The Letter of the Law

In order to justify their own action, men, knowingly or otherwise, are constantly trying to define evil in such a way as to give themselves a comfortable conscience. Unto certain Scribes and Pharisees, who were seemingly attempting to do this very thing, Jesus the Christ often paid his scathing respects, for he perceived their desire to have evil narrowly and precisely defined so that by observing the letter they could be absolved from infractions of the spirit. The broad implications of the spirit of the law are often too all-inclusive for comfort and convenience. Both the best of men and the worst of men have their own codes of conduct within which they strive to live in order to satisfy conscience. Some sincere and well-intentioned men become narrowly obsessed with one principle of goodness, and become blinded to many kinds of evil. Some are disposed to be just in some places and unjust in others—to recognize universal principles, but with reluctance to give them universal application. Some hope to seal their lives off into convenient compartments—to not let the right hand know what the left hand doeth, so to speak—to benefit on the one hand by things they can not condone on the other. Some try to purchase the fruits of respectability with the grains of questionable enterprise, hoping that generosity to good causes will silence all questions to where or how they acquired what they have. There are then some who become so absorbed with forms and formalities, that both the spirit and the intent of what they do escape them. It is a fact that any man may adjudge himself to be good, if we permit him to make his own definition of evil. But let evil be broadly defined. Let it include, of course, any neglect of essential form and formalities. And then, beyond this, let it surely include anything that enslaves men in mind, in habit, as well as physically. Let it include anything that impairs health, anything that destroys happiness, anything that retards human progress, anything that suppresses or misuses or ignores truth. Let it include anything anyone could do to someone else that he wouldn’t want have done to himself. Let it include also many things we should have done and haven’t or that we could have done and didn’t. Let evil be thus broadly defined, and anyone who may have taken comfort in a narrow definition will see the letter of the law shriveling pitiably in the presence of the broad spirit of good.