204 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



splendid court of Louis XIV. could not in the 

 nature of the case have the same thought about 

 purity and love as one trained under the influence 

 of fine domestic and social ideals. To go astray- 

 then was the rule, and society shared the guilt of 

 the wrong-doers. 



I do not excuse those who in the free exercise 

 of their wills — and all have some freedom — 

 have chosen to do wrong ; but surely, in such 

 circumstances, no man is solitary in his guilt. If 

 it is the custom of society to excuse moral delin- 

 quencies, then those who are morally weak will 

 find that custom behind them pushing them 

 toward the evil from which they naturally shrink. 

 All who help to make the sentiment that speaks 

 lightly of evil participate in the guilt of those who 

 fall. He who leads the suicide to the precipice 

 shares the guilt of his self-destruction. Mr. Cable, 

 in the imaginary sermon from which I have quoted, 

 uses the following illustration: "I once knew a 

 man who was carefully taught from infancy to 

 manhood this single only principle of life — de- 

 fiance. Not justice, not righteousness, not even 

 gain, but defiance, defiance to God, defiance to 

 man, defiance to nature, defiance to reason, de- 

 fiance and defiance and defiance. This man be- 

 came a smuggler, and at last a pirate in the Gulf 



