438 RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE: SOCIAL 



criminals than before. Too often neither the criminal nor society 

 is benefited. Neither is it longer tenable to continue this system, 

 on the theory that severe punishment is a preventive of crime. It 

 is stated on good authority that crime has flourished most in civil- 

 ized countries where the terrors proclaimed by the law and inflicted 

 by its administration were most severe. Crime flourished most in 

 Great Britain when she had the longest list of offenses punishable 

 by death. There has been no increase in the number of murders 

 in the United States in those states where capital punishment has 

 been abolished. 



What should be the method of dealing with criminals? Here is 

 the answer of Charlton T. Lewis. He says he would introduce a 

 sound philosophy of social science and broad Christian principles 

 into our methods of dealing with men. In order that these prin- 

 ciples .may be introduced into the administration of the penal law, 

 into its constitution, it is necessary that our thoughts be transferred 

 from the act of crime to the person who commits the crime. The 

 criminal's character must be understood, and the conduct which we 

 assume and adopt toward him must be that which is best adapted 

 to promote at once the interest of society as a whole and the interest 

 of the man to whom your efforts are directed. The prison does not 

 serve its purpose either to punish crime or to prevent it. It has 

 its use to protect society as long as it is not safe for the perpetrator 

 of crime to have his freedom, and no longer. When protection to 

 society is secured, then the whole emphasis needs to be placed on 

 the reformation of the criminal. Progress is being made in this 

 direction. The indeterminate sentence practiced in some states 

 is in this direction; the probation officer in Massachusetts; and, 

 beginning in New York and some other states, the separation of 

 prisoners into as many classes as possible, so the more debased will 

 not drag the others down; the Reform School for the Young, all 

 are in the direction of Christian beneficence and the science of 

 humanity. 



All the improvements of prisons and reforms that are abiding are 

 in the direction of the ideal of the educated man. Nothing that 

 criminals have done, nothing that they can do, conceals the fact 

 that they are the children of our Father in Heaven, and that each 

 one of us owes to these a brother's love. " Jesus said: ' I was a 

 prisoner, and ye came unto me.' By these words he bids us discern, 

 with the eye of faith, the elements of Christlikeness in every prisoner. 

 In every prisoner there are divine possibilities. This is his doctrine, 

 and it reveals our duty." (Gladden.) 



In conclusion, it is the duty of every human being, first of all, to 

 form such habits of life, through the home, the school, the church, 

 the state, and all the complex social relations of men, that he will 



