"And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
"And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning with his eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus was left atone, and tlie woman standing in the midst.
"When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman. He said unto her; Woman, where are those, thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?"
'She said. No man. Lord. And Jesus said unto her: Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more."
John, via, 3-16.
4. Men invent cunning arguments as to why and for what purpose they impose punishment. But in reality they always punish because they think it profitable for themselves.
5. Because of their own meanness, because of the desire to avenge an injury, because of a mistaken idea of self-protection, men commit evil, and then, for the sake of self-justification, they try to assure themselves and others that they only did so in order to correct him who had done evil,
6. The superstitious belief in the reasonableness of punishment finds much support in the fact that the fear of
punishment restrains people for a season from the commission of evil deeds. But forbidding under pain of penalty does not lessen, nay, it increases the craving for evil, just as a dam does not lessen, but increases the pressure of the river.
7. A semblance of order exists in the human society today not because there are penalties against the disturbance of the order, but because in spite of the injurious effect of these penalties, people pity and love one another.
8. It is impossible for one set of people to improve the life of the others. Each man can only make his own life better.
9. Punishment is injurious not only because it exasperates those who are punished, but also because it corrupts those who impose punishment.
III.
Retribution in Personal Relations of People
1. To punish a man because his deeds are evil is like heating a fire. Every man who has committed evil is already punished by being deprived of peace and by suffering pangs of conscience. And if his conscience does not trouble him, no punishment that may be imposed upon him will reform him. It will merely exasperate hinL
2. The real punishment for every evil deed is that which is suffered in the soul of the evil doer, and consists in the decrease of his capacity of enjoying the blessings of life.
3. A man has done wrong. And lo! another man, or set of men, can find nothing better to do than to commit another wrong which they call punishment.
4. When a baby slaps the floor against which it fell,
the action is futile, but intelligible, just as it is intelligible why a man might hop about after stubbing his toe. It is also intelligible when a man who has been struck in the first moment of attack strikes back at his assailant. But deliberately to do wrong to another, because he had done wrong previously, and to believe that it is the right thing to do, is to depart from reason entirely.
5. In some places they practice the following method of slaying bears: over a trough with honey a heavy weight is hung on a rope. The bear pushes the weight out of his way in order to get at the honey, but the weight rebounds and strikes him. The bear is angered and pushes the weight with more force, and it strikes back all the harder. And this is continued until the weight slays the bear. This is just what happens to people who render evil for evil. Cannot men have more reason than bears ?
6. Men are creatures endowed with reason, and therefore, should realize that vengeance cannot destroy evil, that deliverance from evil is only in that which is contrary to evil—^namely love, and not in punishment, whatever name may be given it. But people do not realize this, they believe in retribution.
7. If we only had not learned from childhood that we may render evil for evil, that we may force people to do what we would have them do, we should marvel at people deliberately corrupting others by training them to believe that punishment or any kind of force may be beneficial. We punish a child to teach it not to do wrong, and yet by the very act of punishing it, we inculcate in its mind the idea that punishment may be just and beneficial.
And yet hardly any of the evil traits for which we punish the child can be as harmful as the evil trait which we inculcate in its mind when punishing it. "I am being pun-
ished, therefore punishment must be good," so the child thinks, and at the first opporunity it will act accordingly.
IV.
Retribution in Social Relations
1. The doctrine of the propriety of punishment is not, nor has it ever been of any help in the education of children, nor is it of any help in the improvement of the social order or of the morality of all those who believe in retribution beyond the grave; on the contrary, it is, and has always been responsible for incalculable misery; it brutalizes the children, it weakens the bonds of the people in the community and corrupts the people by threats of a hell, robbing virtue of its main foundation.
2. The reason that men do not believe in rendering good for evil, instead of evil for evil, is that they had been taught from childhood that without this rendering evil for evil our entire social fabric would be disrupted.
3. If it is true that all good people desire the discontinuance of crimes, robberies, poverty and murders which darken the life of mankind, they must understand that that end cannot be attained by force and retribution. Everything brings forth after its own kind, and until we oppose the wrongs and assaults of evil doers with deeds of a contrary nature, we shall be doing just the same as they, and shall thus only arouse, encourage and develop in them that evil to eradicate which we claim to be so anxious. Otherwise, we shall only change the form of evil, but it will remain the same. Ballou.
4. Decades, centuries perhaps will pa'Ss, and our descendants will marvel at our punishments, just as we marvel now at the practice of burning at the stake and at tortures.
"How could they be so blind to the senselessness, cruelty and harm fulness of what they practised?" our descendants will inquire.
V.
Brotherly Love and Non-Resistance to Evil Must Be
Substituted for Retribution in the Personal
Relations Between Men
1. It is said in the New Testament that when a man strike thee upon thy right cheek, thou shalt turn to him the other also.
This is the law of God for the Christian. It does not matter who has used force, nor for what purpose, force is an evil, just as evil as the evil of murder, the evil of adultery. It does not matter who commits it, or for what purpose, whether one man or millions of men, all evil is evil, and before God all men are equal. The commandments of God are always obligatory upon all people. Therefore, the commandment of love must always be obeyed by all Christians— it is always better to suffer from force than to use force. It is better for the Christian, taking an extreme case, to be slain than to slay. If I am hurt by others, as a Christian I must reason like this: I also was in the habit of hurting people, and therefore it is good that God should send me a trial for my own good and for my redemption from sins. And if I am injured without any guilt on my part, it is all the better for me, for this has happened to all holy men, and if I act like them, I am going to be like them. It is impossible to save your soul with evil, it is impossible to attain good by the path of evil, just as it is impossible to return home by going away from home. Satan does not drive away Satan, evil is not conquered with evil, but evil is merely added to evil and g^ows stronger thereby. Evil is only conquered by righteousness and goodness. Only with ^od-
ness, with goodness, patience and long suffering can evil be extinguished. Russian Sectarian Teaching,