Day drooped into Eve, but the tempest still raged-
As tho' its vast fury refused to be 'suaged:

Still flash'd the blue lightning, still fell the fast rain,
Still cours'd thro' the sky the wild winds' moaning train :-
Eve sunk into Night-but the storm did increase!
Not an instant-not one-did the lightning's flash cease!
It seem'd that the Earth were forsaken by Peace,

And left to the Hurricane's awful caprice.

At length as the World seem'd to tremble and rock,

And the wind was as strong as a Giant Siroc,

And men looked at least for an earthquake's dread shock,
And the sound of His Sulphury Majesty's knock,

The storm reach'd its height, and-it struck twelve o'clock !!

I dare say you know that at that time of day

St. Paul's wasn't built; but however, just there,
There was then, vide Somebody's "Saxon Survey,"
A church which was named St. Matthias le Frere.
Well just at the time

When the midnight chime

Of Matthias saluted the ear of Night-
A bit of the sward,

In the old churchyard,

Burst open-and out came a figure in white!
You'll hardly believe it, but still it was true,
'Twas the baron I up-above mentioned to you!!

Of course there was speedily gather'd a throng;
Men, women, and children ran pelting along,
Just as people do now to hear "Punch" or a song:
Well the baron stood still till he saw a large crowd,
Though he seem'd not to like to stand waiting so long,
And then "hem"-ming twice-

Just to clear up his voice

He spoke, in a tone very ghostly and loud,

These words-which you'll say-for a baron-were choice: 66 My friends! you behold

An unfortunate file,

Who on earth was so bold
As to curse and revile
The pope and the priors,
The monks and the martyrs,
The priests and the friars,
The church and its charters,
And who-Faith I shiver,
And furthermore quiver,
In head, heart and liver
To say it-refus'd-

(Oh my mind was abus'd

By those foes of morality, sin and strong liquor-)
To pay up my church-rates and tithes to the vicar.

Oh could I but show

What I suffer below,

It would harrow the hardest hearts' feelings, I know !
I conjure ye then, friends ! by my sentence to profit,
Pay up what is owing and keep out of Tophet!
Don't dare disbelieve me, you'll rue if you doubt,
Remember this maxim, 'FORK OVER, FORK OUT;

PAY YOUR TITHES! PAY YOUR TITHES! MARK THE HOLY MAN'S CRY!
PAY YOUR TITHES! PAY YOUR TITHES! IF YOU'D QUIETLY DIE!

PAY YOUR TITHES! IF IN PEACE IN YOUR GRAVES YOU WOULD LIE ! "

This said, he fell back in his coffin again,

The thunder gave over, and so did the rain,
The tempest concluded its odd sort of strain,
The crowd went away,

And from after that day,

The Saint never sent his collectors in vain.

I trust that there's not any need to discuss
The beautiful lesson this teaches to us :

I hope that you all pay your tithes and your dues,
Your taxes, your rates, and the rents of your pews-
If you don't-Faith! I'd rather not stand in
your shoes!

Allow me once more then-O heed while you may !—

To borrow your ears for a moment, and say

"PAY YOUR TITHES! PAY YOUR TITHES! BEAR IN MIND THE SAINT'S

CRY;

PAY YOUR TITHES! PAY YOUR TITHES! IF YOU'D QUIETLY DIE;

PAY YOUR TITHES! IF IN PEACE IN YOUR GRAVES YOU WOULD LIE!

The Smithy, November, 1842.

J. L. S.

TO ISABEL.

Thou know'st I praise not with a flatterer's tongue,
And wilt accept, perchance, a humble lay,
Warm from a heart o'er which thou oft hast flung
A beam of light, to chase Care's gloom away.
O! should we meet no more-the lingering tone
Of thy sweet melody, that "antique song "
Shall echo round me when, all still and lone,

I bid pale Memory summon forth her throng
Of bygone joys-bright dreams that fled too fast,
Of dear kind voices that earth owns no more;
The melancholy music of the past

Sweeping so sweetly sad the heartstrings o'er!
Fair minstrel, may Life's current flow for thee,
Clear as the stream of thine own melody!

DELTA.

THE THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT AGAINST CAPITAL

PUNISHMENT.

PERHAPS of all the supporters of Capital Punishment those who defend it on the ground that it is sanctioned by religion are the most numerous and the most unyielding. In this class are to be found many who own the impolicy, humanly speaking, of the infliction of death-many who are willing to admit that it is for the most part unjust between man and man, and between the ruler and the subject-many whose moral feelings revolt from the punishment; but who yet give it their sanction and approval, because they fancy that there is a Divine Command which orders its infliction, and which is superior to any political, social, or moral consideration.

The antagonists, therefore, that I have, in this section of my subject, to contend against, are the most formidable I am called upon to encounter; for I have not only to meet them on their own ground, and to fight them with their own weapons, but I have to overcome their preconceived notions on the subject to engage and to defeat their advance-guard-before they will condescend to put themselves in battle array against me: however, I am ready for the fight; I know and I have proved my weapons; and I ask no more than a fair field and no favour.

The first difficulty which presents itself to me is, as I have hinted, the repugnance on the part of my opponents to examine the question at all. I have frequently heard well-meaning people say when spoken to on the subject,-" O! we have no right to inquire; the punishment is ordered and approved by the Almighty: shall we question the Commands of God? the matter is disposed of by Him." Now, as the only way of meeting this view of the case, I will at once admit that if the punishment be ordered, sanctioned, and approved by God,-taking the Bible as the revelation of His will to man,-we have no right to question the propriety of the infliction: but I deny that the infliction of death is commanded in the Bible, and it cannot be wrong to inquire whether it be so or not. It is to that inquiry that I intend to devote this chapter; and, knowing as I do the triumphant case I have before me, I do not hesitate to say that, although my opponents are stronger and more numerous than any I have hitherto met, I shall be enabled to prove, even more convincingly than I have heretofore done, the correctness of my conclusion on this subject.

I trust that in the course of my remarks I shall carefully abstain from anything that may bear the slightest semblance to an irreverent use of the Word of God, and I entreat my antagonists to approach the matter calmly, to lay aside their prejudices, and to be ready to confess their error should I show them to be wrong.

The supposed Divine Command is considered to exist, primarily, in the precept given by God to Noah on leaving the ark, and which in the Old Testament version is thus rendered," Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed ;" and it is thought that this command is confirmed in the Jewish Law given by God to Moses, in which the leader and his government are expressly autho

rised to put murderers to death. The course of this argument, therefore, will be to review these two considerations.

We will take first the communication to Noah. When Noah and his sons left the ark, God said to them,

"And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made He man." (Genesis ix. 5, 6.) It is said by the supporters of Capital Punishment that this is to be taken as a positive command from God to man in all time, authorising and ordering him to take away the life of those who commit murder. I object to this reading on three grounds:

First-That the precept was not meant to be universally and through all time applied;

Secondly-That as the words apply to homicide generally, it is

not right to enforce their application to murder only; And Thirdly-That the precept is not in the strict sense of the term a COMMAND, but merely a denunciation.

First,-This precept was not meant for universal application. It was given to Noah and his sons; and for what purpose? The human family was small; out of this family the world had to be replenished; it needed careful preservation lest it should be destroyed. So urgent was this necessity that God makes every man answerable for his brother's life; nay, he says that at the hand of every beast will He require the life of man. This last is a most remarkable passage, and when taken in connection with the former part of the sentence, will tend greatly to support the view I have adopted. God actually makes the irrational brute responsible for the life of man! The reason is evident; it is because of the great necessity there was for man's preservation. The necessity was peculiar to the occasion, and hence the peculiar and immediate nature of the responsibility.

But when the purpose was accomplished, this extraordinary care became no longer necessary. The danger was past, and the means of averting that danger became useless. Will any one say that every man is still responsible for his brother's life? or that God still requires the life of man at the hand of every beast? No! the end for which that responsibility was created is achieved, and therefore the responsibility has ceased. Who would now be justified in claiming the blood-avenging right?

When the precept was given the world was in a state of barbarism. There was no government-no law-no protection ;-each man was his own lawgiver, his own judge, his own avenger. But as time advanced, and civilization and government progressed, and men formed themselves into communities,-order, security and peace were established, and the individual lost all right to retaliate and to avenge.

I say lost all right to retaliate and to avenge; not transferred it to the civil power, but lost it. It will be seen that I am admitting for a moment that at one time man had this right; but let nothing be built upon that. I introduce the position only that I may dispute it,

and I mention it in order to show to those who rely upon this point that even if it be granted that this right of retaliation ever existed, it could only appertain to a particular condition of the race, in which a stringent necessity occurred; and that with the termination of that condition, with the passing away of that necessity,—the right must of course become forfeited.

To say as the supporters of the right of the State to inflict death do say that the individual right of retaliation was transferred to the civil power, is to offer the best argument in the world against the continuance of the right at all. The right is only to be defended on the ground that it is personally and immediately necessary, and if it can be safely transferred, it can be as safely dispensed with altogether. And here I cannot help remarking upon the admission, on the part of many of the strongest supporters of this punishment, that a time may come when it may be safely discontinued. Why, what is this but saying, that God's ordinanee enjoining the shedding of blood is not meant for all time? If the command be so plain and peremptory as these very same persons aver, how can they admit that it can ever cease to be binding upon man? and if they admit that it can ever cease to be binding, how great a pity it is that they do not tell us when this period is to arrive; and how much greater a pity it is that they so loudly anathematize and so sadly miscal those who happen to be a little in advance of them, and who believe that the expected time is come!

There is a tendency in the human mind to disbelieve the arrival of a long-expected time or event, and to imagine it is yet to come. The other day, when the Queen got the start of the inhabitants of Edinburgh and was on her way to the Highlands, an old gentleman persisted in believing that she had not arrived in the Forth; and waited till nightfall in expectation of her approach. The people who believe that the time is coming when Capital Punishment may be safely dispensed with, are just like the old gentleman alluded to. The time is come-but the watchers have been asleep-and waking they are not aware-and they will not believe-that the visitor has been. Like the Jews, who still wait for their Messiah-these people still look for the advent of mercy; and as it is the case that the Jews have persisted, and do yet persist, in their infatuation, although two-thirds of the world have been Christianized, so it is also the case that the expectants of the Mercy-Day yet wait for its dawning, although its beauteous beams already gild the world.

I come now to the second objection I raised against that reading of the Noachid precept which says that the words enjoin the punishment of death for murder, viz.—

That as the words apply to HOMICIDE GENERALLY, it is not right to enforce their application to MURDER ONLY.

The words are "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." "Whoso;" there is no distinction here; nothing that points out the murderer any more than the mere man-slayer. The act is the crime, whether it be committed by accident or design. To preserve the human family was the aim, and of course the loss of a member of it was as disastrous by accident as by intention. The precept is therefore given so as to include the loss of life by any