The new penology, in the words of one of its chief advocates, Samuel J. Barrows, corresponding secretary of the Prison Association, of New York, declares:
GREEK PROTESTANT CHURCH OF ATHENS.
“It is useless to stay the flood of crime by dikes at the mouth of the stream; it must be filtered at its source. Intelligent penology, like intelligent forestry, does not consist merely in cutting down crooked trees; it means work in the nursery, the protection of the growing plants.”
And this is true. The International Prison Congress meets in Washington in 1910; $50,000 appropriation is asked of Congress, a sum which would much better be expended for this purpose than in the building of battle-ships.
But the remedy for crime must go deeper than any legislation or mere humanitarian efforts can go. The roots of crime are in the carnal man, whose mind is naturally at enmity to the law of God. Rom. 8:7. The Gospel is God’s remedy to bring sinful man into harmony with His law. And so the old Gospel was preached in days past when crime was diminishing in America. The very increase of crime now is the fruitage of preaching a Gospel which is not the Gospel. Man does not, can not, and hence will not ever find power in himself to rise above the evil of his carnal heart, save as he brings Christ the Lord in by faith. If that be done, that man will be an overcomer of sin. In other words, he will be a doer of righteousness. The stalwart preaching of God’s Gospel with the demands of God’s law, and the living of that law in Christ will do more to restrain crime than all the schemes invented by man.
