Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-09-16

heart and made II like the neither mill
stone by this influence.
Another of the wide inlets to de-
struction is evH and impure compan-
| ionship. Many man whose feet be-
came swift to shed blood and who paid
the utmost penalty of the law, said:
Strong drink and bad companions
have been my ruin" Young men,
beseech you to give heed to this warn
| ing Of those who had walked in the
broad way and found the end thereof
| TO be destruction. Beware Of the first
! cnp. And look again at the violence
and public crimes to which avarice has
| led. What lives has il slain, what vic
tins has it laid low, that the plunderer
might riot in wantonness and display
his ill-gotten wealth, on which no eye
at frst suspected that there was the
/ foul stain of blood. How many in has
tening to be rich have not been found
innocent, and having first coverted and
/ then stolen, have ended by removing
every witness and avenger out of hu-
man sight. Sorrowful it is to think
! that murder enters by so many doors,
and not least by that of envy, jealousy
and dark brooding hatred, which at
I last, Cain-like, rises upon its victim
/ and sends up to God the voice of
brothers. blood crying from the
! the
! end, let us fee the entrance OF these
| dangerous paths; let us seek to be up
right in heart, and then shah we be
innocent from the great transgression.
Just at this point and on this occa-
/ sion | deem ii proper to say word
/ on the subject of capital punishment.
| When the punishment of murder was
! prescribed by the Lord to Noah and his
/ sons, the reason assigned for 1t was
! that I'm the image Of God made he
man" CT which Scott very justly re-
marks in his commentary that though
| the moral image of God in which man
was at first created be defaced, yet the
natural image remains; and It is the
most daring act Of rebellion against
God to assault his visible image on
/ earth and destroy the life which he
| communicated. And it is observable
that the reason given for the punish
rent of the murderer with death is
! taken from the affront which he offers
to God, not from the injury which he
| does to man"
1t Is idle and palpably false to repre-
sent as some do, that the declaration,
Whose sheddeth mans blood. by man
shall his blood be she'd" is nothing
more than a part Of the ceremonial
law of the Jews. This was the law
give nto Noah Immediately after the
/ deluge, more than eighteen hundred
years before the institutions of Moses
existed These institutions did no
more than recognize the validity of
! this law, which was manifestly intend
ed 30 be binding on the whole human
race, to the end of time. Hence Scott
further says: From this energetic
declaration il certainly follows that
willful murder ought invariably, in all
I communities, to be punished with
death, whatever form it assumes. or
/ however il may, by specious but delu-
slve pretences, be be attenuated and
that God will himself require it of
those who suffer the murderer to es-
cape; so that the punishment of muir
Ger will, in some way, be inflicted on
them as accessories to the crime"
We may. therefore, well tremble for
cur country, if willful murder is by law
exempted from the punishment Of
death Our land will be defiled by
blood not by lynching.
How often do we see the most extra
ordinary and persistent efforts 70
screen offenders of all grades from the
punishment due to their crimes and to
relieve them from the penalties of the
violated law Counsel for accused
prisoners are seen going far beyond
their duty to their clients in securing
them fair trials under Tire protection of
the law, far beyond duty as officers of
the courts in which they practice, and
seem to have adopted the rule of secur-
Ing impunity to offenders at all hazards
regardless of the demoralizing effects
upon society and the immediate peril
to the public When criminals are con-
v.cted after the greatest difficulty and
the law is about to be vindicated by
the punishment of the guilty, new diff
fculties are interposed by other people,
some of them acting directly in the
interests of the prisoner and against
society, some from perverted ideas OF
mercy and philanthropy, and some
from silly sentimentality. The new
philosophy is TO elevate every murderer
TITO a martyr, and the practice is to
rescue him by any and every means
from the hands of justice, instead of
leaving him to its retribution. With
the prevalence of such practice and