Minnesota weekly times. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1854-1859, 1855-01-16

For the Times.
THE DEATH PENALTYcNO. 4.
Mr.. EDrros9-Your reply to essay number 8,
have read, and must say with sorrow. With
sorrow to find in it expressions which more than
Justify the remark which made ct the outset of
this discussion, that believed AZ public jour
nalst you soere throwing The soeigs Of your intel
lect against the Bible. Then predicated my
statement upon the averment which you had made,
that you did not believe that that sentence
Whose sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his
blood be shed, ever emanated from the Deity."-
Now you are bold to say" If the Deity is what
we have been taught to believe him to be-om-
nipotent, knowing every thing from the begin
ming to the end, he must have known when he
made man that man would become corrupt and
that it would be necessary for him to destroy him
and purge the earth with wickedness, brought
into it by the introduction of man. This is not
in accordance with our idea of Great and un-
changeable God" You then, sir, deny not only
tho divine authority of the Noachio precept,
upon which oil biblical commentators agree; but
you also deny that he ever fell from state of
innoccncy, and on account of his wickedness was
swept away by the food. You, sir, may with
your own conscience reconcile these sentiments
with the honest teachings of the Bible; but l
doubt very much whether the consciences of your
readers will permit them to 60 quite so far. 1t
is true that you have called the Bible 6" the Book
of Books" and aver that you edo not seek to re-
pudiate 80 but with what sincerity, your re-
pudiation of its history of the fall of man, and of
his destruction by the food, will best attest
At the outset of your last reply, you are pleased
to make up postulate for yourself, as coming
from me, and then 90 to work con auore to de-
molish it. This is a gpme which is not unfre-
quently played blythe cunning dialectician but
only when he happens to find himself cornered,
and would rather resort to trick, than suffer him
self to be caught in dilemma. To show your
reader that am justified in thus strongly speak
ing, will quote from your second paragraph, as
follows -
GAS to our having thrown sthe weight of our in
tellect against the teachings of the Bible, he
states that this depends upon our being able sue
ce*sfully to proves that the teachings we deduce
from it, are the teachings of the Bible.' Very
we'll. According to the Interpretation of our
correspondent, up to the present time, we have
not yet been able to prove this fact that is,
that the teachings we deduce, in favor of the
Death Penalty. emanate from the Bible, and
therefore we have not thus far thrown the weight
of our intellect against the Word of God,' and
our correspondent has been 'hasty in thus
accusing US. In all this he only corroborates
what we have previously said, and his admission
of our position is highly gratifying"
Such trifing as this, Mr.. Editor, you may af-
feet to be highly gratified with but your gratif-
cation, is like your professed reverence for the
scriptures, but sham, and it needs but the wand
of truth to unmask your real visage. My Ian
guagc was, And first you think have been hasty
in my remark that you have thrown the weight of
your intellect against the teachings of the Bible.
Of course this (meaning my hastiness) depends
upon your being able successfully to prove that
the teachings you deduce from it are the teach
ings of the Bible" This was nay language, and
now sir, whera is your short-lived qualification
Victories of this kind will allow are very cheap
ly Won; but they may be won too often. The
mind and heart of community are not slow to
detect the editor in whose intercourse srith his
readers, the ledven Of truth and sincerity Is regard
ed as a virtue f1ut trjfing value.
You remark that you did not affirm, Gas had it,
that men on this subject of capital punishment
had been led astray by false education; but that
you believed so. In this you are right and as do
not wish to make your statement any stronger than
your language can bear, very willingly make the
correction.
make you also to assert that the great mass of
believers who are with me on this subject, (Nleth-
odists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics
and Episcopalians) shave been led astray by
false education "-I will admit that the express
sion was too strong, so far as it expressed an as
sertiOn on your part rather than belief; but
cannot admit that these bodies of christians are not
legitimately included among those who you said
you believed chad been led astray on this SUBJ
ject."
You ask, eff we are to hang our faith on the
garments of others? 20 By no means. But faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of
God, and should like to know how q person
perfectly ignorant of the Bible in the Hebrew
tongue, Gas doubtless both you and I are) can
know anything of the word of God, except he give
credence to passages about which among &c Bibh-
cal commentators" ,oho areprofcients m the He
bre,0 tongue, there has been but one voice. as has
been the case with the passage about which we
have been contending.
In the argument with regard to Cain, you eth
willingly pervert my reasoning, or you are singu-
larry obtuse in your mental vision. In this, as in
the case of your manufacturing an argument for
me Uhich merer used, you certainly show some
power of "analysis, and disposition to &C sift -
but your analysis consists in separating the parts
of statement, so as to make it utter deliberate
untruth, and your ''siftings," in so contriving
your logical processes as to just keep back the truth.
My argument was, that Cain doubtless received a
punishment proportional to his guilt" but
that he did not receive the punishment of death,
probably for the reason that there was no lao re-
CURING his death. You reply to my argument as
if had said there was no law forbidding the MUIR
der of his brother when expressly stated that his
denying any knowledge of his brother to the AL
mighty, showed that she had committed helm
Gus crime;" leaving it to be inferred of course
that there must haze been a lac scritten on his
hearts You say-s'If there was no law, how
could there be transgression?" What law let
me ask. law torbidding murder? or law en-
joining death upon the murderer? for let me tell
you, if you have not been able to regard these
ideas as essentially distinct and separate, you are