184 LESLIE M. SCOTT

bidding him, as he valued life, to triumph over it. ... The text is, 'Deliver us from evil.' It is a mistaken method of moral work when the text is reversed and men think, by putting temptation out of the way, or by trying to remove from sight things that may be perverted, to make moral character." Again on December 28, 1909 : "If any philosopher or if the philos- opher is to be ruled out if any charlatan or quack can discover a way by which temptation can be resisted or character can be formed except in the presence of temptation, he will be a world's wonder. The problem was beyond Omniscience and Omnipo- tence."

Drunkards are to blame for their excess, not the person sell- ing the liquor ; nor the law which fails to suppress it ; drinkers create the saloon by their demand for it. The one way to dimin- ish the liquor traffic is to diminish the demand. Intemperance is in the man, not in the whisky. It is not the fallen woman who is responsible for the social evil, but the men who seek her. It is not the "keeper of the game" who is responsible for the evils of gambling but the persons whose demand cre- ates the game and supports it. It is not the "loan shark" who is responsible for usury but the persons who seek to pay exces- sive interest. Those who stray from the strict moral code of sex are not to blame other influences than their own weakness. Parents whose children go wrong are to hold responsible noth- ing else than their own neglect or failure of training. Morally weak persons who fail to hold themselves erect should pay the penalty, either in punishment or elimination. This poor fellow can't resist the seductions of drink (October 7, 1887) ; that poor fellow can't resist the seductions of the painted woman; the other poor fellow can't resist the seductions of the gaming table. And all of these poor fellows are a cheap lot, none of them worth saving and the world would be better without them." All this was a grim rule of conduct, yet it accorded, he said, with the world's experience. It did not mean that society was to fail to protect its weak members against the aggressions of the strong. "But it cannot protect the weak against them- selves without trenching on the rights of free action (May 24,