A CURE FOR CRIME by M. E. Kellogg

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 7, 1897

A CURE FOR CRIME.

By M. E. Kellogg

THE idea is entertained by many well-meaning persons that civilization and education are a cure for crime. Acting in harmony with this thought, they bewail the illiteracy of the people in some of the states who have not shown as much enthusiasm for education as they have in others. They also have much to say in regard to the large population of ignorant foreigners now in this country, who are believed to be ready, because of their ignorance, to commit any crime.

Now, we would not put ourselves in the attitude of one who opposes education. All must conclude that education is preferable to illiteracy and ignorance; but to say that education is a sure panacea and preventive of crime, is saying much more than facts will warrant. Rev. Samuel G. Smith, lecturer on sociology in the Minnesota state university, lately delivered a lecture before the prison congress in Milwaukee, in which he is reported as saying “that the greatest number of crimes were committed by the most advanced and morally the most progressive nations. In support of his statement he cited the fact that the East Indian is not so much addicted to crime as the Englishman, the reason being that the East Indian was one of an old nation, satisfied to go along his old way. He did not take to drink, and seek the paths which led from law and order.”

Upon this another writer says:—

Without going into statistics, it will probably be found that the statement is correct. While ignorance, poverty, and squalor are certainly well calculated to add to the number of criminal classes, no one can say that they produced those noted crimes which appall the world by daring or atrocity. The most noted criminals in our day have all been men who have had advantages of a good education and of all those blessings which a progressive age gives to every class of society. The greatest crimes against civilization are committed by men whose talents and opportunities would have enabled them to take their place among the respected members of their community. The most noted forgers, the most expert burglars, the criminals like Holmes, who make their living by cold-blooded murder, are always men of more than average mental training.

These statements may be verified by the observation and experience of every thoughtful person. There are certain crimes which are common to the ignorant and the educated, but in these the educated and the wealthy are much more liable to screen themselves from punishment and from the law than are the ignorant and the poor, so their crimes are never known to man. Then there are crimes which appertain almost solely to the educated, because their education bestows upon them an increased ability for evil. Education prevents some phases of crime, and promotes others, or, at least, makes them possible. Education alone will not keep any one from a low and depraved life. Mr. Moody is authority for the statement that in six months thirty graduates of two large universities in Europe were found in the work of one rescue mission in New York City.

The educated man can commit, and often does commit, all the crimes that an ignorant man does. He also does others that an ignorant man is unable to do; but many of the educated man’s crimes are not regarded as crimes by the people, and hence are not noted. The poor wretch who steals a loaf to satisfy his hunger, is arrested and punished, while the educated and wealthy sharper, who is a factor in some illegal combine, and who swindles millions of people, conciliates the church by gifts to the missionary and church extension fund, blinds the general public by donations to charitable institutions and public works, escapes the law, and thus covers, at least from human eyes, the fact that he is a criminal. Only the other day we read of a British soldier in England who had served twenty months in the Crimean War, and who was covered with honorable scars, being sent to the workhouse, and deprived of his pension, because he stole a penny pie, which he claimed he forgot to pay for! Such minor crimes are punished with great severity, but meanwhile vile men, who are guilty of robbery on a large scale, are exalted to high places in the land.

Education simply draws out, trains, and enlarges the natural powers of man. As far as that education reveals to a man his own natural depravity, and his need of a divine Saviour to preserve him from evil, it will be a preventive of crime. If that element is entirely left out, education simply glosses over human depravity so that it has a better appearance. That this is not so more than it is, is because that in all our colleges some attention, at least, is given to morals and religion.

This fact gives us the true solution to the question as to the best and only way to prevent crime. The general state of evil is only cured by religion. This is not all. A religion which only consists of rules and regulations for living, however good and perfect these rules may be, will not provide a remedy. The wickedest man can write out as perfect a rule as any one can. Makers of just laws are often known to be notorious law-breakers. They know the right, but they are not able, in and of themselves, to do what they know is right. What, then, is wanted but a religion that will not simply provide good rules, but one which will furnish to him who accepts them a divine power that will enable him to be and do what mortal power and determination alone can never accomplish.

This great need is perfectly met in the religion of Jesus Christ. The Christian religion is the only religion that furnishes a Saviour to the soul struggling in the thraldom of sin. The Christian’s Saviour—our Saviour,—was God, and is now God and man. As a man, he knows all our weaknesses, and as God, he has power to help. More than that, he gives to each of us who believe in him the measure of his perfect righteousness, wrought out when he was a man in the same situation as we.

Here in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the all-sufficient remedy and preventive for sin and crime. If we see the law of sin in our members, working in us not what we would, but what we would not; if when we would do good evil is present, and if we cry out in distress of mind, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” we may also say, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Through the victory which is in Jesus Christ, the groans because of sin may be turned into peans of praise for the Deliverer.

Christ is the remedy for the prevention of sin and crime. He is the Fountain open for sin and uncleanness. He will save, and save to the uttermost, all who come to God by him. Education will not prevent crime; laws can only hold it in check; they can not eradicate the evil passions of man. But what education and law can not do, Jesus Christ can do. His work begins by giving to the believer a new heart and a new life. He is the true and only absolutely efficacious remedy for the evil heart, which, whether educated or ignorant, loves and chooses the paths of evil. Nations went into moral darkness and the extremes of degradation by refusing to know God (Rom. 1:21–24), and such nations can not be restored by education in those things of a worldly nature which exclude the knowledge of God. The hope of the world is in Jesus Christ alone. There is no other thing which any one can do so good for themselves and so beneficial to the world, to lessen crime and to improve our society, as to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

M. E. KELLOGG.