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6-12 Ethics & Social Responsibility [CH 6

In the process of time, as the child grew up to be a man, he accustomed
himself to greater robberies; and at last, being apprehended and
committed to jail, he was tried and condemned for his felony.
On the day of his execution, as the officers were conducting him to the
gallows, he was attended by a vast crowd of people, and among the
crowd was his mother, who came sighing and sobbing along, and taking
on extremely for her son’s unhappy fate; which the criminal observing,
called to the sheriff, and begged a favour of him, that he would give him
leave to speak a word or two to his poor afflicted mother.
The sheriff, unwilling to deny a dying Man so reasonable a request, gave
him permission; and the felon, while as everyone thought, he was
whispering something of importance to his mother, bit off her ear, to the
great offence and surprise of the whole assembly.
What, say they, was not this villain contented with the impious facts that
he has already committed, but that he must increase the number of them,
by doing this violence to his mother?
Good people, replied he, I would not have ye be under a mistake; that wicked
woman deserves this, and even worse at my hands; for if she had chastised and
chided, instead of rewarding and caressing me when in my infancy I stole the
hornbook from the school, I would not come to this ignominious, untimely end.

THE APPLICATION
Samuel Croxall offers us his application on this fable:
“Notwithstanding the great innate depravity of mankind, one need not scruple
to affirm, that most of the wickedness which is so frequent and so pernicious in
the world, arises from a bad education; and that the child is obliged either to the
example or connivance of its parents, for the most of the vicious habits which it
wears through the course of its future life. The mind of one that is young is like
wax, soft, and capable of any impression which is given it; but is hardened by
time, and the first signature grows so firm and durable, that scarce any pains or
“People need to be applications can erase it. It is a mistaken notion in people, when they imagine that
reminded more often than there is no occasion for regulating or restraining the actions of very young
they need to be instructed.”
The real job of every moral children, which, though allowed to be sometimes very naughty in those of a more
teacher is to keep on advanced age, are in them, they suppose, altogether innocent and inoffensive.
bringing us back, time after But, however innocent they may be, as to their intention then, yet, as the practice
time, to the old simple may grow upon them unobserved, and root itself into a habit, they ought to be
principles which we are all checked and [disapproved firmly] in their first efforts towards anything that is
so anxious not to see… injurious or dishonest; that the love of virtue and the abhorrence of wrong and
oppression, may be let into their minds, at the same time that they receive the
very first dawn of understanding, and glimmering of reason. Whatever guilt arises
from the actions of one whose education has been deficient as to this point, no
question but a just share of it will be laid, by the Great Judge of the world, to the
charge of those who were, or should have been his instructors.”

A moral issue: Man covets and there are consequences
Bernard Madoff will no doubt go down in history as Wall Streets’ most notorious
criminal. He systematically bilked investors out of $65 billion, as estimated by the
prosecutors, in the largest Ponzi scheme extant, and which involved 4,800 clients. His
actions far eclipsed the 1980’s insider trading scandals involving junk bond financiers
Michael Milken and Ivan Bosky. Among Madoff’s victims were a number of
“You shall not covet your celebrities such as Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick; Zsa Zsa Gabor and her 9
th
neighbor’s house; you husband lost almost $10 million. Director Stephen Spielberg and DreamWorks
shall not covet your executive Jeffrey Katzenberg lost money they had invested for their Wunderkind
neighbor’s wife, or his
male servant, or his Foundation. Other celebrities that fell victim to Madoff were CNN’s Larry King,
female servant, or his ox, retired Los Angeles Dodger pitcher Sandy Koufax, and John Robbins of the Baskin’
or his donkey, or Robbins Ice Cream family. Thousands of retirees lost their entire savings, and Madoff
anything that is your even scammed $3 million from his own sister. Madoff took money from investors and
neighbor’s.” used their money to pay out profits to earlier investors. As long as the new money kept
— Exodus 20:17 coming into his system it worked well so that no one was aware of how his system was
structured—which was on fraud and deceit. Madoff promised his investors a return of
12% to 20% on their investment, and their greed kept them at bay as long as they
received their payments, which were derived from the funds of new investors and not
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