The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-05-05
PULPIT LECTURES.
Rev. ]. F. Thompson Re-
views the Kemmler
Agony.
YOUNG AMERICAS DANGERS.
Sermon by Mr.. Scudder---Mr.
Mingins, Of New York, in the
Scotch Church.

At the morning service in the First
Universalist Church, yesterday, the Rev.
J. F. Thompson preached on the Kem-
mler case,
The pastor took for the text Genesis
1926 "Shall not the Judge Of all the
earth do rightP" The pastor called at-
tention to the fact that In olden times the
legal methods of furnishing crime were
far more severe than they are at present.
''This is sometimes explained he said,
"by saying that human nature is less
cruel than it used to be. This explana-
tfCS4, however, is true only in part. 1t
dotbtless requires cruel disposition to
originate q barbarous custom. On the
other hand it is true that long after peo-
pie have become too humane to sanction
an old barbarism they will continue TO
tolerate new one with which they are
thoroughly familiar.
During the past week a reprieve has
been granted to the man who was to have
been the first victim of the new method
of capital punishmentin the State of New
York. We do not quite know by what
special effort the decree which requires
the legality of this statute to be tested in
the Supreme Court was obtained, but it
is certain that behind the effort there
was strong pressure of public opinion.
There has been and is a general feeling
that to take a helpless captive from his
prison to a room called the death cham
Der, place him In the fatal chair and sub
ject him to an electric shock which in
stantly deprives him of life would be an
act forever d1sgraceful to the community
which permitted it. 1t has even been
said that such a judicial murder would
be crime more monstrous than the deed
which 1t punished and that, having done
this, we should have no right to upbraid
Russia for practices contrary to the Gus
toms of civilized nations.
"This is certainly credible to our hui
manity. The evident contradiction, how
ever, is that we manifest SO little OF the
same abhorrence toward the past method
of capital punishment, for which the
trainers of the new law supposed that
they were providing q less barbarouS sub
stitute. This contradiction, think, can
be explained only in one way. In the one
instance we think chiefly Of the custom
with which we have always been familiar
and which we have been taught to regard
as essential to the safety of society. In
the other the novelty of the method
directs our attention to the enormity of
the result which it achieves, and 1t is this
result, the deliberate, cold blooded, pas
sionless, legalized slaughter of a human
being that excites our horror and con-
demnstion.
whatever else it may accomplish the
discussion which this incident has pro-
voked will at least render us one service.
The protest of our moral sense against
the proposal to kill q man by 81 new meth
cd will strengthen our conviction that to
deprive fellow creature of his life under
any circumstance whatever, by any
means whatever, and for any cause what
ever, is always a crime, and the lesson
thus learned we shall apply TO innumer-
able other things. 1t will help us to un-
derstand that things are right or wrong
in themselves; that the familiarity which
reconciles us to belief or custom
makes no change in its quality, and that
a given opinion is not necessarily less
false, or given action less cruel because
for long time the one has been held and
the other practised.
"The realm of theological belief contains
many examples of this truth. Iti certain
that opinions which had their origin in an
ignorant and cruel age are still retained
by thousands OF intelligent and kind
hearted people. 1t is also true that of
these opinions some are so absurd and
othersiso immoral that ii today they were
proclaimed for the first time, they would
be rejected by the reason and condemned
by the conscience of the entire world.
This is especially true of the doctrine of
endless torment. If in this age when be-
tween human beings cruelty is the excep-
tion and kindness is the rule, this doctrine
were for the first time proclaimed, we
should find no words strong enough in
which to express our sense Of the injustice,
the cruelty, the infamy of a dogma which
attributed such disposition and purpose
to the God whom we call Our Father.
s'If the man who proclaimed it had
been born and reared IN our enlightened
civilization we would say that he was in
sane. If some traveller should bring It'd
ings of dark continent far away where
such creed was held we should organ
ize a great missionary movement to
rescue the people of that benighted land
from the horror of their belief, but un-
fortunately this doctrine Is not new. It
has been in existence for many centuries.
1t has been regarded as an essential ele-
ment of the Christian religion and its
rejection has been looked upon as equiv
alent to atheism.
1T is still written in the creeds and
implied in the teachings OF most church
es. This result is that through long fa-
miliarity the minds of most people have
become insensible to the horror Of it, For
this reason we find it accepted by multi
rudes of intelligent and kind hearted
people whom it does not drive insane, but
who even spend more time in making
money and enjoying the pleasures of life
than in saving souls