PUNISHMENT BY DEATH: IT'S AUTHORITY' AND EXPEDIENCY. BY GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D.D. Τὸ καλῶς δ ̓ ἔχον πόλει πάλαισμα μή ποτε λῦσαι θεὸν ἀιτοῦμαι. I will never implore the Deity to slacken that avenging effort which hath Edipus Tyrannus, 879, 890. NEW YORK: JOHN WILEY, 161 BROADWAY, INTRODUCTION. On the Sabbath succeeding the execution of two men for piracy, in New Orleans, in the year 1820, an eloquent minister of the Gospel, Rev. Sylvester Larned, preached a sermon with reference to the solemn spectacle, on the execution of the penalty of the Divine Law. He opened his discourse with the following remarks:— "The principle, upon which the recent execution was grounded, is one of the most impressive and imposing character. In the judicial act of hurrying two fellow-beings into eternity, we have not been looking on the infliction of revenge, we have not been viewing a sacrifice to the mere excitement of public feeling, we have not been witnessing the fate of persons too abandoned for reformation. None of this. The one single principle presiding over the necessity and the sternness of so mournful a scene has been the unbending majesty of law; of law, which knows none of the impulses of mercy, which puts away from it every sympathy with the suffering it demands. While then the laws of man evince so much severity, suppose we carry our contemplation higher, and look at the similar relation, in which all of us stand to the laws of the Godhead. Do not call this an unnatural transition to another subject. It is essentially the same subject. If there be any truth in the Bible, "sentence has passed upon all men to condemnation,” and surely, when sentence has issued, we need |