The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1901-07-26

| sues 1t, smites 1t, incarcerates 1t, tries
to destroy It, You know as we'll as r
that society becomes lenient In proper
ton as impurlty becomes afHuent or is
in elevated circles, and finally society
is silent or disposed to palliate. Where
is the judge, the jury, the police officer
that dare arraign the wealthy liber-
tine? He walks the streets, he rides
the parks he fiaunts his iniquity in
the eyes Of the pure. The bag of I'M
| cleanness looks out of the tapestried
window. Where is the law that dares
take the brazen wretches and put their
faces in an iron frame of a state pris-
on window?
Sometimes it seems to me as If So
ciety were going back to the state of
morals of Herculaneum, when 1t sculpt-
ured its vileness on pillars and temple
wall and nothing but the lava of a
burning mountain could hide the i'm
mensity of crime. At what time God
will rise up and extirpate these evils
upon society l know not, nor whether
he will do it by fire or hurricane or
| earthquake; but a holy God | do not
think will stand it much longer. l
believe the thunderbolts are kissing
hot and that when God comes to chas-
tise the community for these sins,
against which he has uttered himself
more bitterly than against any other,
the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah will
be tolerabe as compared with the fate
of our modern society, which knew
better, but did worse.
The sacredness of Life.
Then look at the vaccinations thrown
around assassination. There are in all
communities men who have taken the
lives of Others unlawfully, not as exc
cutioners of the law, and they go scot
free. You say they had their provoca-
tons God gave life, and he alone has
right to take it, and he may take it
by visitation of providence or by an
executioner of the law, who is his
messenger. But when a man assumes
that divine prerogative he touches the
lowest depth of crime.
Society is alert for certain kinds of
murder. If a citizen going along the
road at night is waylaid and slain by
a robber, we all want the villain ar
rested and executed. For all garroting,
for all beating out of life by club or
an AK or a slungshot, the law has quick
spring and heavy stroke, but you
know that when men get affuent and
high position and they avenge their
wrongs by taking the lives of others,
great sympathy is excited lawyers
plead, ladies weep, judge halts, jury is
bribed and the man goes free. If the
verdict happen to be against him,
new trial is called on through some
technicality and they adjourn for
witnesses that never come, and adj
journ and adjourn until the commun-
ity has forgotten all about it, and then
the prison door opens and the murder
er goes free.
Now, if capital punishment be right,
l say let the life of the polished muir
derer go with the life of the vulgar as
sassin. Let us have no Partially of
gallows, no aristocracy of electro
cution chair. Do not let us float back
to barbarism, when every man was
his own judge, Jury and executioner,
and that man had the supremacy who
had the sharpest knife and the strong
est arm and the quickest step and the
stealthiest revenge. He who willfully
| Iyae ho e. Nf
is murderer, l care not what the
provocation or the circumstances. He
may be cleared by an enthusiastic
courtroom, he may be sent by the gov
eminent of the United States as minis
ter to some foreign court, or modern
literature may polish the crime until
it looks like heroism; but in the sight
of God murder is murder, and the
| judgment day will SO reveal it.
Some Plain Questions,
There are hundreds of young men
who have good blood. Shall / ask three
or four plain questions? Are your hab-
its as good as when you left your ia
theirs house? Have you a pool ticket
in your pocket? Have you fraudulent
document? Have you been experiment.
ing to see how accurate an imitation
you could make of your employers sig
nature? Oh, you have good blood. Re-
member your fathers prayers. Re-
member your mothers example. Turn
not in an evil way Have you been go
ing astray? Come back. Have you ven
tured out too far?
AS l stand in pulpits looking over
audiences sometimes my heart fails
me. There are so many tragedies pres
ent, so many who have sacrificed their
integrity, so many far away from God
Why, my brother, there have been too
many prayers offered for you to have
you go overheard. And there are those
venturing down into sin, and my heart
aches to call them back.
At Brighton Beach or Long Branch
you have seen men go down into the
surf to battle, and they waded out far
Their and farther, and you got anxious
about them. You said, 81 wonder If