shall fear, and for the sight of his eyes which he shall see.'

It may be said, if we remove the gallows, there is no terror. Was there no terror to Cain? Has human nature altered? Is there nothing in a guilty conscience? Let us beware how we turn men from themselves. Let us show them there is a hell within; that in the very act of doing wrong, they kindle a fire in their own hearts, a worse hell than ever poets or divines imagined. And while we teach the sanctity of life, let us show that misery must follow in the path of wickedness. Any other doctrine is fraught with danger to the community. The author of Lacon has spoken very aptly on this subject. That the wicked prosper in the world, that they come into no misfortune like other folk, neither are they plagued like other men, is a doctrine that divines should not broach too frequently in the present day. For there are some so completely absorbed in present things, that they would subscribe to that blind and blasphemous wish of the marshal and duke of Biron, who, on hearing an ecclesiastic observe that those whom God hath forsaken and deserted as incorrigible, were permitted their full swing of worldly pleasures, the gratification of all their passions, and a long life of sensuality, affluence, and indulgence, immediately replied, "that he should be most happy to be so forsaken."

Amidst all the guilt and sufferings of the murderer, still both life and liberty were held sacred. ' And the Lord said unto him, Therefore, whosoever slayeth him, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.' How remarkable! The first law on record against murder, is to preserve the life of the murderer

himself! If the gallows is so sanctifying, why was it not reared at that early period in the history of man?

It may be said there was no express law against crime; and 'where there is no law, there is no transgression.' There was no law written upon stone, but there was one written deep upon the human soul. There is, however, an eternal and immutable distinction between virtue and vice, truth and falsehood. It is an eternal law of nature that man shall not kill. It did not begin to be a law when first revealed, but it was so from the beginning. When the commands were given upon Mount Sinai, they were only a transcript from the great Original Mind, of what had always been right. Let all written laws against crime be abolished, and yet it would be wrong to commit them. We will give a single illustration. Were all human statutes, or even divine, respecting fraud, injustice, or cruelty, to be struck out of being, still it would be as wrong to steal or murder, as if we had ten thousand more laws enacted. Truth is truth, right is right, independent of all laws.*

But to return. Such is the account of the first murder, the motive by which it was prompted, the manner in which it took place, the trial of the parricide, the sentence and the Judge. And how many solemn thoughts rush into the mind! We behold the progenitors of our race driven from Paradise, laden with guilt

*The author could not be expected, in a work of this nature, to enter into a dissertation on the doctrine of Immutable Distinctions. He refers the reader to the writings of DUGALD STEWART and BROWN, and especially to the invaluable work of Dr. SAMUEL CLARKE, entitled, 'A discourse concerning the Being and Attributes of God, the obligations of Natural Religion, and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation,' vol. ii. p. 37, London, 1725.

and borne down with sorrow. We behold them as they clasp their first-born! Then a few short years, and what a scene meets their eyes! Their first-born a murderer! We follow them as they stand over the body of martyred Abel!-as they compose his cold limbs and lay them into the first grave dug for mortality!' And how many moral truths does this scene present to the reflecting mind! And were it our province, gladly would we present them. But we revert to the history to learn the fate of the murderer, and what an argument against the shedding of blood! Who can gainsay it? And here the great fact stands, that life is inviolable, that even the days of the murderer are too sacred to be shortened! And here it ever will stand as one of the planets in the firmament of revealed truth! It stands for the guidance of all legislators! It stands forever as a bow in God's universe, as an oasis in a desert. And when the hand that pens these lines shall be motionless in the grave, and others shall plead for the sanctity of human life, here will be found that great truth stamped with the broad seal of Jehovah. We love to linger here and contemplate this bright truth, this truth on which rests the temporal happiness of a world! But we must close. Other scenes invite our attention. We have opened the volume of inspiration, and we must follow it as it leads us on to other times and other events. And we finish with a single reflection.

The first murder! How many thoughts are awakened by that expression! The first murder, and that a brother, and in the first family that trod our fair earth! How ardently does the philanthropist look forward to the last murder! To that quiet and beautiful period when the earth shall no longer drink

in the blood of her children; when superstition and ignorance, pride and passion, bloodshed and misery, will yield before the dominion of the Prince of Peace; when the hand of cultivation shall spread bloom and beauty through all the valleys, and up the sides of every hill and mountain, and over all the continents and islands of the earth, till at last the Prince of Peace will sit upon his throne, the grand pacificator and restorer of a world! How glorious!

ESSAY II.

COVENANT WITH NOAH.

Importance of the argument-Cheever's view-Confounded with Mosaic code-Cain's sentence experimental-Reply-The deluge— The promise-Rainbow-Translation—Septuagint-Vulgate— Le Clerc-Calvin-Upham—A prediction-Cheever's ridicule— Sanctity of life-Chapin's view-Patriarchal age-Illustration from Jesus-The revelator-Debate in Windward Islands.

'We regard it as merely expressive of a great retributive fact in nature, and in the overruling Providence of God, that he, who designedly and wickedly takes human life, shall, assuredly, in some way or other, meet with severe punishment, and will probably come to a violent end.'-T. C. UPHAM; Manual of Peace, p. 219.

We have now reached a very important part of our labor; a portion of Scripture on which the advocates for the punishment of death place great confidence. The Rev. Mr. Cheever calls it 'the citadel of the argument, commanding and sweeping the whole subject.'

'The hand,' he continues, that drew the rainbow over the sky, in sign "that storms prepare to part," wrote this statute in lines no more to be effaced till the destruction of all things, than the colors of the rainbow can be blotted from the sky, while lasts the constitution of this physical universe. And, as in every conflict of the elements that might fill men's souls with terror of another deluge, this bow of mercy, this vision of delight, should span the clouds with the glittering arch, so, in every storm of human passion, that rises to the violence of death, this statute, as a