One may smile upon a rascal (most of us do so many times a day) if one does not know him to be a rascal, and has not said he is; but knowing him to be, or having said he is, to smile upon him is to be a hypocrite—just a plain hypocrite or a sycophantic hypocrite, according to the station in life of the rascal smiled upon. There are more plain hypocrites than sycophantic ones, for there are more rascals of no consequence than rich and distinguished ones, though they get fewer smiles each. The American people will be plundered as long as the American character is what it is; as long as it is tolerant of successful knaves; as long as American ingenuity draws an imaginary distinction between a man’s public character and his private—his commercial and his personal. In brief, the American people will be plundered as long as they deserve to be plundered. No human law can stop it, none ought to stop it, for that would abrogate a higher and more salutary law: “As ye sow ye shall reap.” In a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst is the passage following: “The story of all our Lord’s dealings with sinners leaves upon the mind the invariable impression, if only the story be read sympathetically and earnestly, that He always felt kindly towards the transgressor, but could have no tenderness of regard toward the transgression. There is no safe and successful dealing with sin of any kind save as that distinction is appreciated and made a continual factor in our feelings and efforts.” If Dr. Parkhurst will read his New Testament more understandingly he will observe that Christ’s kindly feeling to transgressors was not to be counted on by sinners of every kind, and it was not always in evidence; for example, when he flogged the moneychangers out of the temple. Nor is Dr. Parkhurst himself any too amiably disposed toward the children of darkness. It was not by mild words and gentle means that he hurled the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. Such revolutions as he set afoot are not made with spiritual rosewater; there must be the contagion of a noble indignation fueled with harder wood than abstractions. The people can not be mustered and incited to action by the spectacle of a man fighting something that does not fight back. It was men that Dr. Parkhurst was trouncing—not their crimes—not Crime. He may fancy himself “dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,” but in reality he does not hate hate but hates the hateful, and scorns, not scorn but the scornworthy.