The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-05

venger of blood" came from an adjoining
State, and, visiting the Executive Chamber at
Harrisburg, implored the Governor to spare
the life of the man who was said to have
killed his brother. He was the 'revenger of
blood, in Scriptural phrase. Such an act of
magnanimity and forbearance has more of
vital Christianity in it than all the sermons that
have been preached On fdoor Of putting men
to death, since the beginning of the Chris
tian era.
"Citizen" challenges the friends of "aboli-
ton" ''to show where, under the new dispen-
sation, one iot or title of that statute has
been abrogated." We have already shown
where Christ quoted from the penal code of
Moses, and explicitly rebuked it.
Tosatisfy' Citizen" we will quote again Matt.
v, 17):-"Think not that am come destroy
the law and the prophets; 1 am not come to
destroy, but to fulfil" And how did Christ
fulfil? The Apostle Paul tells us how it was
done Romans xiii, 10):-'Love worbeth no
i'll to his neighbor; for love is the fulfilling
of the law" Again (Romans xii, ~, ERE
compense to man evil for evil" Let us in
quire whether the gallows is rendering ''evil
for evil" If not, is it good for evil
Again. let us ask "Citizen" what Christ meant
when he rebuked James and John for
the vindictive spirit they manifested
in wishing to call down fire from heaven upon
the Samaritans, and what did He mean, in
this connection, by saying, ''For the Son of
Man is not come to destroy mems Hoes but to
SAGE them ?" Luke xiii, So. Again, when the
Scribes and Pharisees brought to Him the
adulterous woman, and demanded that she
should be stoned to death according to the
law of Moses, Christ said, ''He that is with
out sin amongst you let him first cast stone
at her" ''and, being convicted by their own
conscience, they went out one by one. And
Jesus said, ''hath no man cond emned thee !?
She said, ''No man, Lord" and Jesus said,
''Neither do 1 condemn thee; go and sin no
more" John viii, verses 3-11 inclusive.
Does ''Citizen" discover any rebuke of the
death penalty in the above language of
Christ? Again, when on the cross, sur
rounded by his murderers, He exclaimed,
''Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do" Luke xiii, "a.
If the language, the spirit, and the teach
ings of Jesus Christ did not rebuke the ''code
of blood" and the spirit of vindictiveness,
then indeed is language powerless to convey
the lesson; and those who will not be con-
vinced must be left to the indulgence of their
passions of hate and malevolence, for surely
arguments cannot reach them.
The Christian religion has been trampled
under foot and too frequently disgraced by
fossilized theologians, who seem to have for
gotten that Christ died. and seem only to
remember that Moses lived. If the Church
of Christ in the United States is too weak to
reform the few murderers in each community,
let it go into sackcloth over it's own
degeneracy. If the fifty thousand clergy
men in this Union are so effeminate or
worldly, or SO absorbed in sectarian policy,
that they must clamor for hangman to re-
lieve them of the troublesome duty of saving
few hundred of the lost for whom a Saviour
died, let the people rebulze them. Notwith-
standing the teachings of dark and cruel
theology have ever sought to retard the pro-
gress of Christian civilization, the principles
of living Christianity will yet be received
by all the nations of the globe. Its flood
light of truth will yet reach the utter
most parts of the earth and unite brother
with brother in the bonds of love. And when
this day arrives, human blood will no longer
be shed under the sanction of law; the
gallows will disappear from Christian civiliza-
ton, and those clergymen who, with long
faces, preach solemn sermons in favor of
putting men to death, will find their services
no longer required by an intelligent and
Christian people, who will be found ever ready
to condemn the wrong and to approve the
right. MARVIN H. BovEE.
Philadelphia, March 2S, 1870.