Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/70

 Judicial Killing.

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what our fears as to the result to human in a man is to hang the image of God. The stitutions, if the practice be bad it must be book of Revelation, Apoc. xiii, 10, says: renounced. Nothing that is Divine or just " He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword;" and Matt, xxvi, 52. can be injured by so doing. First, eternal principle, next, human con "He that taketh the sword, the same by trivances. If a principle be true we must the sword shall perish." What would our not hesitate at consequences. Duty is ours; friends say had this command been carried consequences, Gods. Flinty must be that out literally on their patriot fathers? Christ heart that feels no interest in the subject. sought to mitigate the rigor of the old Law, However guilty men may be, their guilt can Matthew v, 38,39, "Ye have heard that it be atoned for better living than dead. I may hath been said, an eye for an eye and a regard a man as dangerous to my existence tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite and to that of those about me, but while tak ing all due precaution to protect myself I thee on thy right check turn to him the must not usurp the authority of the State other, also." The former passage of Scrip and punish him or slay him; otherwise, if I ture is the strongest that can be wrested into wished for an excuse to take the life of an the service of the death penalty. Although individual, I have only to persuade myself the command of Almighty God — Thou shalt not kill,— is addressed to the individ that he is dangerous and ought to die. The essential spirit of Christianity must be ual and not to the State, it is reasonable to learned from the teachings of Christ and the hold that even the State should not resort to example of Christ and His apostles. Love killing except in extreme cases of dire necessity, such as in repelling foreign aggres is the theme— what is it? It is long-suffer ing, never studying its own advantage, not sion or to protect the lives of its citizens when in imminent peril. St. Paul concedes resentful, never purposes injury, tender hearted, pitiful and kind. Can this spirit be this right to the ruler of the State. " If thou reconciled to the penal and military codes? do evil, fearhim, for he is a ministerof God and beareth not the sword in vain." Rom. xiii, 4. Many innocent men are hanged. Montaigne in one of his essays says, The spirit of love supplies the wants of enemies; vengeance strips them of all "The horror of one murder makes me fear things. The former heals, the latter wounds. the other," that is, the judicial. Killing is The one mild and gentle, the other ferocious repugnant to human nature except in its and savage. The one ever ready to suffer, savage or vengeful moods, and civil society the other to kill. The one erects gibbets, should exhibit the higher rather than the the other takes them down. These means baser traits of humanity. Although the death penalty is on the were hostile one to the other as much as the wolf and the lamb. Love never built a statute books of most of the United States, gallows or strangled men. It is impious the number of murders in this country last mockery to doom even an enemy of society year was proportionally greater than that to death, and then pray for his soul without of any other nation from which we have giving him time to repent and seek Divine statistics. The humanitarian feelings that now so forgiveness. The same billet carrying a message of forgiveness but a surety of death. generally prevail cause a miscarriage of jus Bloody-minded revenge is not Christian tice in many cases where the death penalty forbearance. is the only consequence of a verdict of guil Is man the image of God? Is he the ty. It thus becomes an incentive to crime temple of the Holy Ghost? Then to hang rather than a deterrent.