You have adopted a right course, my dearest Secundus, in
investigating the charges against the Christians who were brought
before you. It is not possible to lay down any general rule for all
such cases. Do not go out of your way to look for them. If indeed
they should be brought before you, and the crime is proved, they
must be punished; with the restriction, however, that where the
party denies he is a Christian, and shall make it evident that he is
not, by invoking our gods, let him (notwithstanding any former
suspicion) be pardoned upon his repentance. Anonymous information
ought not to be received in any sort of prosecution. It is
introducing a very dangerous precedent, and is quite foreign to the
spirit of our age.

Civilization is largely a question of new machinery and methods. It is
not the humanizing of men. It is plain that no matter what the time or
age, the characteristics of man remain the same. His structure does not
change; his emotional life cannot change. New objects and desires may
control his feeling, but whatever the aim of the age and place, the same
inherent emotions control.

Intolerance has been one of the great sources of evil all down the ages.
It is practically certain that neither time nor education has made man
more kindly in his judgment of his fellows or more tolerant in his
opinions and life. All that education can do is to remove some of the
inducing causes that have always brought the sharp conflicts and
awakened the cruelty of man.

Every civilization brings new evils and new complexities which man meets
with the same machine and the same emotions. It is fairly certain that
no nobler idealism or no finer feelings have been planted or cultivated
in man since the dawn of history, and when it is thoroughly realized
that man's structure is fixed and cannot be changed it seems as if none
could be developed.

XXXI

THE CONVICT

Human nature is so weak and imperfect that, at its best, it needs all
the encouragement it can get. The comradeship of friends, and the
attitude of the public and acquaintances are of the greatest importance
in effecting the development of most lives. Sooner or later the
convicted man is turned out either on probation or parole, or at the
expiration of his sentence. He was probably none too strong a man before
his conviction. His heredity was poor in most cases, and his environment
completed his downf