He speaks pointedly of the law as a means to an end :-" The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ;" and he speaks of that end as come. "But after that faith is come, we are no longer under

a schoolmaster."

Truly may we say with Him, when after this many who read the sacrificial law of Moses determine to retain it, "But even unto this day, when the law of Moses is read, the veil is on their hearts."

I do in my heart wonder how it can be that, with the Holy Gospel of God before them, men can still defend the awful law of blood. The whole of the New Testament opposes it; mercy and benevolence are the Gospel's characteristics; forgiveness and pardon are its Godlike lessons. Whenever the sacred volume treats of the duties of man towards man, it inculcates loving-kindness and forgetfulness of injuries, and teaches the sublime doctrine that God is the only Judge of all the earth; and that all men being equally guilty in his sight, no man has the right to cast the first stone at an offender. Examine it on this point; reflect on the lessons its sacred pages teach; remark the mildness and the clemency it breathes in every line; behold its exemplification in the person of its Divine Founder, and then ask yourselves whether the infliction of a violent and cruel death on the person of an offending brother is in accordance with that principle which bids us, if our enemy smite us on the one cheek, to turn to him the other?

And here I will speak again of the awful consequences of sending a murderer's soul to its account, and from that consideration I will argue that man has no right to do the deed. Reflect, reader, on this! Think of those awful consequences! Remember that you deprive a fellow-creature of his only hope of happiness for the future!-that for one crime, and that a crime of earth-you punish him with an eternal award of misery! A crime that was conceived and executed in one short moment meets with endless pain and torment! Time cannot expiate the guilt-years, centuries-myriads of centuries roll. on, and still the avenger is unappeased-still the wretch must suffer! His torture knows no end; his judge can show no mercy; forever in his ears must ring the horrible sentence-"No murderer hath eternal life."

But some will mock you, by saying that the awful nature of this earthly punishment so purifies the soul that all the criminal's guilt is burnt and purged away, and that therefore there is no fear for his soul-for he is thenceforth fitted for the society of Heaven for ever. Is it so? Why then, how dare we send him from earth? how dare we deprive his fellow-creatures of his goodness? If he is fit to die, he is fit to live-and we have no plea for destroying him; if he is not fit to die, then we know that we incur the awful responsibility of sending the extravagant and erring spirit to its terrible and everlasting confine, without preparation or hope. Reader! which of the two conclusions will you forego? One you must!

From the view of the subject, then, which it has been the business of this paper to pursue, we see

I. That the Noachid precept cannot be said to give man authority to inflict death, because even if it were given as a command-which is most doubtful-it could apply only to the very early ages of the world.

II. That the law given to Moses, which unquestionably includes
a command to inflict death in certain cases, in no way
affects or binds the Christian world, it having been given as
part of a dispensation which we all acknowledge to have
ceased.
III. That one of the Ten Commandments, which we all admit
to be binding upon us, expressly forbids the infliction of
death.
IV. That the dispensation under which we live is completely at
variance with the dispensation it supplanted, and is opposed
in word and in spirit to the infliction of death.

V. That the consequences of sending a soul to its account are
too awful to warrant our incurring them.

We

We

In reviewing the whole subject, I think I may fairly say that I have proved-1st, That Capital Punishment is inexpedient; 2ndly, That it is unjust; and 3rdly, That it is opposed to the Word of God. have inquired into the philosophy of the punishment, and we have seen that it is defective in a variety of views; in variability—in remissibility, in certainty, and in many other aspects. We have, secondly, examined it in the light of moral and rational truth, and have found it abhorrent to the one and rejected by the other. have also examined it in operation, and we have found that it produces instead of prevents the crime against which it aims; and lastly, we have brought it to that greatest and most infallible test-the Word of God, and we have discovered that it is opposed to the dictates of that sacred volume-that it is a violation of the express commands of the Deity. Solemnly, then, would I now urge the conclusion to which I have come, and earnestly would I entreat the attention of the reader while I press the few remaining words I have to offer.

I do believe, then, as I do believe that I have a body to give to the grave and a soul to judgment, that every death upon the scaffold is a foul and wicked murder committed in defiance of God and nature; and I now call upon those who may think as I do, or who may have been brought by my humble words to the same conclusion, to rouse their strength, and gird themselves to do battle with the champions of this vast iniquity. They are mighty, it is true, and their name is Legion, but we know that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. They are intrenched in the strongholds of prejudice, and have with them the sanction of a hundred dark ages of blood and crime; but we have Truth and the God of Truth on our side-and whom then shall we fear?

Let no man say he has no influence! It is not true. It may be that you have no public influence, but you have-you must have-that which is of far more value in the conflict-private influence. There cannot be one who in the circle of his relations and friends can find no opportunity to advance his doctrines. I ask you then-I solemnly ask you to use that influence. Your words may be weak and faint, but there is the sound of a great voice upon the air, and the power of that voice will be increased by your effort, however humble it may be. A voice, did I say? Aye, and that a mighty voice ;-a voice that will be heard ;-a voice that like the thunder of the air only gathers strength from opposition:-the voice of awakened, enlightened humanity.

That voice is now despised, and its accents are disregarded but let those who refuse to heed it, beware! Pursue your way, ye whose feet are swift to shed blood; tread your filthy path while you may. Your cry is for blood-and you have it; but I say again, Beware! Recollect the Jews of old! They called for blood, and it came: yes, it rested" ON THEM and on THEIR CHILDREN !”

A letter signed "W. T.," which defends Capital Punishment, has recently been addressed to the Editor of this Magazine, and from him. has come to me. The ground on which the writer supports sanguinary inflictions is this: that Capital Punishment is the nation's act of self-defence; and these are the words in which he clothes his idea: "It will not, I presume, be denied that self-defence is a right which may lawfully be exercised even to the taking of life; and if this right belong to each individual, it follows that it must equally belong to society, which is but an aggregation of individuals.' I will briefly

examine this.

First, as to the individual right of self-defence. It is said that this may lawfully be exercised even to the taking of life. I grant that if a man place another in such immediate and imminent peril of his life that he has no way of escape but by taking the life of his assailant, then the act is to be justified, but under no other circumstances. The emergency is the warrant, and without the emergency the act is not to be pardoned. A man has the right to use any means to prevent a catastrophe that will otherwise happen, but not to avert a catastrophe that may possibly otherwise happen. A man who thinks-say, if you please, who knows-that another meditates him bodily harm, may undoubtedly use all precaution to prevent the intended harm; but he has no right to kill the suspected man, and then call it self-defence.

The right, then, of one individual to kill another in self-defence, is to be limited to the emergency of the threatening moment, and is not to be justified if the catastrophe can be prevented by any other means. Now, then, we shall see clearly the nature of the right which society derives from the individual. It is a right to inflict death when its own existence is so threatened as to render its preservation impossible by other means. Before, therefore, Capital Punishment can be successfully defended, it must be proved, 1st, that the danger is sufficiently imminent and immediate; and 2ndly, that it cannot be averted but by the infliction of death. The first proposition cannot be maintained-for it by no means follows, that because A. has killed B., that therefore C., D., E., F., and the rest of the alphabet, are in danger; and the second proposition is clearly disproved by the unquestionable fact that Capital Punishment increases, rather than diminishes, the crime of murder, wherever and whenever it is inflicted.

The writer then proceeds to say, that "It is in the wise training of early years, when sound moral principles and religious feelings may be best inculcated, that the true restraining power' must be sought." In this, of course, I fully agree; and therefore I cannot possibly conceive what the writer means by going on to say, "Still I ask, if this be not efficient, what do you propose in its place?" Does the

writer all at once doubt the restraining power that he so eloquently describes! He may, but I do not: and if I did, I am not bound to answer the question he puts. If I show that Capital Punishment is wrong, my conclusion is not to be set aside because I do not substitute something else in its place. But yet I will answer him; and I propose imprisonment in place of death. I do not say solitary imprisonment that I hold to be most improper; but such confinement as would effectually prevent the offender from again committing the crime, and such as would also operate as a terror and warning to the community. I intend at some future time to show that imprisonment may be made a constant and efficient check, and I am only restrained from pursuing this subject now by the somewhat unreasonable length to which these papers have run. My correspondent, however, seems to imagine, that on the minds of the coarse, rude, and brutish, among whom crimes of violence are mostly found, the dread of death acts most strongly, and the fear of imprisonment not at all. This proposition I most boldly deny. The brutal have but little care for deathwhy should they have? They do not know, and therefore cannot fear, its consequences. They go to an execution (and who else goes?) as to a show. I have made it a matter of constant inquiry, and Í have found that persons of this order go out of mere pleasure to an execution. They relish and enjoy the sight, and nine-tenths of them criticise the manner in which a man dies. Imprisonment, on the contrary, operates on such minds most strongly. Such persons have a lawless notion of liberty, and the very idea of imprisonment is to them utterly insupportable. I have continually heard such persons say that they would prefer death to imprisonment, and I can readily understand their reason for so saying. Death to them is the be-all and end-all; imprisonment, a change from idleness and liberty to forced labour and captivity. But I fear that I am trespassing too much upon the Editor's space, and therefore I will here close my remarks, with my warm thanks to "W. T." for the opportunity which he has afforded me of entering upon this view of the subject.

STANZAS.

THIS world is call'd truly a valley of tears

A scene of affliction, a suffering state,

Where clouds and thick darkness bring sorrows and fears,

And trials and dangers the pilgrim await.

Yet rays full of gladness still shine o'er the gloom,
Still cheer and illumine the path he must tread:
Disclosing fair flowers whose beauty and bloom,
Attend on his footsteps, sweet fragrance to shed.

And even the tear-drop from anguish distill'd,
Is tinged in the sunbeam with colours of joy;
While, clothed in the glories of promise fulfill'd
The cloud wears a rainbow that nought can destroy.

E.

SONGS OF THE COLOURS.

1.-RED.

SISTERS, I watch in the East to catch

The smile of the waking dawn,
'Mid the clouds I leap from steep to steep
And beacon the coming of Morn.
Round the path I play of the dazzling Day,
And bask 'mid its soft warm gleams;
But the West I leave when grey-robed Eve
Down chases its flying beams,

That with measureless flight are gleaming with light,
Drawn from day's golden fountains,

Which laughing they pour over ocean and shore,
Earth's pastures, plains, and mountains.

From my nightly home in the East I come,
With the first faint blush of Morn,

In crystal rain, to mountain and plain,

With hues from the sunrise borne; Bright sweet flowers, children of showers That dance to earth with spring,

Of the mote-filled streams of radiant beams

That warmth from the bright sun bring,
That 'neath the pale light of the stars of night
For the loss of their bright hues weep,

In tints that away stole from them with day,
I robe as they start from sleep.

Say Sisters, who know what each world can show
Of beauty and grace most rare,

Can the bright forms that are in each glorious star
With the daughters of earth compare?

Say, do ye lie e'er pillowed as I,

When 'neath their starry eyes,

To their cheeks of snow in the mantling glow

Of the burning blush I rise,

Or o'er their brows rush, when the hot-red blood's gush
Speaks what their young hearts would conceal,

Oh! tongue cannot tell in that rich glow how well
First, passioned Love I reveal.

When larums loud ring and pale dreamers spring
From slumber at their call,

I curl with the fire round tower and spire,

Till thundering down they fall;

'Mid the wild uproar my feet glide o'er
House, mansion, and marble hall,
I pass-I am gone, and proud cities mourn
O'er ruin and smouldering wall.

In the car of the storm my crouching form
Mad winds drive swift through air,

And I leap to birth o'er the trembling earth
In the lightnings' fitful glare,

When, with shattering stroke it blasts the oak
And strips its gnarled trunk bare,

When, by thunders hurled, it rends a world
To atoms, I am there.

Rejoicing I play in its arrowy ray

'Mongst the tempests of the north,

And I hiding rest in the storm-cloud's breast,
It howls as I hurry forth.