Yes, the biblical stories are to be taken in a figurative sense; they
stand as symbols for spiritual actions in the nature of man; though that
is not to say that the events narrated did not actually take place as
recorded. But Joshua had faith; and faith in the hearts of the champions
of right begets fear in the hearts of supporters of wrong, and the
defenses they have so laboriously built up tumble distractedly about their
ears when the trumpets of the Lord blow and the people who believe in Him
utter a mighty shout. Our jails are our Jericho; the evils which they
encompass and protect are greater than the sins of that strong city; but a
breath may shatter them into irretrievable ruin. Not compromises; not
gradual and circumspect approaches; not prudent considerations of
political economy, nor sound sociological principles; but simple faith in
God and a blast on the ram's horn.

My business in this book was to show that penal imprisonment is an evil,
and its perpetuation a crime; that it does not reform the criminal but
destroys him body and soul; that it does not protect the community but
exposes it to incalculable perils; and that the assumption that a
criminal class exists among us separate and distinct from any and
the best of the rest of us is Pharisaical, false and wicked. The
"Subterranean Brotherhood" are our brothers--they are ourselves, unjustly
and vainly condemned to serve as scapegoats for the rest. What the
criminal instinct or propensity in a man needs is not seclusion, misery,
pain and despotic control, but free air and sunlight, free and cheerful
human companionship, free opportunity to play his part in human service,
and the stimulus, on all sides of him, of the example of such service.
Men enfeebled by crime are not cured by punishment, or by homilies and
precepts, but by taking off our coats and showing them personally how
honest and useful things are done. And let every lapse and failure on
their part to follow the example, be counted not against them, but