n, with the supreme contempt of a pure and genuine soul,
denounced in such withering terms those who pretended to be what they
were not. Evil and repulsive as hypocrisy must ever appear, it assumes
colossal proportions as a moral crime, when it masquerades in the
robes of official authority, for nothing so surely undermines all
respect for law in the mind of the masses as exhibitions of
insincerity, inconsistency, and Pharisaism by those invested with
power. The people are not so slow witted as the few who take pride in
their superior brilliancy imagine. They quickly detect insincerity or
hypocrisy; but unfortunately, they frequently do not discriminate
between the offender and the office in the nation or the communion
which he disgraces. Pharisaism within the Church, far more than
assaults from without, has destroyed the old-time influence of
theology over the popular mind; while the same results are clearly
manifest in our political fabric. In the latter sphere, hypocrisy is
doubly odious, in that while undermining the confidence of the people
in law, justice, and government, it places far greater power in the
hands of pretentious individuals than would be tolerated were it not
for their profession of superior virtue, and thus enables persons who
are of small moral stature, or who through defective training and
unfortunate environment are thoroughly narrow and bigoted, to wield
despotic power, often bringing swift and severe punishment on those
far less guilty in the eye of the moral law than themselves. Believing
as I do that Pharisaism is to-day one of the greatest evils which
menace the stability of our government and the continued advance of
civilization along the highway of enlightened progress, I feel it an
urgent duty to frankly and freely discuss some notable recent
illustrations which to unprejudiced minds take on the cast of
Pharisaism, and are symptomatic of a condition which presages the
moral decline of a nation. For if history teaches one lesson more
impressively than another, it is that in which she emphasizes the fact
that when Pharisaism becomes enthroned in power, when hypocrisy
mantles insincerity and depravity, the soul of a people goes out; and
though the form or shadow of former greatness may remain for a time,
like the oak which remains standing after the tap-root has been eaten
out, vitality, growth, and life have vanished.

The first case which calls for attention is that of Joseph A. Britton,