On Crime Happens in Every Neighborhood: As to the difference between that material civilization now prevailing

So Bonita is out on the neighbors porch for a while after we got back from the garden this evening. I hear animated discussion. Everybody has a story of being burglarized to share. We're not alone. Happens in every neighborhood. -gw

Divine civilization, however, so traineth every member of society that no one, with the exception of a negligible few, will undertake to commit a crime. There is thus a great difference between the prevention of crime through measures that are violent and retaliatory, and so training the people, and enlightening them, and spiritualizing them, that without any fear of punishment or vengeance to come, they will shun all criminal acts. They will, indeed, look upon the very commission of a crime as a great disgrace and in itself the harshest of punishments. They will become enamoured of human perfections, and will consecrate their lives to whatever will bring light to the world and will further those qualities which are acceptable at the Holy Threshold of God. 

“Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá”, Sec. 105, pp. 132–33

 

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