Ezekiel 7

Ezekiel 7:1-27

CRIME AND SOME OF ITS CAUSES Ezekiel 7:1-27“Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence” (Ezekiel 7:23). THIS language was spoken concerning the most favored land in the world—even Canaan; and involved the description of the most godly city on earth—even the city of Jerusalem. I have no doubt that Ezekiel was called a “croaker” for having uttered it; denominated a “pessimist”; declared to be a “back-number”; etc. Such is the custom of those philosophers who, without data, have determined that the world is growing better, and who have no ears for the speech of the true Prophet of God. There are two ways to study the question of crime and violence—one is the way of the study of sociology, as expressed in pamphlets, books and organization; and the other is the way of keeping one’s eyes open as he visits in homes, and walks through shops and streets. The intelligent observer will find an agreement between the testimony of good writers on the subject of crime and his own observation, to the effect that it is not diminishing. True, the man who writes an article, and by court and prison statistics shows that crime has increased in a few decades 200 per cent above the growth in population, and takes no account of the fact that in that civilization more evil deeds are counted criminal, more criminal acts are uncovered, more men and women are dragged to court and convicted than formerly, is perpetrating a falsehood, and he knows it. But, if we make all allowance possible for these ameliorating facts, still there is no reason for rejoicing. Crime is not on the decrease even in this civilized country or in this beautiful city.It is not my purpose at this time to attempt a full statement, or discussion, of all the possible causes of crime, but, rather, to lay emphasis upon a few of the most fruitful sources of the same. Some years ago Richard Vaux, the notable prison inspector, said,“Crime in my mind is of three kinds—inherent, inherited, and from association.”We have all heard the song, “She’s not colored; she was born that way.” It is true not alone as to physical, but also as to moral life.

There is an evil principle in every man which may possibly work out his ruin. Without arguing the method of man’s fall, without saying whether the Scripture account is true, or the less plausible theories are to be received, we can all agree that man has fallen. “All are gone astray there is none that doeth good; no, not one.” If anybody denies this, the burden of proof rests with him.

As Joseph Parker said, “Evidently something has disagreed with the world. We do not trust, love, honor, and help one another; we are selfish, mean, irascible, unforgiving; we know that our respectability is the thinnest part about us, and that the faintest scratch will touch the wolf.” Whether he is to be of the coyote species, and so a common sinner, or whether he will prove black and ferocious, and hence criminal, is a question that nothing can settle but death, and so we dismiss it to take up those causes over which man has no control.There seems to be little question that some criminals are born so. Job’s query was a pertinent one, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean”? And his answer none the less so, “Not one”. There are homes in every land that are hotbeds of crime. Difficult as it is to hatch a dove from a vulture’s egg, it is scarcely more difficult than to bring a clean child from criminal nests, such as abound in certain centers of our cities, and are found not infrequently in rural districts.You will remember that some of the royal histories of by-gone days show that the spirit of murder was quite as often inherited by the sons of cruel kings as were the thrones to which they succeeded.

That humanity is the same whether it be in the prince or in the peasant is apparent when one compares royal history with peasant records.Years ago an old man died in the Massachusetts State Penitentiary at the age of 76. At the time of his decease his wife was confined in the same institution, while seven sons and one daughter had served terms behind the bars.When I was pastor in Illinois, Wm.

Rudolph was hanged at Ottowa. His assumed name was Charles Ford and his crime the murder of David Moore. The murder was a brutal one and the motive robbery. The newspapers gave the recital of Ford’s history. His father was hung at Sing Sing; his mother’s brother was then doing time in the same prison for train-wrecking; his sister kept a notorious house in Toronto, and his mother was driven away from West 28th St., New York, where she kept a thieves’ paradise. Later she was chased out of Chicago where she was living with her second husband, Charles Ford, who was also put in the penitentiary.

Charles, the murderer, was born in the slums of New York and had been a tramp since his boyhood days.Mr. Havelock Ellis, in his interesting work on “The Criminal” recites the history of three brothers in France,—Gene, Thomas and Pere Chretian.

The first of them was the father of seven children, five of whom were thieves, and the sixth a murderer; the second had two boys, both murderers; and the third, but one child who was both a thief and a murderer. There can be little doubt that criminal thoughts and practices, on the part of the parents, give a criminal stamp to the child that affects both his physical and psychical natures, storing up in them lawless potentialities. It is a Law of God, affirmed in the Scriptures, and found to be scientific, that every creature brings forth after his kind.A most remarkable instance of this is recited in Dr. Dugdale’s book entitled “The Jukes.” Five sisters became criminal mothers. They themselves were of illegitimate birth and began life with criminal tendencies and surroundings. Their family tree shows 1200 sprouts, and of all the men, born into that infamous house, not twenty were skilled workmen, and ten of those learned their trade in prison.

Fifty-two per cent of the women were utterly abandoned, and the normal children of the family were only two per cent. The cost to the government of that single evil tree exceeded a million and a quarter dollars in a generation or two.It is written in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, “All men are born free and equal.” In the sense in which our political fathers meant it, the phrase is all right; in any literal sense it is utterly false.

Thorny is the path before the feet of the criminars child. There is a beautiful little poem expressed after this manner: “Ragged, uncomely, and old and gray, A woman walked in a Northern town, And through the crowd, as she wound her way One saw her loiter and then stoop down, Putting something away in her old torn gown.

“ ‘You are hiding a jewel,’ the watcher said, (Ah, that was her heart—had the truth been read) ‘What have you stolen?’ he asked again, Then the dim eyes filled with a sudden pain, And under the flickering light of the gas, She showed him her gleaning. ‘It’s broken glass.’ She said, ‘I hae lifted it up frae the street, To be oot o’ the road o’ the bairnies’ feet!’

“Under the fluttering rags astir, That was a royal heart that beat! Would that the world had more like her, Smoothing the road for its bairnies’ feet!” The man or the woman who could provide children with godly parents would do more towards smoothing the road for their feet than any other who ever attempted aught for little ones.EVIL If heredity is responsible for crimes’ deepest roots, evil associates furnish the noxious plant with a fertile soil, and favorable atmosphere. Goethe said truly, “Tell me with whom thou dost company and I will tell thee who thou art.” Centuries before Goethe was born, a much greater had said, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners”.The extent of such corruption is measured by one’s associates, and is further affected by the age at which one touches the evil circle. Let a child grow up with abandoned men and women where he constantly hears of crime, and no matter how rich his inheritance of pure blood, he will almost certainly come to his majority a bankrupt in morals and a criminal in character. The silent, but terrible, transformation is wrought by natural law in the spiritual world. The young sprout and plant is the one whose pores are most open, and it drinks in the most easily the elements of earth and air. The same is true of young humanity.We sometimes undertake to explain why young children, evilly associated, take to crime, on the ground of imitation.

We know that the imitative faculty is peculiarly alert in young life; we naturally conclude that children’s crimes are only copies of those committed by their seniors. Of course there is something in it.

There is something more than imitation; there is an inborn likeness as well as a developing resemblance.But over and above this, the child is also affected by the very atmosphere in which it lives. Life is not developed and determined by mere imitation. Character comes of what it feeds upon. We say of plants that they take in and assimilate the mineral properties of the soil; but our language is not exact, is not scientific, unless we also see that the plant itself is also assimilated to the soil.If young people were criminal only by imitation, if you remove them to righteous associates, they would be saved at once. But, alas, for the fact that when criminality is not bred in the bone it may yet be taken from the very atmosphere in which the child lives, into both bone and blood. I have known many a lad to live a comparatively clean life until he was well into his teens, yea, his twenties; and then, falling suddenly into evil company, take on his character so permanently that no persuasion, threats, afflictions, or sufferings sufficed to save him.

Is it any wonder, then, that parents warn their young people against evil associates? Is it any wonder that preachers make their pleas at this point?Some friends in coming across the Atlantic years ago, in the “Cretic”, report that their vessel sighted what is known to the seafarer as a derelict—or an abandoned vessel driven out to sea.

They pulled out of their course to its side, sent men on board to see if any one was there who might be saved, and to get what valuables there might be on her, and then the great steamer stood for two hours waiting the demolition of this abandoned hulk, for the simple reason that if it were left afloat other vessels might crash into it and go down. That is the way men are sunken, and women. Every night in the week, in our own beautiful city; sometimes in low resorts, oftentimes in dance halls, and sometimes even in their own homes, youths touch the lost and are themselves sunken in consequence. Even maturity is not safe against evil associates.There are some appeals from which middle life is in no wise exempt, and to which it is peculiarly subject. The common impression is that if a man gets past the days of youth his future is certain; but the facts are all against it. To be sure the majority of men who make wreck of life do so in their inexperience; but some of the most noted criminal acts characterize those who had already created for themselves an enviable reputation, and position.

Think of the fall of such a man as Parnell, the Irish leader; think of the conduct of such an orator as the eloquent Breckenridge; and we are face to face with the fact that neither age nor reputation, nor honorable office, exempt a man from temptation, and we learn afresh the need of the language of Holy Writ, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall”. The man who walks the way of the world and keeps himself unspotted from its wickedness is to be congratulated; and the woman who can build up a character that resists temptation, however stealthily it may approach her and in whatever guise it may come, is equally to be congratulated.

I heard a few days since this rather characteristic Irish story—In the South land a certain professor was walking the streets one morning while Pat was plodding along ahead of him. The Irishman’s feet slipped and he struck the earth with a thud. The preacher seeing him called out, “Pat, the good Book says, ‘The wicked stand in slippery places’.” To which Pat quickly responded, “Faith, and I don’t see how you do it.”Certain it is that it is not of easy accomplishment.SOCIAL All crimes create social disorder; and in turn social disorder is responsible for many crimes. The strained relations between capital and labor keep the entire land on the ragged edge of the criminal gulf. No man can tell, what moment property and poverty will meet in the street and engage in deadly combat. If there is nothing more serious brewing than a difference between the managers and the employees of the city street car system, still it is difficult to adjust it without seeing criminals born of the discussion.

If the case is that of a factory, a railroad, or some still more extensive employment, the danger grows, not only because of the greater number engaged, but because all social disturbances give better opportunity to the criminal element to get in its work of thievery, murder, etc. A riot of workmen seldom occurs, no matter how just the cause, but the disturbance is made the cover under which some uninterested devils do their black deeds.I have no small amount of literature furnished me every week to show two or three things.

First of all, that the Church has espoused the cause of the rich and by estranging the poor, has increased crime. I fear, in too many instances, there is some truth in the charge. On the other hand, I am not certain that every socialist who walks the earth presents a panacea for the present predicament of property and poverty. When both sides of this subject shall have regarded the words of Scripture, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the Law of Christ” we will find its solution, and not before.Then there is the social scab of drink. You object when we place it under social disorders? Why not?

Is not the carbuncle that eats away a man’s throat a physical disorder? Then what else is liquor with its annual output of diseased bodies, depraved morals, poverty and ruin, but a social disorder, a cancer upon the community, poisoning its life-blood, and spreading all through society baneful influences?

The man who talks of the causes of crime and says nothing of this incubator that hatches full-feathered jail-birds every day in the year, is a teacher whose ignorance is indescribable, or whose indisposition to cite true conditions is inexcusable. Think of such a remark as that made by Sir Matthew Hale, England’s Chief Justice: “The places of judicature which I have long held in this kingdom have given me an opportunity to observe the original cause of most of the enormities that have been committed for the space of twenty years, and by due observation I have found that if the murders and manslaughters, burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, the adulteries, fornications, rapes and other enormities that have happened in that time, were divided in five parts, four of them have been the issues and products of excessive drinking.” And yet some will vote to license it again! Unthinkable!I once did that; I can never do it again! I am opposed to any institution that makes additions to the county poor-house, enlarges the state asylums, adds extra wings to the state penitentiaries, paves the way to hell, and strong drink stands for all that! Thank God its death warrant was long since signed in America, and the day of its resurrection is distant!I want to give to you at this point a little illustration which involves a question that will be profitable to ponder. The court was hearing the case of a drunk.

It was his third arrest. The Judge turned to the little woman who stood near, whose worn, sorrowful face had touched his heart and said, “I am sorry, Madam, but I must lock up your husband.

This is the third time he has been drunk.” The injured wife, victim of the legalized saloon, one of the many who tasted the terrible consequence of that once licensed sin, had no thought whatever of touching deep moral, or economic problems, but only a bit of plain every-day common-sense question when she said, “Your Honor, wouldn’t it be better for me and the children if you locked up the saloon and let my husband go to work?”Of one other social disorder I want to speak, and that is the one ofU LAWSThere are men in every city who violate state statutes and municipal orders with impunity. Their crimes are well-known and of well-known character; and yet the officials connive at them, and let them run. When the law loving citizens call upon these officials to know why, instead of suspending crime, they practically support the same, the answer which has been common is this, “We do not care to run ahead of public opinion in the matter.”And it is a singular thing, that Christian men, editors of religious papers, should speak that shibboleth and think the same. If such editors had formerly lived south of the Mason and Dixon line they would not have opposed the hanging of a negro where public sentiment was in favor of it; if they had dwelt in the heart of Africa they would not have opposed the putting to death of the witch because the public sentiment there was in favor of it; if they dwelt in Utah they would never have opposed the plurality of wives while public sentiment there was in favor of it; if they had dwelt in certain districts of Russia they would never have opposed Nihilism while public sentiment, in that quarter, was in favor of it; if they dwelt in hell they would never oppose the devil because the public sentiment there is in favor of him!The time is coming; yea, is even now at hand, when this sort of talk will be silenced. The public is too intelligent to take to heart a big-mouthed brewer; too intelligent to take to heart a mayor in league with the immoral; too intelligent to receive it, at the lips of the chief of police; too intelligent to accept it from the pen of the editor; and certainly too intelligent to imagine that the small-brained reporter of a yellow sheet can pronounce upon what is advisable and its opposite!If the executive branches of government of this country are not learning their lesson now, namely, that it is not their business to legislate, or to judge, but to execute, they will learn it on the scaffold of public sentiment where their own execution will occur. If I were asked what I candidly believed to be the most prolific source of social disorder in the great civic centers of this land, I should not say poor parentage—though much is to be charged to that; I should not say the yellow-newspaper, though it is responsible for a considerable share.

The connivance of public officials and street patrol-men at sin and crime, is one of the greatest sources of social disorder. When the time comes that the city voter removes the coward, the compromiser with the criminal, from public office, the time will be at hand when crime in the streets, and crime behind closed doors, will blanch with fear.Some of you will remember what Dr.

Parkhurst once said concerning the police force of New York, “There is not a form under which the devil disguises himself, that so perplexes us in our efforts, or so bewilders us in the devising of our scheme as the polluted harpies that, under the pretense of governing this city, are feeding, day and night, on its quivering vitals. They are a lying, perjured, rum-soaked lot. While we are trying to convert criminals, they manufacture them; and they had a hundred dollars invested in manufacturing machinery to our one invested in converting machinery. And there is no scheme in this direction too colossal for their ambition to plan and to push.”If Parkhurst failed to do his duty to the administration of New York it was not the fault of his spirit, but rather the poverty of the English language. That the strength of his speech was exceeded by the infamy of city officials, few doubt. Certainly the language would not have been too strong for the Chicago social condition in the days when I wrought in that city as a pastor, and is too feeble to describe present official dominion; and our own beautiful metropolis is more and more coming to that size which shall tempt immoral men to make capital out of an evil administration.Permit me before closing to say, that while the social disorder is a subject for the voters’ consideration and correction, the personal disorder is a subject for the individual to consider and settle for himself.

What one of us is exempt from evil tendencies; what one of us is proof against temptation; how many, even of this audience tonight may be compelled to confess, “we are sold under sin”, and may be impatient if I dismiss you without saying a word as to the possible escape therefrom.Let me say it can never result from a righteous parentage. Your father and mother may be righteous people, that will not necessarily redeem you; you may have inherited many good tendencies, that will not take you to Heaven; you may have associated with sweet and wholesome people in times past, and yet, even that did not enable you to resist temptation; you may have escaped the results of the social disorders mentioned, and yet your mind may be restless and your heart ill at ease.An illustration to the point, and I close, One morning a clipping from a New York paper was handed to my good friend, Miss Helen Gould, stating that a young lad had been arrested for vagrancy and when put in jail had said that he had stolen rides on trains and traveled over a thousand miles to find Miss Gould.

She read the paper and became interested in the lad who had made such an effort to see her, and immediately dispatched one of her secretaries to the Island. There she found the lonely, but shrewd looking lad, who told, in a straightforward way, his interesting tale. For three years he had traveled in search of adventure. His life began in Georgia where he spent his time in dodging the blows of his parents. At ten years of age he was bound out to a wicked farmer. The work was irksome and one afternoon he climbed in on the trucks of a car and was suddenly speeding across the country. But fearful that he would be found, he jumped from the train, and, as he put it, “hurted his leg”. A trackwalker found him, took him to his home and nursed him until the broken leg was mended.

Then the roving spirit came upon him and he made his way to the far West, by having lied to the conductor concerning a dying mother. From this time on he was constantly beating his way on railroads until in far California he had heard about Helen Gould and her love for children, and he thought if he could find her and she would be good to him he would lead a better life, and so he said he had come in search of her. Miss Gould’s heart was touched. At first she sent her secretaries to talk with him and teach him every few days. Finally his good behavior won his release from the House of Refuge and she took him to her home at Woody Crest, Tarry town. She dressed him elegantly, provided him with a silk handkerchief, which was his especial longing.

But beautiful clothes were distasteful to him; he did not feel comfortable in them; and the elegant dining table never looked so attractive as a plate in a dark corner, although for the first time he could get all the coffee he wanted, and for the first time had all the butter he could eat. When a steak was suggested he said, “No; prefer pie.” Then Miss Gould took him to her home on Fifth Avenue, hoping he would like it better.

She showed him about its beautiful apartments. He admired the flowers, and when Miss Gould asked him which one he liked the best he pointed to a white lily saying, “I like it, because it looks like you.” This so delighted her that she said to her secretary, “He seems like a little white lily himself, blossoming out of the mud.” Carrying him back to Woody Crest he seemed content. But the humming of the passing freight trains was a call to his soul like the call of the wilds! He longed for adventure and, one day when unguarded, in his oldest clothes, but with plenty of money in his pockets, purloined even from other people, he departed and she never saw him again. How could a boy be provided a more beautiful mother, more beautiful surroundings, greater luxury; how hope for a more beautiful home this side of Heaven? And yet none of it satisfied his longing heart.Oh, men; the reason is plain; my sisters, the Lord long since put it into the Gospel of John.

Turn to it and read, “Ye must be born again”. Crime and the love of it will never die out of the soul until Christ and His love come in.