Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1849-12-15
miscellaneous.
Capital Punishment,
A correspondent of the Pittsburgh p'sita
recently made this striking observation;

A correspondent of the Pittsburgh Visit1
recently made this striking observation;
awe believe the day is not very far distant
when men will no more think of quoting
scripture to Justify the gallows, than they
now do for the Spanish Inquisition or Salem
witchcraft."
This so shocked the GAINESVILLE Quarto that
il denounced the sentiment as q" little short Of
profanity" and expressed the hope that the
worthy Editors of the Visiter did not adopt
it as their own. Mrs, Swisshelm thus res
ponds:
Sorry to grieve Messrs. Brown & Shep-
herd. but cannot help il this time. Our cor
respondent I" X" is Major Kaine, then acting
| ms our substitute. He is u regular hereto,
and no more believes in hanging a man on
| Scripture authority, than in holding infant
beretics up on n pitchiork for the glory of
| God and the good of mems souls. We rath-
er suspect he is past grace, and do not be-
lieye he will ever be converted to the faith.
As for the editors of the Visiter, one of
them nj least, is " worthy" The junior, Mr..
Riddle. is an orthodox Christian, so far as
hanging is concerned. He believes the gal
lows to be heaven-appointed, calculated to
promote the glory of the Creator and the
rood of the creature. But as for ourself the
senior of the firm, we hate the gallows most
heartily and if these gentlemen had not
been very new a~cquaintances they would
have known this. No other vestige of bar
barism in our midst, neither Slavery, war,
nor drunkenness is more the object of our
detestation than the doctrine of choking a
man to death because he is "made in the
image of God" The declaration of "The
Quarto,n that " faith in Jesus Christ is not
more plainly taught in the Bible than the
doctrine of capital punishment" is SIMPLY
monstrous and absurd. If faith in Christ is
not more plainly taught than the duty OF
hanging, it is not taught at all. Capital Pun
ishment has not one inch of ground to stand
upon in the Bible. And we do not care the
one hundredth share of q lottery in a rye
straw, what "alarge majority of stable Chris
tan denominations" believe. Their belief
is no rule of faith and manners to us, as We
profess to have a divine warrant for doing
our believing, and we most deyoutly be-
lieye capital punishment to be a foul blot OIL
the statute book of any Christian nation.-
The Christian world is not more united in
its faith on this subject now, than it formerly
was in its right to propagate creeds by fire
and sword, or the duty of burning old women
for witchcraft. We will engage to find as
much Scripture for the one as "The Quarto'
can do for the other. AS for the infidelity
of the business, the vanguard OF truth ano
freedom, of Christianity and human progress
have always been led by infidels, if we are tc
believe the testimony of their contemporary
church. Luther was an intidel, and so wa:
Calvin. John Wesley was another. Johr
Bunyan was kept in Jail for a long time oil
account of his infidelity, and thousands o
other infidels have been treated in like man
ner and worse. Those who opposed tn
hanging of Quakers and burning of witche
in old Connecticut, were all infidels, and dis
regarded the opinions of "a large majorit
of the stable Christian denominatians"
their day and generation. And the Saviou
of man was the greatest infidel of alive
~crucified for his infidelity. If he were o
earth now, n " large majority of all the stabl
Christian denominations" would unite I
cruelty him again. So, Messrs. Brown {
Shepherd, you might just as well "throN
water on a drowned rat" to punish it, as ca
us an infidel. The name by this time shout
be a badge of honor. -.