2. A lawyer ought not to lie. He may defend a criminal whom he knows to be guilty, but he may not say to the jury that he believes this criminal to be innocent. He may not in any way intentionally convey to the jury the impression that he believes the man to be innocent. He may not, in his plea, pervert or distort the evidence so as to weaken the force or conceal the meaning of it. He is a sworn officer of the court, and his oath should bind him to the strictest veracity. It would be quixotic to expect him to assist his adversary, but his obligation to speak the truth outranks every obligation that he owes to his client. It is notorious that some lawyers who would think it scandalous to tell a falsehood out of court, in any business transaction, lie shamelessly in court in behalf of their clients, and seem to think it part of their professional duty. That bar of justice before which, by their professional obligations, they are bound to the most stringent truthfulness, is the very place where they seem to consider themselves absolved from the common law of veracity. So long as the legal mind is infected with this deadly heresy, we need not wonder that our courts of justice often become the instruments of unrighteousness.

3. A lawyer ought not to sell his services for the promotion of injustice and knavery. Swindlers of all types are aided by lawyers in their depredations upon society. The mock broker who operates in Wall street, and strips green country speculators of their hardearned gains by the most nefarious roguery, always has an able lawyer as his accomplice. The gentleman by whose agency a nest of these rascals was lately broken up says: "The great difficulty in stopping swindles of this class is that the rascals make enough money to be able to employ the best of legal advice, and are, moreover, careful to do nothing which will render them liable to arrest." This is the testimony of a lawyer, Mr. Ralph Oakley, of New York. "The best of legal advice" can be had, then, in New York city for such purposes. It would be more difficult to believe this if its truth were not so often illustrated in the stupendous frauds and piracies of great corporations, all of which are carefully engineered by eminent lawyers. Our modern "buccaneers" - our brave railroad wreckers-are in constant consultation with distinguished lawyers. They undeniably have "the best of legal advice" in planning and executing their bold iniquities.

In the discussion which followed the reading of Mr. Bacon's paper at Saratoga, the suggestion was made that a better legal education would tend to correct disreputable practices at the bar, whereupon a clergyman put this troublesome question : "I desire to ask, for information, whether it is not the case that in many instances the most highly educated attorneys prove the most facile and unscrupulous instruments, as the ad. vocates of large corporations and monopolists?" The question was not answered. Evidently it was not for the want of facts on which to base an intelligent answer. So long as lawyers can engage in operations of this nature without losing caste in their profession, it will be needful to continue the discussion of professional ethics. And it would seem that the legal profession ought to lose no time in purging itself of those who are guilty of such practices. In the words of the late Lewis L. Delafield, Esq., of the New York bar, spoken in the discussion to which we have referred:

"There are many lawyers-and they are not exclusively confined to our large cities - who should be disbarred without delay for dishonest and corrupt practices; and until some serious and successful attempt is made in this direction, the legal profession must expect, and will deserve, to decline in popular esteem."

In all callings there are disreputable men; the presence of such men in the legal profession brings no necessary discredit upon that profession if it be evident that the professional standards of conduct are high and that lawyers in general are disposed to adhere to them, and to enforce them. This discussion simply raises the question whether the lawyer's ethics is not often confused by unnecessary casuistry, and whether the bar in general is not greatly at fault in neglecting to enforce its own rules against disreputable members. On these points it will be observed that the severest judgments of this article are pronounced by good lawyers. It may be added that the standard here raised is not an impossible ideal; many lawyers in active practice carefully conform to it.

The Bible in the Sunday-school.

THE calling of the Sunday-school teacher is becoming more and more difficult. It was never a sinecure to those who rightly conceived of its duties and responsibilities; but the progress of years, and the movements of thought, render its problems increasingly serious. Indeed, it begins to be evident that the business of teaching, in all departments, is one requiring great skill and wisdom; that it is not well done by those who make it the mere incident of a career devoted to other pursuits; that it requires the most careful study of the human mind, and the most patient adjustment of means to ends. Pedagogy is taking the rank that belongs to it as one of the nobler sciences.

While the work of teaching in general is receiving so much attention, the work of Sunday-school teaching has not been neglected. Sunday-school institutes and Sunday-school assemblies in all parts of the country are discussing methods and criticising theories with diligence and enthusiasm.

The burning question for the Sunday-school teacher is not, however, so much a question of method as of subject-matter. To learn how to teach is easier than to determine what to teach. Doubtless there are thousands of teachers to whom this difficulty has never presented itself; but to the most intelligent and thoughtful among them it is a serious question.

The Unitarian Sunday-school Society has proposed an answer to this question which is likely to awaken discussion. A little book entitled "The Citizen and the Neighbor" has been prepared by a clergyman of that denomination as a manual of instruction in Sunday-schools. This book treats of "men's rights and duties as they live together in the state and in society," and these rights and duties are classified under four heads, as political, economical, social, and international. Each chapter consists of a series of simple elementary statements, followed by well-framed questions, serving not only to draw forth the doctrines taught in the text, but to prompt independent thought. An admirable little manual it is; and in the hands of a judicious teacher it could be made extremely useful. The pastor who should organize the young people of his congregation into a class for the study of this manual on a week-day evening might render them a great service. But most Sunday-school teachers will, we suppose, refuse to entertain the idea of introducing this book into their Sunday classes. The Sunday-school is the Bible-school. That is the name by which it is now frequently called; that is the character which, in the thoughts and sentiments of the great majority of Sun day-school teachers, belongs to it; and it will be a long time before any other book than the Bible is generally adopted as a manual of instruction in the Sunday-school. This conservatism is not irrational. Religion, rather than ethics or sociology, is the concern of the Sunday-school; and the Bible is the book of religion. Even the Dutch critics insist on this; the new theology, as well as the old, holds fast to the Bible as the book of religion.

It is exactly at this point, however, that the difficulty of the honest and intelligent Sunday-school teacher begins. That the Bible is the book of religion he firmly believes; but it is not so in the sense in which it was once believed to be; and the question respecting the character of the Bible - the view that he is to take of it in his teaching; the manner in which he is to use it; the extent to which he is to recognize the clear results of the higher criticism is a question of great perplexity for every serious teacher. The fact that the Bible occupies a somewhat different place in the thoughts of well-instructed Christians from that which it held twenty-five or fifty years ago is a fact that cannot be denied. Such a book as that of Professor Briggs makes this entirely plain. In the most conservative theological circles it is conceded that the higher criticism has some just claims upon our attention, and that it has reached certain substantial results. It may be true that many of the conclusions of critics like Wellhausen and Robertson Smith are rash and unwarranted; but after their work has been thoroughly sifted and their questionable theories have been thrown out, there remains a residuum of solid truth, in the presence of which the old ideas of the structure, the growth, and the character of the Sacred Scriptures must be considerably modified. A thoroughly cautious and moderate statement was that made not long ago by Professor Harris, of the Andover Theological Seminary, in which he said:

"The doctrine of Sacred Scripture is at present in a state of flux. Certain general statements may be made concerning the inspiration and authority of the Bible, and other statements may be rejected. We hold no theory of the Bible which would be de.

..

molished if an erroneous statement is found concerning some matter of detail, or if we find that the writers shared the imperfect knowledge of their times concerning matters which only modern research clearly understands. No man has a right to impose a theory of the Bible which depends for its integrity on the scrupulous accuracy of every statement. We cannot consent that the Holy Book shall be put in such peril."

Now, the simple fact is, that the theory of the Bible which Professor Harris says that no man has a right to impose, is the theory which has been imposed, until quite recently, by almost all Protestant teachers, upon those under their instruction. It is the theory which underlies almost all our Sunday-school teaching. Professor Harris asserts that the Bible is put in

peril by the promulgation of such a theory. Every man knows that overstatements are dangerous; that many a precious thing has been rejected because of the reaction produced by an exaggeration of its value. We may well believe that the Bible is the most precious of books, and that its value will be enhanced, and not diminished, by the thorough criticism which is now applied to it; but it is necessary to learn to speak of it with discrimination, to make no claims for the book that it does not make for itself, and to find out, if we can, wherein resides the authority with which it addresses us.

The learning of this lesson is hardly begun as yet by the average Sunday-school teacher. The traditional theory of the absolute historical and scientific infallibility of the Bible is the only one that he has ever permitted himself to entertain. His maxim is, that the extremest views on this subject are the safest; that the admission of a historical error in the book would be fatal to its authority. The notions that he is sedulously imparting to his pupils are sure to be exploded as soon as they become acquainted with the results of modern scholarship. He is helping thus to train a generation of skeptics.

Among the young men of this time there is a vast amount of superficial skepticism. Those who come in contact with it, and are able to estimate its causes, soon discover that it is largely the result of a reaction against extravagant theories of inspiration. These young men have discovered many facts about the Bible that cannot be reconciled with the theory of the Bible that was imposed on them in the Sunday-school, and they have rejected it altogether. It is high time that the Sunday-school should cease to be an active propagator of skepticism.

There are Sunday-school teachers, and their number is growing, who are aware of their responsibility to present the Bible to their pupils in such a way that it shall win and hold their confidence. That its true character may appear as the bright record of a revelation made in the historical progress of a people providentially led from barbarism up to civilization,— that the steadily brightening path of the divine purpose may be followed across the centuries to its culmination in Him whose Life was the Light of men. This is the great problem which many a conscientious teacher is trying to solve. To such teachers it may be useful to make a few practical suggestions.

that this development culminates in Jesus Christ, who, as Christians believe, is the Word of God, and in the light of whose doctrine and life the whole Bible must

be studied.

Bribery in Politics.

THE practice of bribing voters has reached a development in this country that calls for thoughtful attention on the part of patriotic men. It has always, no doubt, been carried on to a certain extent, but never on so large a scale as in recent years, and there is reason to fear that it is on the increase. The bribery we speak of is that by means of money, to which the poorest and most ignorant portions of the people are most liable. But, in addition to this, there is the method of bribery by the promise of office, which has been so widely commented on, but which, it is to be hoped, will soon be largely removed by a better system of appointment. Bribery by money, however, cannot be thus removed, although it may be checked; and unless some other remedy can be found the corruption of our politics by that means will go on. The immense number of ignorant voters in the country, the vast interests involved in our national elections, and the large sums now at the disposal of party managers, render it well-nigh certain that until effectual means are taken to counteract it, the evil will continue to grow. Nor is the bribery of voters the only form of the evil with which we have to contend; some of our legislators and other public men are quite as ready to sell their votes as the most ignorant of the masses are. This purchasing of legislators is notorious; and though it is not always effected by the payment of money, but in some less open way, it is none the less a form of bribery. We are all familiar with the mode of purchasing legislators by means of corporation shares and bonds, distributed by interested parties "where they will do the most good." Even some of the judges are not above suspicion, so that justice is liable to be polluted at its very source; though in most cases the purity of the courts is in refreshing contrast to the corruption prevailing elsewhere.

Such is the evil with which we have to contend, and it is not easy to find a remedy. With corrupt leaders, and corrupt followers, too, the problem of purifying politics is by no means a simple one. The difficulty is increased by the venality of some of the newspapers, by whose influence the people are misled as to the real character of candidates and the conduct of public affairs.

The punishment of both the giver and the taker of bribes would of course remove the evil, if the criminals could be detected and the punishment applied. But experience proves that bribery is one of the most difficult of all crimes to prove; while at the same time the powerful interests involved in most cases of political bribery render it extremely difficult to secure the punishment of the criminals, even when their guilt is undoubted. If candidates that had been elected by purchased votes could always be deprived of their seats in consequence, an effective check would be given to the bribing of voters; but this remedy is rarely avail able in this country, owing to the partisan character of our legislative bodies. It is notorious that contested election cases are apt to be decided in the interest of the

dominant party, with little regard to the justice of the case; and so long as this shameful practice continues no effectual check to bribery can be looked for in this quarter. The reform of the civil service will remove the temptation of the offices, but will not affect the other forms of bribery. It is true that when all officers are secure in their positions they will not be disposed, as many are now, to swell the corruption fund of their party; but there will be no lack of funds for all that. There are so many corporations and other interested parties seeking government favor, and so many rich men seeking office with little regard to the way they get it, that there will never be any lack of means for the purchase of voters and legislators.

It is evident that the only effectual remedy is the improvement of public sentiment and the enlightenment of the public mind as to the evils that bribery produces.

The improvement of public sentiment on this subject must necessarily be a work of time, and it cannot begin too soon. We may say, indeed, that it has already begun with the discussions of this year's canvass; but much more must be done in order to produce the desired effect on the public mind. It is especially incumbent on those who profess to lead and counsel the people on political subjects, whether in official station, in the press, or elsewhere, to lead the public aright in this matter. By exposing cases of bribery that may come to their knowledge, by showing what evils result from it, by denouncing it especially in their own party, by setting an example of perfect honesty in their own public life, and, above all, by scorning to use public station to advance their own private and pecuniary interests, they may do much to check the abuse even now, and perhaps remove it almost entirely at some future day.

The trouble is that men who would not themselves descend to bribery are criminally complaisant with regard to the use of foul means, when these are to advance their own interests and those of their own party. They are severe on the subject of buying votes only when the purchases are made in the interest of the otherside. Their standard of political morality is high, as applied to candidates whom they are trying to defeat!

False Issues.

In every political campaign large numbers of voters are moved in their political action by a consideration of side issues, questions not yet fully before the country, and some of which never will be. At times these side issues are legitimate enough, and sometimes serious changes in party politics are due to them; they may be, indeed, the means of originating new and influential parties, and of changing entirely the political history of a nation.

But, in addition to these side issues, there are very apt to be introduced into the canvass questions which are not only aside from the main points at issue, but which may be called absolutely false issues, issues which are selfish, interested, personal, which have to do with matters that do not concern voters purely as citizens, which may even lead to action opposed to the general good of the country. At a time when leading parties imitate each other, instead of opposing each other, in their official declarations of principles, such side issues and false issues especially abound, and seriously, sometimes disastrously, complicate the situation.

In the present Presidential campaign these side issues and false issues are numerous. Individual independence of political action was, perhaps, never so common in our politics as now, for the reason that party principles, at least as expressed in national "platforms," seem to be well-nigh verging into identity, and for the further reason that the present has come to be (from circumstances only too well known to our readers) a campaign having largely to do with the record, character, and fitness of the principal candidates. The leading side issue in the present campaign is the temperance question; a side issue, we say, not a false issue. It is not a false issue, because, whatever else may be said of the temperance movement in politics, it is not a selfish, interested, and personal movement, but a movement carried on, as its promoters profoundly believe, for the general good of the community, and not for the good, or supposed good, of a class.

As examples of false and illegitimate issues which have been raised during the present campaign, we will mention three. The first is that of religion, in its sectarian sense. The workings of this issue in American national politics are, in the main, subtle and secret; for there are not many nowadays who have the courage to acknowledge that they are moved by such considerations in their political decisions; and, moreover, secrecy is absolutely necessary when there may be danger of reaction were the religious question openly and definitely raised.

A second false issue has to do with the foreign birth or affiliations of portions of our population. In the suggestive article by Mr. Chamberlin in the September CENTURY on "The Foreign Elements in our Population," the author says: "I believe that no one accuses any large or influential portion of the foreign element of a set purpose to spread ideas subversive of our political institutions." It is true that the foreign element in our population would probably be the very last to advocate, for instance, a return to monarchical institutions. But that there are dangers in these foreign elements to the peace of the country, both at home and abroad, cannot be denied. Says Mr. Chamberlin:

"No greater danger can threaten than that the population will split into two or more castes, with caste hatreds and conflicts." The old class feeling as between native and foreign-born Americans has already been followed by class feeling between certain of the various foreign elements themselves, and in addition to this there are those among us who have set up as the measure of the fitness of an American to occupy office in his own land his devotion to the affairs of some other country! We yield to none in sympathy for the oppressed of all nations (including our own), be they Catholics, Jews, Protestants, or followers of Confucius; and we believe, with all our hearts, in the dignity of the American name and citizenship; but we resent attempts of demagogues in every party to mix foreign politics with those of the United States.

A third false issue is that which concerns the soldier element in our politics, and has to do with money, and not with principles. We can understand the appeal to soldiers, North or South, to "vote as they fought," and we can comprehend why it may be cordially responded to, - although the appeal is often a misleading and dangerous one, and is fortunately not so often heard now as it once was. We can understand, also, the sentiment that leads one who has been engaged in a conflict of arms to vote with whichever party he believes best represents the principles for which he endangered his life. But, supposing it to be true that the nation has already done its duty by the surviving soldiers, and by the widows and orphans of the lost, the pension issue in a political campaign seems to us an insult to American manhood, a false and sordid "issue,” which every self-respecting soldier should disown and condemn.

False issues like those we have alluded to introduce into our politics distracting elements which have no place there. They prevent the unbiased discussion and decision of broader questions. They are a hindrance and a nuisance, and every selfrespecting voter should see to it that he does not become entangled in their snares. When it comes to national elections, the true citizen should ask himself only this one question: What is best for the whole community - for the entire country? - not What is best for my pocket, for my class, for my section of the country?

A Rallying Point for a New Political Party.

THE peculiar features of the political campaign recall strikingly the prediction made in THE CENTURY on the passage of the Civil Service Reform Bill, nearly a year and a half ago, that the adoption of that measure would inevitably cause the disintegration of the old political parties, which have existed for years solely on the possession or expectation of patronage. As the commercial world on the passage of the Resumption Act began to adjust itself to the only true basis of financial security, so our political world on the adoption of the Civil Service Bill began to adjust itself to the true basis of efficient

administration. In little more than a year from the establishment of the reform we see the spoils system, which has been the one controlling feature of the last four Presidential struggles, practically eliminated from the national political contest.

Not a single principle remains which either party unitedly advocates or opposes; and in the absence of any living issue of principle the contest turns on the personal fitness or unfitness of candidates, and, as is inevitably the case in personal discussion, gravitates at once to the lowest level, and becomes merely an exchange of epithets, a bandying to and fro of charges of intellectual incapacity, moral obliquity, and even filth. It is not the " "young alumni" nor old alumni alone who are standing aloof from both political parties, but a vast body of men of all classes who seek in political action and association not mere personal advantage, but the promotion of the general welfare and the establishment of principles which they believe conducive thereto; and they stand thus aloof not be cause they are indifferent to political results, not from repugnance to active political work, not from fear of the victory or defeat of any particular political principle, but from abject fear of perpetuating power in the hands of one organization or conferring it upon another, when both are equally and totally devoid of any political principle whatever. What choice of evils, even, have we in the present contest? what encouragement for a serious effort to redeem the country from the disgrace of a campaign in which all the indecencies of our later politics have culminated ?

The only "third party" movement of note has been captured by a "politician" who repudiates civil service reform, upholds the present odious tariff, and deliberately advocates the taxing of the nation to furnish gratuities to a class.

We have nothing to hope for in this campaign save that the revolt from the old standards may throw the election into the House of Representatives; but during the two years which will elapse before another general election for representatives in Congress, we may hope to organize a party to whose platform the independent voter may subscribe without doing violence either to his intelligence or his integrity. For such an organization there can be no better startingpoint than that suggested by Mr. Spahr in his letter in THE CENTURY for August: "Reform of the Civil Service and of the Tariff."

Of the first little need be said; the work is well be gun, and must simply be kept going. The reform of our revenue system is now, and is likely to be for many years, the most important issue in national politics. An organization which will champion this movement on lines broad enough to include all its sincere advocates, may hope not only to inaugurate the reform, but to permanently establish it; for such a party may with certainty count on being the dominant power in the nation for the next quarter of a century. But the work must begin with a reform in the terminology of the tariff discussion. Writers and speakers who wish to be read and understood of men must cease to use the word "protection" as synonymous with "high" tariff," or as the antithesis of "free trade." The protection of its own interests is what every nation is, or should be, aiming at; and the problem of our current political economy is to find out what particular adjust ment of our revenue system will best promote the general welfare. Great Britain, after a long experience of high tariff, concluded that her interests were in general best "protected" by the low tariff, which economists call "free trade," joined with a rigid excise, for the primary and almost exclusive purpose of yielding revenue to the state. It has seemed, or at least it has been made to appear, to a majority of our own people, that our interests as a nation are best protected by a high tariff, which the greed of monopolists and the zeal of their representatives have trans formed into a prohibitory tariff-a system as idiotic as it is iniquitous. The organization which undertakes the reform of our revenue system should welcome all

voters who are sincerely anxious for a rational adjustment, and willing to subordinate their individual opinions to the slight modifications of a general agreement, which must be under constant revision and steadily tending toward lower duties and greater freedom from commercial restrictions. The most odious feature of the existing tariff is, of course, the enforced tribute to monopolies which results from prohibitory duties; and the next worst feature is the excessive taxation which produces an enormous annual surplus to be prodigally and profligately expended by the votes of log-rolling representatives. We want a system which will give us protection without monopoly and revenue without surplus.

The point at which our interest will be best protected lies somewhere between a prohibitory tariff and absolute free trade. No revenue system can ever reach the point of final adjustment; it must at best be in the condition which physicists call "unstable equilibrium," but should vary as little as possible from a line of maximum efficiency established by the great consensus of the people acting through instructed representatives. In no direction will the beneficent effect of civil service reform be more marked than in the impetus it will give to a rational discussion of tariff and revenue questions, by creating a permanent class of intelligent, expert treasury officials who will rescue our industries from the empirical violence of volunteer tariff-tinkers. When such men, armed with the experience of long official service, shall find a welcome on the floor of the House, - either as members, through the "open constituencies" reform, or as counselors without votes, by virtue of the offices they hold, we may look for an end to the heresies and abominations of our recent economic legislation.

JOHNSVILLE, MICHIGAN.

E. B.

The "Christian League's" Practicability.

THE September CENTURY contains a criticism upon Dr. Gladden's "Christian League of Connecticut." As a frequent listener to Dr. Gladden's preaching and a firm believer in his doctrines regarding the League, I should like to say a few words in reply.

The attack which is made consists mainly in an exposition of the evils which would result from the consolidation of discordant elements. On this point no line of defense need be drawn up, since Dr. Gladden does not hold the position which is assailed. He would be the last man to urge any such consolidation. Because he holds that there ought to be unity among the churches, it does not follow that he believes in forcing such unity upon them. He believes, as the readers of THE CENTURY well know, that there ought to be temperance; but he believes that the laws of temperance must first be written in the hearts of the people. He realizes most thoroughly that though the truths of natural science may be put in practice as soon as they are discovered, the truths of social science can only be put in practice when they are accepted by the public consciousness. In the matter of a Christian League, he would not urge the forcing together of enemies, since that would increase their enmity. He would urge the bringing together of friends, since that would increase their friendship.