The Daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1845-1850, 1850-08-29
The co1d-Blooded Homicide.

nave ud1eu 10 cross tndt luOlcon OF Tune, lne coSS
crowned summit of Calvary, and to come down,
hand in hand with the institutions OF Christianity,
cold-blooded deliberate, legal homicide the gal
lows, is arraigned at the bar of public opinion,
as dramatically opposed TO revelation, reason, reg-
ion, and humanity. The crisis of this important tri-
al is near at hand; and the is committed to the
jury of Chrisendom, with such an accumulation of
evidence as was scarcely ever arrayed against any
institution contemporary and kindred with the ear-
est and most aggravated atrocities of human violence
and revenge. There is no room to doubt what the
verdict will be. The sentence is as good as uttered
and the galows as good as coffined and buried
among things that shall have no resurrection from
the grave ofobvion. In the thick-se array char
ges brought against it, this fact, in our estimation,
worthy of prominence. 1t has set an example ofthe
volatility of human life, which no murderers of any
age or country, ever dared 10 copy;-an example of
homicide which finds parallel in the records ofin-
dividual revenge. We have heard of cold-blooded
murders, perpetrated with slow generalization, but
none like those of the scaffold We cannot con-
ceive them possible, even to the malignant forms
of private malice.
Let us consolidate Christian community and
government into one Christian man, and invest him
with all their relations, powers, and laws and then
consider the act of deliberate extinction of hu-
man life, by him, on the gallows. He has got his
man into his power. That man is his mortal enc
my He and his family have suffered from him
every species of violence, and even the murder of
one of its members. He takes the law into his own
hands, in every process known TO its execution. He
is compelled to be his own witness, sheriff, advo-
cate, judge, priest, and executioner. As such, he
has arrested, tried, and condemned the criminal to
death. He rushed upon the murderer of his child,
and secured him, just he had dealt the fatal blow.
But he did not execute judgment speedily-he de-
fers it until the tumult of his passions is stled-un-
til he can do it, the law processes TO do it, with
out any personal hatred ill-wi to the murderer,
but as punishment of his crime, and as a warning
to others against Its preparation. He thinks that
in six months time he put the man 10 death in
cool blood, Invested of all motives of personal re-
venge, and he fixes the Iday for his execution ac-
cordngly. He prepares vault in the bottom of his
cellar, into which he thrusts the fettered criminal
and tells him he shall die six months from that day
and bids him prepare for another world. Morning,
noon, and evening, he visits the condemned, and adj
ministers food to him through the grated aperture
his dungeon This is not ALL he labors to convince
the prisoner that no personal malice ill-will has
dictated the sentence, which he shall execute upon
him. He is solictous for the salvation of his soul
and labors for his eternal happiness. He reads the
Holy Scriptures to him, and prays with him twice a
day. Ills religious Instructions are accompanied by
the regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit. The
murderer is melted into the deepest contrition He
Is slain and made alive again, by His Spirit, who
alone can kill and make alive. He has become a
new creature in Christ Jesus. The pardoning mer-
cy of God has reached him. as it did the thief on the
cross, and the crimson crime of his soul has been
washed away by the al-atoning blood of Him., who
took away the sins of the dying malefactor, at his
first emotion of penitence and faith. The light and
loving-kindness of pardouing God shine into his
heart, and give him songs of joy in the night His
executioner joins in these songs and the dungeons
grated aperture gradually becomes 10 them the very
gate of heaven, while learning on EARTH to sing to-
gether in heaven the new song OF Moses and the
Lamb They are filled with endearing communing.
with the Spirit of all grace, and look and long for the
manifestation of hesons of God, when they shall APP
pear with the redeemed on high, and sing together
again their song of salvation and praise, unto Him
who hath washed away their sins in his own blood
and made them both kings and priests unto Cod
Looking for and Fastening unto this glorious consum-
nation, their hearts are already bound together in
the bond of love and life eternal and merge into one
like kindred drops of Immortality, while on the way
to the scaffold The day draws near, and the hour,
when the twain must be separated; when this Chris
tan communing must be broken off on earth, by one
ofthe communicates deliberately breaking the neck
Of his brother with the halter, and all in love pre-
pense. The hour has come,-the sad hour of sep
aration; and the Christian executoner comes, with
his heart yearning with the sympathies of Chrst-like
compassion; with tears in his eyes; with rope in
one hand, and the emblems of Savior's broken
body, and shed blood in the other, lie draws near
10 the dungeon CRATE, and thus addresses his fellow
member of Christ's body -