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 regarding the  death  penalty. Such revolting  cruelty, they say,  is  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  these  days  of higher  civilization,  and  against  it  is  the  sentiment  of the  majority. According to  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, punishment is  cruel  only  when  it  is  wanton,  excessive, and  that  death  is  the  only  adequate  penalty  for certain crimes  has  already  been  proven. Besides, the advocates of  life  imprisonment  claim  it  is  severer punishment than  death,  so  that  the  argument  from cruelty might  be  turned  against  themselves. No doubt criminals  to  a  man  would  vote  for  abolition, which of  itself  is  a  cogent  reason  for  preserving  the law as  it  stands. Anyhow, it  might  be  well  to  place the blame  of  such  cruelties  where  it  belongs — not  on the  State,  which  regards  them  as  lamentable  necessities, but  on  the  criminals  themselves  who  evoke them.

Indeed it  is  hard  to  see  how  this  movement  can plume itself  on  being  a  product  of  superior  culture, when its  very  existence  depends  upon  the  fact  that certain types  of  the  modern  Christian  are  more shocked at  the  sight  of  sensible  pain  than  by  moral evil. The desire  for  the  abolition  of  capital  punishment is  in  line  with  the  desire  for  the  abolition  of hell  and  many  other  disagreeable  things. One kind lady went  so  far  as  to  quote  the  dying  Saviour's words:  "Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not what  they  do." The force  of  the  argument  is  not quite clear,  for  as  it  proves  nothing  or  proves  too much, the  result  in  either  case  is  identical. An ancient commentator  on  the  Gospels  makes  the  quaint