The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-04-27
THE GALLOWs AND BAPTISM.

FRIDAY, April IL, young man,
named Charles Hart, was hung at
the Ohio penitentiary at Columbus
for murder. A short time previous,
the Chaplain baptized him and re-
ceived him into the Methodist Church.
The following Sunday, Dr. E. L. Rex
ford preached strong sermon,
against capital punishment, in which
he showed the inconsistency of max
ing man Christian and then kill
ing him. The journal and Messen-
ger (Baptist) views the conduct Of the
Methodist chaplain with great alarm,
and remarks: "What does it mean7
Is Methodism coming to accept the
doctrine of baptismal regeneration
Did the Chaplain 'baptize' the boy as
a means of saving his soul' Was
there any evidence, from first to last,
that the boy repented of his sin, or
that he had any clear conception of
what was behind him or before him?
Wherein does the baptism admins
tered by the Methodist chaplain differ
from that administered by the Roman
Catholic priest?"
The point seems to be well taken
against the Methodists and of course
the Journal and Messenger denies the
validity of the baptism administered
by the chaplain. But several other
questions might be asked. One of
them is this: How about the victim
of this murderer We are not ac-
quainted with the particulars of the
case, but very likely the victim was
not in regular church relations and
was cut off without preparation for
death. According to the orthodoxy
of the Journal and Messenger, the
victim goes to hell beyond peradvent-
ure. Orthodoxy represented by the
Methodist chaplain, however, steps in
OPPORTUNITY, and on some feeble signs
of repentance, saves the murderer
from the doom to which his act sent
his victim. How stands justice in
this case nowa We have a murderer
saved, swinging directly from the
scaffold into Heaven, and his victim
damned without recourse.
The objection of our Cincinnati
contemporary seems to apply to the
mode of baptism in the Hart case,
and to the fact that sufficient evidence
of repentance was not previously Sc
cured. But the case would not be
changed in principle were Hart "con-
verted" at an earlier stage of his i'm
prisonment and then duly Immersed"
according to Baptist standards. He
would still be saved murderer while
his victim was damned verlastinglY
damned. This is case where one of
the beauties of modern orthodoxy
show up with rare elegance. It saves
the converted murderer, under the
shadow of the scaffold yea some
times on it, with the rope dangling
above and the moose all ready-and
makes no provision for the unfortun-
ate one who was sent into eternity to
an awful doom which might be es-
capped with a longer term of life duly
improved.
This whole matter of scatfold re-
pentance and the short cut to heaven
Ola the gallows, for murderers red
with the blood of their victims, is a
scandal to religion and deserves the
severest reprobation. The remarks
of the Journal and Messenger only
relate to the mode of baptism under
such circumstances. Given indubit
able evidence of repentance and let
immersion" be the mode of the ordin-
ance, that paper would doubtless be
willing to swing the murderer into
Heaven. Our respect for its criticism
of the Methodist chaplain would be
increased if our contemporary would
say that it would refuse to "immerse"
converted murderer, standing I'M
der the shadow of the gallows, under
any circumstances.