And my rebuke list would include the politician who uses his office for graft, the senator who sells his vote, the legislator who hesitates to give his interest and vote to all bills that seek the true welfare of the common people. It would include every purveyor of adulterated foods for the people, every user of child labor, every employer of sweated labor, and every "bargain-counter" fiend who hunts for the product of the sweat-shop. It would include every newspaper owner who allows prejudice to control his columns rather than fairness, and makes himself a party to the willful deception of the people; every lawyer who values fees more than justice; every physician a case more than health; every preacher a fat salary more than truth. And it might include you, reader, did I know you as well as I know myself, whom I rebuke constantly. CHAPTER IX WHAT I WOULD RADIATE TO THE WRONG DOER For two years I was the chaplain for two homes where women who had led evil lives were sheltered and cared for. During part of this time I helped organize and conduct a midnight mission in one of the most degraded parts of a large eastern city. I have had a large and varied acquaintance with criminals of both sexes, of all ages and conditions, and have been the recipient of many strange and startling confidences of men and women whose integrity has never been questioned, and yet who, if their inner life were known, would have been execrated and ostracized. As a result of these varied experiences and the knowledge that has come to me I am compelled to assert that I believe our present system of treatment of wrong-doers is not only unchristian but unwise and foolish, and that it fosters and cherishes some of the very wrongs we seek to prevent. The attitude we take--that every evil doer loves his evil doing, sins because he wants to sin, is a criminal for his own pleasure--is absurd and foolish. And what wicked cruelties such an attitude leads us to commit. Socrates saw clearer than that centuries ago when he said: "It is strange that you should not be angry when you meet a man with an ill-conditioned body, and yet be vexed when you encounter one with an ill-conditioned soul!" Most of us have a lot of maxims or rules that we apply to those wrong-doers who come under our ken, forgetful of the fact that the strange thing about human nature is that it doesn't fit your, or my, or any one's ideas or notions. It cannot be bounded, as you bound a sea or an island. It cannot be plotted or catalogued as you plot a lawn or catalogue a library. The only way you can read men and women is with sympathy and love--sympathy for their failures to measure up to your conceptions of manhood and womanhood; love for the undoubted good that you perceive. All moral judgments must remain false and hollow that are not checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot.