also, that the tendency of their efforts is to increase transgression and embolden the sinner. Men, we are told, fear death more than anything else, and yet we would abolish the death-penalty! Certainly we must be mistaken philanthropists, it is said, or we could never seek to abolish what men fear the most ! This reasoning is false, and contradicted by all the experience of the world. If those who reason thus are right, why are they constantly modifying their views of the divine punishments? Formerly they believed that hell was a place of literal fire, and they supposed the hotter they could make it, the more it would do to restrain. Hence they represented it by all the terrible images they could employ ! But now its fires have all gone out, and it has become so tolerable, that the least uncomfortable seat there is about the same as the lowest seat in heaven! A sad change this, if the reasoning we oppose is correct! Why, these men, by lessening the torments of hell, are weakening the restraints that have been upon the wicked! That is their own argument, applied to themselves! Besides, if their reasoning is right, why do they not seek to introduce the old sanguinary modes of punishment? Why not have stealing again punished with death and forgery with death? England once had nearly two hundred capital offences. Why not look up that old criminal code, and seek its establishment in this country? Why not go beyond that sanguinary code, and have one more bloody still? Why not inflict death for every offence, and in the most cruel way that could be devised? Why not have laws declaring that if a man steals, or commits any offence whatever, he shall be hung up by the ribs on iron hooks till he is dead, or rolled in a barrel stuck with nails, or pulled to pieces with red-hot pincers, or roasted alive? Certainly, if the greater the punishment the greater the restraint, I should suppose that we might invent punishments that would prevent all crimes. How will this reasoning now look to those who say the greater the punishment, the greater the restraint? If they are not yet convinced of its falsity, let me turn their attention to a few historical facts. During the reign of Henry VIII, seventy-two thousand executions took place for the single crime of robbery. That amounted to about six executions a day! Thus his reign was distinguished for the severity of its punishments and the abundance of its crimes! The reign of Peter the Great was cruel in the extreme, and his punishments barbarous in the extreme. All history corresponds with these facts. There VOL. III.-NO. VI. 23* is but one voice that comes down from the past, and that voice declares that crimes have always been numerous in proportion to the cruelty of the laws by which they have been punished. This shows that cruel punishments demoralize the minds of the populace, blunt their natural feelings, and render criminal characters more desperate. If those who say the severer the law the greater its restraint, are not yet satisfied, we will ask them to look at Rome, Russia, Bombay, Belgium, Tuscany, England, and Wales. In each of these places the modification of the laws has tended to decrease crime. I love to think of these experiments. We have not many of them, I know, but they all tell one way,— they all show the safety of equity. THE PAST. BY JULIA A. FLETCHER. THE past, the wild and dreamy past,- It asks in voice of sad rebuke "Where are the moments flown ?" It counts the many precious hours And speaks of many a talent given It tells of blessings showered like rain, If they have filled my soul with praise, Oh, hush, thou mournful monitor! I may not bear the bitter thoughts The tide of mingled memories, Oh, I have bowed to earth a heart Forgive me, once again forgive, Bear with me yet once more! 'T is not toolate,-upon my way Haply fair peace may yet remove Then hush, thou mournful monitor! Boston, Mass. THE DANGER OF BAD HABITS. BY REV. E. H. CHAPIN. "At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."-PROV. xxili, 32. THIS apt and vivid metaphor describes the final results of intemperance. In a passage of the most energetic eloquence, the wise man has been designating this vice. "Who hath woe?" says he, "who hath sorrow ? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.' And then comes the forcible image," At the last," adds he, "At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” The appropriateness of this illustration to the specific vice here mentioned, every one must perceive. Who that has followed the victim of inordinate thirst from his first temptation to his last fall,-from the gilded saloon where the wine moved aright in the cup, to the loathsome kennel, where, 66 tossing in delirium, he strives to pluck away the unreal shapes that to his fantastic vision seem to coil upon him, and writhes as if bitten by a tooth of fire;" who that has observed this commencement and this issue, does not feel in the very core of his heart the thrilling truth of the text? To us who may stand outside the charmed circle of temptation, it must seem strange that one can thus yield and thus fall. We see the serpent in the first glass. It is that which causeth the wine to move, it is that which glides around in the beaded foam, and gleams on the sparkling rim, as it presses the very lips. We would say to that infatuated man, "Look not upon it because it is so red,— there is treachery in that deep hue, it conceals an adder's sting; its attractiveness is the serpent's charm, deluding the soul through the senses. Because it is so attractive, for that very reason distrust it, for that very reason dash it down, and turn away!" But the delusion is upon him,—the glittering snare begins to coil around him,-the circles of that little wine-cup draw him downward, slowly at first, then faster and faster, to his ruin; and are more mighty than the ridges of the awful maelstrom that drag tall ships to destruction. But to him, in that first hour of temptation, there is nothing of this. There is light above and below. There are music and laughter all around. There is nothing so innocent as the sparkles in the glass,-nothing so pleasant as the taste of the ruddy wine. Let the ascetic carp, the preacher prate, the exhilaration of the hour is better than all their whims. They would rob earth of its roses and heaven of its stars, and throw over the sunshine of innocent pleasure the pall-like shadow of their gloomy imaginations,-they denounce with the lips a joy which they secretly desire,-let the brave and merry-hearted be, what they really are yet dare not seem. Thus the wit of the sensualist and the sentiment of the bacchanal shall drown the deep warnings of true and earnest hearts. Day followeth day, year passeth after year, and the charm is completely woven, the victim is ensnared. Lo! the lights of that first gay hour have disappeared, the sparkling accompaniments are gone; and from haunts of open shame, from dens of reeking sin, from places of strife and confusion, there rises a question of solemn, earnest meaning, "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?"—and the answer comes in a cry of agony, as from parched lips, from sick and heavy hearts, from polluted, mournful, dying souls, "Oh! they that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine!" But the end is not yet. It is not in that hideous bodily aspect,-it is not in that heart-sickness,-it is not even in that moral taint and disease. It is in those wrecked powers of soul, those abused paralyzed capacities of mind, it is in that imperious, burning appetite that has been slowly yet surely created, and that controls them all. When this wakes up,-when this wrestles with and clamors against the enfeebled will, and defies the adverse reason, then comes the terrible agony, then comes the shameful defeat. Days of good resolution may have intervened since those lips last touched the cup,-years of reformation may have wrought their strength and promise,-and then in one short hour the appetite, that seemed vanquished and dead, may rouse itself, and all is gone, swept away, stricken down. Ah! this is the fearfulness of that wine-cup. There are sparkles upon the surface, but there is a residuum of shame and woe in the dregs. There is a concealed evil which lurks below all the rest, and maintains a fearful longevity; that hides itself under good resolutions,-under strong efforts for repentance,-under hopeful reformations,-and after all, rises up and inflicts its wound. This is the evil of a diseased appetite; and who hath seen it thus as it were in the end of all other evil consequences; yea, when all evil consequences seemed to have passed, who that hath seen it rise up, smiting, paralyzing, overthrowing on the hope and promise that had been built, does not feel the force of the words,-" At the last, at the last! it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder ?" But I do not propose to confine attention at this time to the specific vice referred to in the words at the head of this article, but would offer two or three remarks connected with the general subjects of vice and sensuality. For to any branch of these, these words will be found applicable. Let us consider, then, in the first place, the evils of unduly fostering or creating an appetite, of allowing our passions and impulses to run loose. To do thus is to put out of view the highest and noblest idea of life and of our own being, the idea of discipline. Discipline; this is the object for which we are placed in this world. Such is the only comprehensive view of life,-it alone gives us a great end for being, solves the enigmas of existence, and reconciles its mysteries. For this reason do we find sorrow mixed in our cup of joy, and evil side by side with the good. Both are |