Christian Citizenship 269 



what he is doing, and too intent on doing it well, to 

 waste his time in envying others. 



From the days when the chosen people received 

 the Decalogue to our own, envy and malice have 

 been recognized as evils, and woe to those who appeal 

 to them. To break the Tenth Commandment is no 

 more moral now than it has been for the past thirty 

 centuries. The vice of envy is not only a dangerous 

 but also a mean vice, for it is always a confession of 

 inferiority. It may provoke conduct which will be 

 fruitful of wrongdoing to others, and it must cause 

 misery to the man who feels it. It will not be any 

 the less fruitful of wrong and misery if, as is so often 

 the case with evil motives, it adopts some high- 

 sounding alias. The truth is that each one of us has 

 in him certain passions and instincts which if they 

 gained the upper hand in his soul would mean that 

 the wild beast had come uppermost in him. Envy, 

 malice, and hatred are such passions, and they are 

 just as bad if directed against a class or group of 

 men as if directed against an individual. What we 

 need in our leaders and teachers is help in suppress 

 ing such feelings, help in arousing and directing the 

 feelings that are their extreme opposites. Woe to 

 us as a nation if we ever follow the lead of men who 

 seek not to smother but to inflame the wild-beast 

 qualities of the human heart! In social and indus 

 trial no less than in political reform we can do 



