760 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



One of the greatest duties of the statesman and the 

 citizen is to attain to a higher degree of moral purity. 



"That the public conscience is fearfully demoralized 

 is constantly brought to mind. It is almost a daily occur- 

 rence of some public plundering act by a trusted official. 

 And it is a rare thing that justice is duly meted out to 

 such. Individual crimes of the common citizen call out 

 great indignation, and are followed by prompt punishment. 

 But the official offender is reckoned as much less criminal. 

 Crimes against society, against everybody, seem to be 

 looked on by the public in a different light than if com- 

 mitted against individuals. Men that would scorn to rob 

 or cheat an individual, think it all right to cheat the pub- 

 lic, especially if they can do it in a business way. If they 

 can somehow or other hide behind law or custom, they 

 have no conscientious scruples. 



"The public conscience is so debauched that it has 

 not a word of condemnation for acts of robbery, the most 

 stupendous, if they are wrapped in the cloak of law or 

 custom. 



"The trouble is, the standard of right is lowered 

 down from the higher law of God to the imperfect and 

 crooked law of man. 



"Conscience speaks always on the side of right. 

 That is, it raises its voice for that side of any question that 

 the individual believes to be right, so that if a man 

 believes human law to be the standard, if he believes cus- 

 tom to be the standard of right, his conscience will approve 

 all that coincides with human law and custom. This is an 

 universal fact. The mass of mankind, believe, as Pope 

 has it, * Whatever is, is right/ 



"Where slavery has, or does exist, the people, as a 

 whole, were taught to believe, and did believe, it was 

 right where the people are cannibals, they believe it is 



