Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1903-04-15

expectation of long life, would naturally
lead criminal to think with other in.
different people, "there is time enough
yet" But when an execution is to fol
low the sentence within three months
the criminal will be much more likely ia
feel the preciousness of time and the
wisdom of preparation for eternity.
Many executed persons have professed
conversion in prison, yet of its genuine.
ness He only who looks at the heart can
Judge. The promise of tae Saviour to
the penitept thief justifies the belief that
some of them, AT loast, were sincere and
prepared TO meet their God.
The class of would-be reformers, who
wish to see capital punishment abolished,
are often visionaries and impracticables.
They place the Bible on the same level
with uninspired books and acknowledge
no higher standard of Interpretation than
reason. Many of them claim that anthro-
poid apes, untold ages before Adam and
Eve appeared, were the progenitors of
the human race. According to their
theory man was evolved-not created.
Developing from the monkey he has
risen to what he is, aud is capable of end
less perfectibiity. One of these wise
acres said in sermon some years ago
that ''if Adam fell, he fell upward" /"
They are people of wonderful sympathy
for sufferers, distant and unseen, while
for those near at hand and visible their
hearts go not out. Before our civil war
their hearts bied for the poor slave.
After emancipation they yearned for his
acknowledgements Now they yearn for
his share in official life, and for prisoners
in penitentiaries at hard labor or await- i
ing execution for murder. The great
pulpit orators of New York and Brook
lyn who thundered their Demosthenean
eloquence at the Philips of wrong doing
away from home and at the horrors of
hard labor and scauty fare in prisons,
LETT their parishioners needing sympathy
to the ministration of Others. These re-
formers would have cur State prisons
enlarged, multiplied, and contain school
apartments with gymnasiums, lecture
halls for scientific lectures and theatre
Gals, and beautiful Fairgrounds for exer-
else in the open air, and nearly all the
educational equipment of an average
college. Except in name, the reformer's
ideal penitentiary would be a collegiate
institute. Instead-cf being = place for
Furnishing crime it would be for mental
culture. 1t may be wise to make some
changes, but not to the extent Of making
their prison character disappear and
their inmates forget that they are pris-
oners. Some well meaning humanitarians
may think the plan an admirable lone for
reforming criminals, thus making their
PI%o u Puhioh"euG u iauiaGinS CenJer
OF light to the world to hasten its regene-
ration.
Yet show unto you more excellent
way" Begin at the cradle. ''Train up
child in the way he should go, and when
he is old he will not depart from it," A
child can be moulded almost at will.
IA little tree from the nursey, though
crooked, can be Strengthened and made
to grow erect. But All old tree, hollow
in the center, crooked, moss grown,
gnarly and tough, cannot be bent straight
by the hand of man. When all children
are trained to fear God and keep His
commandments, a generation or two will
witness penetentiaries and scaffolds pass
ing,into disuse for want of victims.
TO BE Continued