Essays on the punishment of death / [Charles Spear].

  • Charles Spear
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on the punishment of death / [Charles Spear]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    109/258 page 105
    ‘ Every execution,’ says Dr. Lushington, in parlia¬ ment, c brings an additional candidate for the hang¬ man ! ’ We know that some divines have even urged that the law was humane; that the perpetrator has been induced to think seriously of divine things, and led to repentance; and, in his last hours, has confessed the justice of his sentence, and given glory to God. Granting even that such cases have occurred—and they are like angels’ visits, few and far between—still, the law itself appears in no better light. Indeed, it appears cruel, even giving it this favorable view. Monstrous law ! To cut off a human being, whose heart had just begun to feel the emotions of returning virtue; whose eyes were just opening to the enormity of his crime ! Strange inconsistency ! Like the phy¬ sician, who should recommend that, on the recovery of his patient, he should be murdered ! Tender mercies indeed! This is hanging a criminal for very love and kindness. There is still another serious aspect to our subject. Can we be certain that divine grace may not renew the heart even of the vilest, if life is spared? We cannot extend our remarks on this part of our sub¬ ject.* We simply observe that, among the most heroic of Christian martyrs, we shall find those who have been the most deeply corrupt The Corinthian church contained many whose lives had been stained with the blackest crimes. ‘ The infallible apostle of the Catho- * Tne Author designs to take up this view of the subject in a distinct volume. In his travels, he is now preparing the materials for such a work. His great object, throughout the present labor, was to show the wrongfulness of the punishment of death. He intended to have gone farther, but the great abundance of facts obliged him to confine the present volume to one point. See Appendix, II.
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