26 VOICES OF THE TRUE-HEARTED. childish dream has come true, and that she is really, bloom but once in a hundred years,-this vast and an enchanted princess, and her milkpans are forth divine genius in his songs and his unequalled sonnets, with changed to a service of gold plate with the (which are but epic songs, songs written, as it were, family arms engraved on the bottom of each, the de- for an organ or rather ocean accompaniment), shows vice being a great heart, and the legend, God gives, all the humbleness, and wavering, and self-distrust, man only takes away. Her taste in dress has grown with which the weakness of the flesh tempers souls wonderfully more refined since her betrothal, though of the boldest aspiration and most unshaken selfshe never heard of the Paris fashions, and never had help, as if to remind them gently of that brothermore than one silk gown in her life, that one being hood to assert and dignify whose claims they were her mother's wedding dress, made over again. Reu-sent forth as apostles. ben has grown so tender-hearted, that he thought there might be some good even in " Transcendenta The true way of judging the value of any one of lism," a terrible dragon of straw, against which he the arts is by measuring its aptness and power to had seen a lecturer at the village Lyceum valorous-advance the refinement, and sustain the natural digly enact the St. George,-nay, he goes so far as to nity of mankind. Men may show rare genius in think that the slave women (black though they be, amusing or satirizing their fellow-beings, or in raisand therefore not deserving so much happiness), ing their wonder, or in giving them excuses for all cannot be quite so well off as his sister in the facto- manner of weakness by making them believe that, ry, and would sympathize with them if the consti- although their nature prompts them to be angels, tution did not enjoin all good citizens not to do so. they are truly no better than worms,-but only to But we are wandering.—farewell, Reuben and Dor-him will death come as a timely guide to a higher cas! remember that you can only fulfil your vow of being true to each other by being true to all, and be sure that death can but unclasp your bodily hands that your spiritual ones may be joined the more closely. and more glorious sphere of action and duty, who has done somewhat, however little, to reveal to the soul its beauty, and to awaken in it an aspiration towards what only our degradation forces us to call an ideal life. It is but a half knowledge which The songs of our great poets are unspeakably pre- sneers at utilitarianism, as if that word may not cious. In them find vent those irrepressible utter- have a spiritual as well as a material significance. ances of homely fireside humanity, inconsistent with He is indeed a traitor to his better nature who would the loftier aim and self-forgetting enthusiasm of a persuade men that the use of anything is proportiongreat poem, which preserve the finer and purer sen- ed to the benefit it confers upou their animal part. sibilities from wilting and withering under the black If the spirit's hunger be not satisfied, the body will frost of ambition. The faint records of flitting im- not be at ease, though it slumber in Sybaris and pulses, we light upon them sometimes imbedded feast with Apicius. It is the soul that makes men round the bases of the basaltic columns of the rich or poor, and he who has given a nation a truer epic or the drama, like heedless insects or tender conception of beauty, which is the body of truth, as ferns whieh had fallen in while those gigantic crys- love is its spirit, has done more for its happiness tals were slowly shaping themselves in the molten and to secure its freedom, than if he had doubled its entrails of the soul all a-glow with the hidden fires defences or its revenue. He who has taught a man of inspiration, or like the tracks of birds from far-off to look kindly on a flower or an insect, has thereby climes, which had lighted upon the ductile mass ere made him sensible of the beauty of tenderness toit had hardened into eternal rock. They make the ward men, and rendered charity and lovingkindness lives of the masters of the lyre encouragements and so much the more easy, and so much the more helps to us, by teaching us humbly to appreciate necessary to him. To make life more reverend in and sympathize with, as men, those whom we should the eyes of the refined and educated, may be a noble else almost have worshipped as beings of a higher ambition in the scholar, or the poet, but to reveal to order. In Shakspeare's dreams, we watch with awe the poor and ignorant, and degraded, those divine the struggles and triumphs, and defeats which seem arms of the eternal beauty which encircle them lovalmost triumphs, of his unmatched soul-in his ingly by day and night, to teach them that they songs we can yet feel the beating of a simple, warm also are children of one Father, and the nearer haply heart, the mate of which can be found under the first to his heart for the very want and wretchedness homespun frock you meet on the high road. He, which half-persuaded them they were orphan and who instead of carefully plucking the fruit from the forgotten, this, truly is the task of one who is greattree of knowledge as others are fain to, shook downer than the poet or the scholar, namely, a true Man, whole showers of leaves and twigs and fruit at once; and this belongs to the song-writer. The poet as who tossed down systems of morality and philoso-he wove his simple rhymes of love, or the humble phy by the handful; who wooed nature as a superior, delights of the poor, dreamed not how many toiland who carpeted the very earth beneath the deli-worn eyes brightened, and how many tyrant hearts cate feet of his fancy with such flowers of poesy as softened with reviving memories of childhood and VOICES OF THE TRUE HEARTED. 27 innocence. That which alone can make men truly | without bitterness; but to-day, I cannot love them; happy and exalted in nature, is freedom; and free on my soul, I cannot. dom of spirit, without which mere bodily liberty is We were to have had an execution yesterday; but vilest slavery, can only be achieved by culti- but the wretched prisoner avoided it by suicide. vating men's sympathy with the beautiful. The The gallows had been erected for several hours, and heart that makes free only is free, and the tyrant with a cool refinement of cruelty, was hoisted bealways is truly the bondman of his slaves. The fore the window of the condemned; the hangman longing of every soul is for freedom, which it gains was already to cut the cord; marshals paced back only by helping other souls to theirs. The power and forth, smoking and whistling; spectators were of the song-writer is exalted above others in this, waiting impatiently to see whether he would die that his words bring solace to the lowest ranks of game.' Printed circulars had been handed abroad men, loosing their spirits from thraldom by cherish-to summon the number of witnesses required by ing to life again their numbed and deadened sympa- law ::- You are respectfully invited to witness the thies, and bringing them forth to expand and purify execution of John C. Colt.' I trust some of them in the unclouded, impartial sunshine of humanity. are preserved for museums. Specimens should be Here truly is a work worthy of angels, whose bright- | kept, as relics of a barbarous age, for succeeding ness is but the more clearly visible when they are generations to wonder at. They might be hung up ministering in the dark and benighted hovels of life, | in a frame; and the portrait of a New Zealand Chief, and whose wings grow to a surer and more radiant picking the bones of an enemy of his tribe, would strength, while they are folded to enter these hum- be an appropriate pendant. blest tenements of clay, than when they are outspread proudly for the loftiest and most exulting flight. The divinity of man is indeed most wonderful and glorious in the mighty and rare soul, but how much more so is it in the humble and common one, and how far greater a thing is it to discern and reverence it there. We hear men often enough speak | of seeing God in the stars and flowers, but they will never be truly religious till they learn to behold him in each other also, where he is most easily, yet most rarely discovered. But to have become blessed enough to find him in anything, is a sure pledge of finding him in all, and many times, perhaps, some snatch of artless melody floating over the land, as if under the random tutelage of the breeze, may have given the hint of its high calling to many a soul which else had lain torpid and imbruted. Great principles work out their fulfilment with the slightest and least regarded tools, and destiny may chance to speak to us in the smell of a buttercup or the musie of the commonest air. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. BY LYDIA MARIA CHILD. To-day, I cannot write of beauty; for I am sad and troubled. Heart, head, and conscience, are all in battle-array against the savage customs of my time. By and by, the law of love, like oil upon the waters, will calm my surging sympathies, and make the current flow more calmly, though none the less deep or strong. But to-day, do not ask me to love governor, sheriff or constable, or any man who defends capital punishment. I ought to do it; for genuine love enfolds even murderers with its blessing. By to-morrow, I think I can remember them This bloody insult was thrust into the hands of some citizens, who carried hearts under their vests, and they threw it in tattered fragments to the dogs and swine, as more fitting witnesses than human beings. It was cheering to those who have faith in human progress, to see how many viewed the subject in this light. But as a general thing, the very spirit of murder was rife among the dense crowd, which thronged the place of execution. They were swelling with revenge, and eager for blood. One man came all the way from New Hampshire, on purpose to witness the entertainment; thereby showing himself a likely subject for the gallows, whoever he may be. Women deemed themselves not treated with becoming gallantry, because tickets of admittance were denied them; and I think it showed injudicious partiality; for many of them can be taught murder by as short a lesson as any man, and sustain it by arguments from Scripture, as ably as any theologian. However they were not admitted to this edifying exhibition in the great school of public morals; and had only the slim comfort of standing outside, in a keen November wind, to catch the first toll of the bell, which would announce that a human brother had been sent struggling into eternity by the hand of violence. But while the multitude stood with open watches, and strained ears to catch the sound, and the marshals smoked and whistled, and the hangman walked up and down, waiting for his prey, lo! word was brought that the criminal was found dead in his bed! He had asked one half hour alone to prepare his mind for departure; and at the end of that brief interval, he was found with a dagger thrust into his heart. The tidings were received with fierce mutterings of disappointed rage. The throng beyond the walls were furious to see him with their own eyes, to be sure that he was dead. But when the welcome news met my ear, a tremendous load was taken from my 28 VOICES OF THE TRUE-HEARTED. heart. I had no chance to analyze right and wrong; | nature rose up against the sanguinary spirit manifor over all thought and feeling flowed impulsive fested toward him. The public were, moreover, joy, that this Christian' community were cheated divided in opinion with regard to the legal construc. of a hanging. They who had assembled to commit tion of his crime; and in the keen discussion of legalized murder, in cold blood, with strange confu- legal distinctions, moral distinctions became wofulsion of ideas, were unmindful of their own guilt, ly confused. Each day hope and fear alternated; while they talked of his suicide as a crime equal to the natural effect of all this was to have the whole that for which he was condemned. I am willing to thing regarded as a game, in which the criminal leave it between him and his God. For myself, I might, or might not, become the winner; and every would rather have the burden of it on my own soul, experiment of this kind shakes public respect for the than take the guilt of those who would have execut-laws, from centre to circumference. Worse than ed a fellow creature. He was driven to a fearful extremity of agony and desperation. He was precisely in the situation of a man on board a burning ship, who being compelled to face death, jumps into the waves, as the least painful mode of the two. But they, who thus drove him to walk the plank,' made cool, deliberate preparations to take life, and with inventive cruelty sought to add every bitter drop that could be added to the dreadful cup of vengeance. To me, human life seems so sacred a thing, that its violent termination always fills me with horror, whether perpetrated by an individual or a crowd; whether done contrary to law and custom, or ac. cording to law and custom. Why John C. Colt should be condemned to an ignominious death for an act of resentment altogether unpremeditated, while men, who deliberately, and with malice aforethought, go out to murder another for some insulting word, are judges, and senators in the land, and favorite candidates for the President's chair, is more than I can comprehend. There is, to say the least, a strange inconsistency in our customs. all this was the horrible amount of diabolical pas- Her counte As we walked homeward, we encountered a deputy sheriff; not the most promising material, certainly, for lessons on humanity; but to him we spoke of the crowd of savage faces, and the tones of hatred, as obvious proof of the bad influence of capital punishment. I know that,' said he; but I don't see how we could dispense with it. Now suppose we had fifty murderers shut up in prison for life, instead of hanging 'em; and suppose there should come a revolution; what an awful thing it would be to have fifty murderers inside the prison, to be let loose upon the community!' There is another side to that proposition,' we answered; for every criminal you execute, you make a hundred murderers outside the prison, each as dangerous as would be the one inside.' He said perhaps it was so; and went his way. At the same moment that I was informed of the death of the prisoner, I heard that the prison was on fire. It was soon extinguished, but the remarkable coincidence added not a little to the convulsive excitement of the hour. I went with a friend to look at the beautiful spectacle; for it was exceedingly beautiful. The fire had kindled at the very top of As for the punishment and the terror of such dothe cupola, the wind was high, and the flames rush-ings, they fall most keenly on the best hearts in the ed upward, as if the angry spirits below had escap-community. Thousands of men, as well as women, ed on fiery wings. Heaven forgive the feelings that, for a moment mingled with my admiration of that beautiful conflagration! Society had kindled all around me a bad excitement, and one of the infernal sparks fell into my heart. If this was the effect produced on me, who am by nature tenderhearted, by principle opposed to all retaliation, and by social position secluded from contact with evil, what must it have been on the minds of rowdies and desperadoes? The effect of executions on all brought within their influence is evil, and nothing but evil. For a fortnight past, this whole city has been kept in a state of corroding excitement, either of hope or fear. The stern pride of the prisoner left little in his peculiar case to appeal to the sympathies of society; yet the instincts of our common had broken and startled sleep for several nights preceding that dreadful day. Executions always excite a universal shudder among the innocent, the humane, and the wise-hearted. It is the voice of God, crying aloud within us against the wickedness of this savage custom. Else why is it that the in. stinct is so universal? The last conversation I had with the late William Ladd made a strong impression on my mind. While he was sea-captain, he occasionally visited Spain, and once witnessed an execution there. He said that no man, however low and despicable, would consent to perform the office of hangman; and whoever should dare to suggest such a thing to a decent man, would have had his brains blown out. This feeling was so strong, and so universal, that the only VOICES OF THE TRUE HEARTED. 29 way they could procure an executioner, was to offer | ciferously then as they now do, that it was not safe to have the law changed. Judge McKean, governor of Pennsylvania, was strongly opposed to the abolition of death for stealing, and the disuse of the pillory and whipping-post. He was a very humane man, but had the common fear of changing old cus toms. It will not do to abolish these salutary restraints,' said the old gentleman; it will break up the foundations of society.' Those relics of barbarism were banished long ago but the foundations of society are nowise injured thereby. a condemned criminal his own life, if he would con sent to perform the vile and hateful office on another. Sometimes executions were postponed for months, because there was no condemned criminal to perform the office of hangman. A fee was allotted by law to the wretch who did perform it, but no one would run the risk of touching his polluted hand by giving it to him; therefore, the priest threw the purse as far as possible; the odious being ran to pick it up, and hastened to escape from the shuddering execra. tions of all who had known him as a hangman. Even the poor animal that carried the criminal and his coffin in a cart to the foot of the gallows, was an object of universal loathing. He was cropped and marked, that he might be known as the Hang-ance with the universal instincts of the human heart, man's Donkey.' No man, however great his needs, would use this beast, either for pleasure or labour; and the peasants were so averse to having him pollute their fields with his footsteps, that when he was seen approaching, the boys hastened to open the gates, and drive him off with hisses, sticks, and stones. Thus does the human heart cry out aloud against this wretched practice! The testimony from all parts of the world is invariable and conclusive, that crime diminishes in proportion to the mildness of the laws. The real danger is in having laws on the statute-book at vari and thus tempting men to continual evasion. The evasion, even of a bad law, is attended with many mischievous results; its abolition is always safe. In looking at Capital Punishment in its practical bearings on the operation of justice, an observing mind is at once struck with the extreme uncertainty attending it. The balance swings hither and thither, and settles, as it were, by chance. The strong instincts of the heart teach juries extreme reluctance to convict for capital offences. They will avail themselves of every loophole in the evidence, to avoid the bloody responsibility imposed upon them. In this way, undoubted criminals A tacit acknowledgment of the demoralizing influence of executions is generally made, in the fact that they are forbidden to be public, as formerly. The scene is now in a prison yard, instead of open fields, and no spectators are admitted but officers of the law, and those especially invited. Yet a favour-escape all punishment, until society becomes ite argument in favour of capital punishment has been the terror that the spectacle inspires in the breast of evil doers. I trust the two or three hundred singled out from the mass of New York population, by particular invitation, especially the judges and civil officers, will feel the full weight of the compliment. During the French Revolution, public executions seemed too slow, and Fouquier proposed to put the guillotine under cover, where batches of a hundred might be despatched with a few spectaWilt thou demoralize the guillotine?' asked tors. Callot, reproachfully. alarmed for its own safety, and insists that the next victim shall be sacrificed. It was the misfortune of John C. Colt, to be arrested at a time when the popular wave of indignation had been swelling higher and higher, in consequence of the impunity with which Robinson, White, and Jewell had escaped. The wrath and jealousy which they had excited was visited upon him, and his chance for a merciful verdict was greatly diminished. The scale now turns the other way; and the next offender will probably receive very lenient treatment, though he should not have so many extenuating circumstances in his favour. Another thought which forces itself upon the mind in consideration of this subject is the danger of convicting the innocent. Murder is a crime which must of course be committed in secret, and therefore the proof must be mainly circumstantial. This kind of evidence must be in its nature so precarious, that men have learned great timidity in trusting to it. In Scotland, it led to so many terrible mistakes, that they long ago refused to convict any man of a capital offence, upon circumstan. tial evidence. That bloody guillotine was an instrument of law, as well as our gallows; and what, in the name of all that is villanous, has not been established by law? Nations, clans, and classes, engaged in fierce struggles of selfishness and hatred, made laws to strengthen each other's power, and revenge each other's aggressions. By slow degrees, always timidly and reluctantly, society emerges out of the barbarisms with which it thus became entangled. It is but a short time ago that men were hung in this country for stealing. The last human brother who suffered under this law, in Massachusetts, was so wretchedly poor, that when he hung on the gal. A few years ago a poor German came to New lows, his rags fluttered in the wind. What think York, and took lodgings, where he was allowed to do you was the comparative guilt, in the eye of God, his cooking in the same room with the family. The between him and those who hung him? Yet, it husband and wife lived in a perpetual quarrel. One was according to law; and men cried out as vo-day the German came into the kitchen with a clasp 30 39 VOICES OF THE TRUE-HEARTED. excited the suspicion of Burton, and he induced her to confess to him the whole transaction. It was obvious enough that suspicion would fasten upon him, the well-known lover of her who had been so deeply injured. He was arrested, but succeeded in persuading her that he was in no danger. Circumstantial evidence was fearfully against him, and he soon saw that his chance was doubtful; but with affectionate magnanimity, he concealed this from her. He was convicted and condemned. A short time before the execution, he endeavord to cut his throat; but his life was saved for the cruel purpose of taking it away according to the cold-blooded barbarism of the law. Pale and wounded, he was hoisted to the gallows before the gaze of a Christian community. knife and a pan of potatoes, and began to prepare I witness the horrible deed. Some little incident them for his dinner. The quarrelsome couple were in a more violent altercation than usual; but he sat with his back toward them, and being ignorant of their language, felt in no danger of being involved in their disputes. But the woman, with a sudden and unexpected movement, snatched the knife from his hand, and plunged it in her husband's heart. She had sufficient presence of mind to rush into the street, and scream murder. The poor foreigner, in the meanwhile, seeing the wounded man reel, sprang forward to catch him in his arms, and drew out the knife. People from the street crowded in, and found him with the dying man in his arms, the knife in his hand, and blood upon his clothes. The wicked woman swore, in the most positive terms, that he had been fighting with her husband, and had stabbed him with a knife he always carried. The The guilty cause of all this was almost frantic, unfortunate German knew too little English to un- when she found that he had thus sacrificed himself derstand her accusation, or to tell his own story. to save her. She immediately published the whole He was dragged off to prison, and the true state of history of her wrongs, and her revenge. Her keen the case was made known through an interpreter; sense of wounded honour was in accordance with but it was not believed. Circumstantial evidence public sentiment, her wrongs excited indignation was exceedingly strong against the accused, and the and compassion, and the knowledge that an innoreal criminal swore unhesitatingly that she saw him cent and magnanimous man had been so brutally commit the murder. He was executed, nowith-treated excited a general revulsion of popular feelstanding the most persevering efforts of his lawyer, John Anthon, Esq., whose convictions of the man's innocence were so painfully strong, that from that day to this, he has refused to have any connexion with a capital case. Some years after this tragic event, the woman died, and, on her death-bed, confessed her agency in the diabolical transaction; but her poor victim could receive no benefit from this tardy repentance; society had wantonly thrown away its power to atone for the grievous wrong. ing. No one wished for another victim, and she was left unpunished, save by the dreadful records of her memory. Few know how numerous are the cases where it has subsequently been discovered that the innocent suffered instead of the guilty. Yet one such case in an age is surely enough to make legislators pause before they cast a vote against the abolition of Capital Punishment. Many of my readers will doubtless recollect the But many say the Old Testament requires blood tragical fate of Burton, in Missouri, on which a for blood.' So it requires that a woman should be novel was founded, which still circulates in the li. put to death for adultery; and men for doing work braries. A young lady, belonging to a genteel and on the Sabbath; and children for cursing their pavery proud family, in Missouri, was beloved by a rents; and If an ox were to push with his horn, young man named Burton; but unfortunately her in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, affections were fixed on another less worthy. He and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed left her with a tarnished reputation. She was by a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and his nature energetic and high-spirited, her family were owner also shall be put to death.' The commands proud, and she lived in the midst of a society which given to the Jews, in the old dispensation, do not considered revenge a virtue, and named it honor. form the basis of any legal code in Christendom. Misled by this popular sentiment, and her own exThey could not form the basis of any civilized code. cited feelings, she resolved to repay her lover's If one command is binding on our consciences, all treachery with death. But she kept her secret so are binding; for they all rest on the same authority. well, that no one suspected her purpose, though she purchased pistols, and practiced with them daily. Mr. Burton gave evidence of his strong attachment by renewing his attentions when the world looked most coldly upon her. His generous kindness won her heart, but the softening influence of love did not lead her to forego the dreadful purpose she had formed. She watched for a favorable opportunity, and shot her betrayer when no one was near, to They who feel bound to advocate capital punishment for murder, on account of the law given to Moses, ought, for the same reason, to insist that children should be executed for striking or cursing their parents. It was said by them of old time, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you resist not evil.' If our eyes were lifted up,' we should see, not Moses and Elias, but Jesus only. |