CHAPTER XIII.
CONTRASTS WITH THE PRESENT DAY.
Here it may be well to speak briefly of the contrast between the usages and customs of the period preceding the Revolution, and the present day.
Some of these customs and regulations have improved with the lapse of time, others undoubtedly have not.
Two millions of people constituted the entire number of whites, while away to the westward the red brother extended indefinitely. Religiously they were Protestants, and essentially they were "a God-fearing people."
Taught to obey a power they were afraid of, they naturally turned with delight to the service of a God whose genius in the erection of a boundless and successful hell challenged their admiration and esteem.
So, too, their own executions of Divine laws were successful as they gave pain, and the most beautiful features of Christianity, namely, love and charity, according to history, were not cultivated very much.
There were in New England at one time twelve offences punishable with death, and in Virginia seventeen. This would indicate that the death-penalty is getting unpopular very fast, and that in the contiguous future humane people will wonder why murder should have called for murder, in this brainy, charitable, and occult age, in which man seems almost able to pry open the future and catch a glimpse of Destiny underneath the great tent that has heretofore held him off by means of death's prohibitory rates.