society done its part towards these teeming thousands when it has erected its place of justice, increased the cell accommodation of Portland, and made new appointments to the magistracy*? Or is it not time to reconsider this whole business of crime and the criminal, and to realise that, wrapped up in this one question, is the whole problem of life, of religion, and of the social pact? Thought on there matters is moving swiftly in our day. Wo have got a long way, for instance, from the Carlyle attitude. His recipe, in the "'Latter Day Pamphlets,"* of "a hearty hatred for scoundrels " ; his sneer at the notion of "drilling twelve hundred scoundrels by methods of kindness"; his gibe at the philanthropic treatment as that of a crew which, " having lost its way round Cape Horn, instead of taking to their sextants and asking about the laws of wind and water, and of earth and heaven, a^e serving out to the worthy and unworthy alike a double allowance of grog"; all this has become clean out of date. It is precisely because society has been asking about " the laws of heaven and earth" that "the hating of scoundrels " and the mere hanging of them, as the final word, have become impossible. The Carlylean method pay<? no attention to facts of human nature and of society which we have now become fully aware of. It takes the criminal there as he is, but asks no question as to how he came to be what he is, or as to what othr-r than this he may become. It regards society always as the judge, and never inquires as to whether, in the balance between these two, society itself may not sometimes be the greater criminal. It is dawning upon us that in this department of life a huge mistake has been made, a mistake centuries old. rloselv allied with other great mistakes, that it is now more than time we set to work to l ectify. In exploring tins region we find ourselves broneht inevitably into contact with religion. Religion has all along been a govern ing factor in the treatment of criminals, and will r-on-tinue to be. But its record is a btranpelv mixed one. It is to religion we mv.st look for the purifying forces which will cleanse this dark corner of lif°. At the same time, it has to be said that to false views of religion an enormou3 amount of the mischief done in it ia plairlv clue. The most fatal thing in theology has been its notion, clilinciitlv taught for centuries, tliat punishment was an end in itself: that (iod's way with wro:it?-door<; wa.-> to rorlure them for ever. Mediaeval doeh-nv and its survivals have here certainly not been romphmerit-arv to Deity The ch'irohes who held it worshipivd Ciod, but ps^uredlv th.'v did not trust Him. Instead, they warned men ay-ainst Him; they warned them of what He mielit do to them, of what horrors He was capable' of inflicting on them. And | it was of an equal barbaiity they convicted ! Him in their sueprpif"^ n - ,etho<ls of plaiation. Tl-ey could get round Him. it was s'lzgested, by Wo^t itut'oiK a - d aac-rific--. Kven the ancient* knew better than thi«. Plato, in the "I^w.-." <-ay.- th< re wvre thr"»o supposition^ nVom 'he sods on wh'rh. evil-doers rented rh«-ir hor-«' — that the\ <],<] net exi^t. or thut they did not caie for man. or that they mierlit he ea^ilv a^r^'* -"<) by sacrifice* And Ovid, in the " Fa^ti. " has a c-uttinp- remark on cremon-al salvat iV.n : Ah, nmiium f.>o!e c gui tn^M crimina cadis Flnmiren tolli ix)«--e vutet's pqin ! ("Too ea-y-goni!/ ai<> veil n'i" 'iiw?me that flowing w..'*i can carry i".ay the sad cranes of b'cod "') How iii'ich 'io'-W -i d l. "<t the r a< t tH.ui all tin- i'iM--ti\ iilj^'m-r. t^o \ •<■«• whic'i Phuarcli >ti;i uttnirs. th.M punishment doe> not -> murii fo'lo'\ u r on w rontr-dom i a^ tJ.ut it i> c<iiiK ntn t or: l'.'fiu* with nnd ip'u r.'ht in i! ' The f<»'->e Mew of {', u\ and Hi* ways fostered liv tii > Tat n Cliurcb (f< r it w<-~ i><" pr h«''i) b\ the ft reek fatlur*! reacted wnl» frttal e-ffi ci urion tho avthoi ni< s both of fiiMM) .mil U (iod ) ui.rhptl for ■/ii-whn-nf, =-J.-» ~i -pi" 1 t !,••>'•. 'Vb- b«ll Ml!, h r^u-e,) it. tl.< i.. v •■<-, ;,1 p.,!-t Vl^e I '■- cuiiitt'riM'i m i"-. 'Me ij>-,-^,* wat 'it re n">r<=> rrni- 1 iiini tin- '.nir.m. and tiie ! -. inn 'I of tiii-j fee'uicr l- to bp rotrd im 1 lif>i history On* nf <b<> darken bIH- (ii j the Church. <!o» n nlrrost to our c-xvr rlav has been iu> full acquiescence in the worst
features of our criminal law. and its resistance to any amelioration. The strongest j defenders of the savagery of the English code, of its death sentences for sheepstealing and similar offences, were the Anglican bishops. And the outside churches were not much better. In the " Heart of Midlothian " Scott tells us how, in Edinburgh, " criminals under sentence of death were brought to the Tolbooth Church to hear and join in public worship on the Sabbath before execution." The clergyman, on the occasion he describes (a-nd he is here reciting history), "' preached an affecting discourse."' Doubtless. They were good at that. And, so far as one could see. they would have gone on preaching "affecting discourses" to condemned sheep-stealers and smugglers for ever, with^ out over asking about the ethics of the\ condemnation. But a mighty chauge has come over tfce'' publio mind. Wa think differently to^ayabout both man and God, and th^-new.* ' thought is filtering rapidly down into our whole theory and practice of law and of punishment. On this theme science has. by tho sheer accumulation of facts, cleared away a whole cloud of ecclesiastical misconception*. It has shown us that human nature, in its worst criminal forms, is simply pood stuff badly handled. Man is the greatest force we know, and he requires careful management. People who deal with dynamite the wrong way will get a bad opinion of it — those who are left of them. And your human is mightier than dynamite. Now, the human force means well where- it gets a chance. When Lord PaJmerston startled the orthodoxy of his day by declaring in the House of Commons that "all men are born good," he was only repeating what Plato and Clement of Alexandria had said centuries before him. Innumerable experiments have shown that, taken at its worst, where knowledge and sympathy have been brought to bear upon it, the material is good. Our human wreckage, like other waste products, can be made profitable when scientifically treated. In the " Creevey Papers" it is recorded how Lord and Lady Duncannon, in the early part of the nineteenth century, by three years' work on their estate and town of Peltown, in Ireland, brought the population to a condition unsurpassed in order, comfort, and civilisation. "And yet it was only four miles from Carrick, one of the most lawless towns in Tipperary." That is the only one of a thousand similar testimonies that might be cited. Dr Barnardo showed how the riffraff of the London gutters, taken out of its evil surroundings and translated to a proper environment, could be turned into good citizens. No fact, in short, is better established than that of the human recoverability. Jesus taught this, though His Church forgot it. It was this knowledge which sont Him ever to the outcast and the lostr. But this opens to us another consideration. Society hitherto has been busy indicting the criminal. It has called him all the bad names of its vocabulary. It has caught him, judged him, prisoned him ; and our Chelsea philosopher winds up by recommending a wholesale shooting and hanging of" him. We are now, however, beginning dimly to perceive another side to all this, and are asking uneasily whether society, of which we are a part, is not on tho whole the greater criminal ; and whether, if any shooting or hanging is to be done, it were not better to begin nearer home? Society, we perceive, has blundered villainously in two ways — first, in making the criminal ; and, second, in doing the worst with him when made. There needs to be a redistribution of blame, and also of correction. Where, to begin with, has the criminal come from? How did he com* to bo what he is? Would our Ludgate Hill wretch, lugged by the grinning policeman to the lock-up, choose this lot as compared, for instance, with that of the sleek, well-fed, well-pursed bystanders who looked on ? Who chose it for him? What of the sy&tem which has allowed a fellow-mortal to iink to this depth? But we arc the makers and supporters of the system. Do not the words of Maeterlinck here burn tho skin of every one of us? '" For it is enough that «c should feel tli© cold a little less than the labourer who passes by, that we should be bettor fed or clad than he, that we should buy any object that is not at rietl> lndiapen'-able , and we have unconsciously returned through a thousand byways to the ruthless act of primitive inau despoiling his weaker brother." Here epeak3 that social conscience outside the Church, which, in those matters, is nearer the Christianity of Chri.it than the modern Church it-elf. The earlier Church was bolder. In teaching that the goods of tlie world aro not properly parti honed, that po\erty and cfime are an indictment not c o much of the poor and the criminal as of the rich, the Socialist of to-day is only paying what t.'hrysostom an<l Basil and Jerome and T^rtiiilian Siid ages ago. Initial robberies on the \ attest scale, depriving the people of their land and litvrties, and forcing them to herd in the amorphous masses of tho cities, have been one cause of the creation of the criminal clasps. Another cau?>e ha^> lx'en our stupidity and neglect. We are a wonderful people, we English ' We aie spending ! millions of money on the education of clnl- J tlreii between the ages of five a^cl 13. To j Sfhe them during- those y<'ar-> the proper brand of tl'C6log\ we fit;lit like tiK(''"->. turn oji Governments, become Pa->=i\o Re.si->ter«, and w! at not. And when our iliild h.is reached 13 — when, that is to hay. he has entered upon ins mo<-t critical ai.d dm(jerous aue — wo forget all about him ' He is frre tl-en to po to tin* devil by whatsoever quickest way lie can find ' '1 lvii we make our ciunrals. When r>iaxL>, v.o immure tlK'in in K' lG ' s > clothe t'w iii in a liulcrus .set them up, as poor Dscar Wilc'e <-<nd. &•, " ih*.- 7anie- of sorrow, tlowis vvho j e hearts are broken We fix on them an indelible brand, an.l r.irefully out from them the means of return to an hone'-t hh r <-. What barbarism n nil is' And this in a day when no soi-ious .sociologist am lon per l>clie\es in f*»ar or pfiin ss agencies in the reformation of character. Near'v four centur : es ago Mere, in h'" '' Uioira," taught tl-at puniah- j men! i-houli] ha\e d^ 10 only end the uV-.tru< tion of vice- and the saving- of men. i It i- tune we had learned that lesson. j On, spare v t^<vi<- — and our theme scarcely j tuucl i<l. Hut let us =*uu up. in terms that may i ■<• ea«ilv remembered, what seem its main l'---o' -. Crime !»■ a di sf> a-,<\ and one that is ( •.<• rywhrre cm-able. Tho existence of a irmima! < lais is an ndictment, not of 'hat class spe-cialh. but of society at large, whose greed and neglect have pro-
duced it. Every time a man enters the dock society enters with him as particeps criminis. And, finally, the only way of curing our criminal is not by the infliction of pain, but by Christ's way of Divino sympathy, by standing in with him as a brother, by using our skill to fight • his inner ailment, by changing his environment, by bringing in our goodwill to assist his diseased will — in a word, by giving his better «elf a chance.
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Otago Witness, Issue 2736, 22 August 1906, Page 49
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2,421THE CLUTHA PRESBYTERY AND THE OUTLOOK. Otago Witness, Issue 2736, 22 August 1906, Page 49
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