The Rev. George Elliot Cooley, in speaking before the Methodist Conference upon the results of law evasion, used the following significant language:
We are coming more clearly to see that it is impossible to bring in the kingdom of God by legislation; yet, as earnest men, we are anxious to determine upon the best method in dealing with the intemperance evil. May it not be possible that in the effort to prevent this evil by law, we are fostering greater and more insidious evils? Respect for the courts has been undermined by the wholesale disregard for law, confidence in judicial processes has been destroyed by so many miscarriages of justice; the oath has been invalidated and perjury promoted by the effort to enforce a law which many feel under no moral obligation to observe.
The condition of things thus brought about ought to be appalling to the teacher of morals and the advocates of law and order.
Thus speaks a close observer of the effect produced by attempting to make men righteous by outward force, and it must of necessity be so. Righteousness consists in living principles rather than outward forms. Rom. 14:17. They work from within and are seen in outward acts.
That power that works from without to make a man righteous creates a feeling that he is being deprived of his liberty, and sets him at work to resist the effort with all his powers. It leads him, weak as he sees himself to be, to use such means as are at his command to defeat the effort. When as the result of these methods he sees justice perverted, he loses respect for the courts that have been established as God's means of preserving order. Rom. 13:1-6.
Then, according to Mr. Cooley, the attempt to make men righteous by legislation not only fails of its object, but actually results in making them worse, a state of affairs deeply to be deplored. Well may its advocates stand appalled at the results of their work. But how are conditions to be bettered?—It is by the foolishness of preaching, but a preaching which is actuated by the power of God , that power which changes the nature of men by setting forth the principles of the kingdom of God. S. A. HOLDEN.