abridged? sometimes for stealing what none would feel the want of, what many would not know they had lost, is condemnation passed.
No one will deny that punishment is necessary, but is it necessary that the punishment should breathe a spirit worse than the crime itself? Is it necessary that society should have murder on murder arranged in formidable array against it, for the smaller crimes of individuals of robbery and swindling? Let us consider the proportion of the punishment to the guilt, before we inflict the sentence. Acting as Christians, let us consider how great is our crime, if as the English law directs, we send men unshrived by repentance of their sins into another world in despair. For how must these criminals think of their crimes? If man, they will say, if man, weak, frail, and mortal as he is, punishes with the greatest severity he can inflict, these crimes; if man, sinful man, acts thus, they will say, how will God, who knows not human weakness, who is justice itself, how will he look upon our sins? They will step from this world into the next despairing and cursing their fellow-creatures, and we, if maturely we reflected on the subject, should have thoughts, which like corroding poison would work upon our peace, of having sent them for an eternity, for an eternity of pain into the deep, unconsumed, unconsuming abyss of fire. Even leaving out all religious views does it not strike us as out of all proportion? For having deprived another of a small sum we tear one from the bosom of his family for ever; we tear him from his wife, his children, we cast an unredeemable stain upon him, nay upon his innocent family, which if more mercy had been shown, he might have lived to wash away by tears and by deeds; but we rend him from all, consign his family, his posterity to ignominy, to shame, to want.
Not only are all the punishments awarded by the letter
NO. XV. Pam. VOL. VIII. T
