73 



the crisis attained in the punishment of lawless- 

 ness, it must include the greatest number of in- 

 centives to good, and the most successful manner 

 of dealing with the crime of which the death 

 penalty is the result, It plainly declares that 

 some kinds of sin are so heinous as to launch 

 their perpetrators beyond the hope or advisability 

 of repentance. 



The penalty for murder in the first degree in 

 each of the states and territories, in the United 

 States, with the exception of about three, is death 

 by hanging. In New York it is death by elec- 

 trocution, and in Michigan (1890) imprisonment 

 for life. Hon. R. F. Glenn says:—" In all states. 

 and territories the penalty (for murder in the 

 first degree) is the permanent retiring of the 

 criminal from society" (1894). 



The preservation of the law, and the welfare' 

 of society, demand the payment of the penalty at 

 the hands of the criminal. And who will assert 

 that the death penalty is undeserved or unreason- 

 able. The possibility of reformation and effect- 

 ive repentance has been eliminated, and the only 

 consolation the criminal has is the fact that his. 

 government punishes crime and rewards virtue. 

 That there is an analogy between physical death, 

 as a penalty for crime, and eternal death, as the- 

 wanes of sin, is fearfully true. The technical 

 make-shift that there is a difference between 



