health, and sidetrack his
political ambitions. An eminent editor in the Middle West, speaking before
the Press Association of his State several years ago, said: "There is not
a man in the United States today who has tried honestly to do anything to
change the fundamental conditions that make for poverty, disease, vice,
and crime in our great cities, in our courts and in our legislatures, who,
at the very time at which his efforts seemed most likely to succeed, has
not been suddenly turned upon and rent by the great newspaper
publications." A volume of truthful biographical sketches of such leaders
would give us a history of the cross in politics, and would tell us more
about Christianity as an effective force in our country than some church
statistics.

III

Jesus took the sin of throttling the prophets very seriously. It is sin on
a higher level than the side-stepping of frail human nature, or the wrongs
done in private grievances. Since the Kingdom of God is the highest thing
there is, an attempt to block it or ruin it is the worst sin. Our hope for
the advance of the race and its escape from its permanent evils is
conditioned on keeping our moral perceptions clear and strong. Suffocating
the best specimens of moral intelligence and intimidating the rest by
their fate quenches the guiding light of mankind. Is anything worse?

Jesus held that the rejection of the prophets might involve the whole
nation in guilt and doom. How does the action of Caiaphas and a handful of
other men involve all the rest? By virtue of human solidarity. One sins
and all suffer, because all are bound together. A dominant group acts for
all, and drags all into disaster. This points to the moral importance of
good government. If exploiters and oppressors are in control of society,
its collective actions will be guided and determined by the very men who
have most to fear from the Kingdom of God and most inclination to stifle
the prophetic voices.

But the same solidarity which acts as a conductor of sin will also serve
as a basis to make the attack of the righteous few effective for all. If
the suffering of good men puts a just issue where all can see and
understand, it intensifies and consolidates the right feeling of the
community. The suffering of a leader calls out passionate sympathy and
loyalty, sometimes in a dangerous degree. In the labor movement almost any
fault is forgiven to a man who has been in prison for the cause of labor