A False Basis of Reform.
By Editor
—Mr. Lincoln Steffens, who has for years been writing upon the trusts and corruption in cities, has turned moralist; but evidently his experience with grafters has poorly fitted him to be a preacher. He recently appeared before the Boston Ministers’ Association telling them how they ought to treat the problems of civic unrighteousness. He speaks of a number of the men whose corruption has been exposed, and states that three or four became insane and some have died; some of them came out of clergymen’s families; that for thirty or forty years they had “committing felonies and not knowing that they were committing sins at all. They were as innocent as the most innocent man.” That certainly speaks very ill indeed of the moral faculties of the men or the worth of the teaching that they had received. How these immense criminals could go on year after year not knowing that they were not only committing crime but sin, passes all comprehension. He tells further: “In order to understand certain facts, I used to have to go and talk with the bribery leaders, and from the prejudice that most men have, I came gradually to see why they did certain things, why they could not help doing them. It was natural.” But if Mr. Steffens knew anything about morality, he would know that the purpose of the church is to turn men from that which is natural to that which is spiritual. Of course it is natural for the human heart, untouched by God or His teaching, to go on in sin and crime. It is not the business of the church to coddle them in thus doing or to excuse sin because men do not appreciate that it is sin. If the Gospel were rightly preached the men who sit under the preaching would come to realize that sin was sin, that the transgression of the law of God, whether done privately or in connection with some big corporation, is heinous and ends in death. Mr. Steffens is frank; perhaps he believes what he says, but we see no hope of reform in any of the suggestions which he makes.