We commend it to the attention of our superintendents. It may be had of the Publisher, C. L. Stickney, 140 Fulton St. N. Y.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, BY D. P. LIVERMORE.

Our thanks are tendered to the author, for a copy of this pamphlet. Though we do not subscribe to all its views, we admire its spirit, and think it calculated to do much good. We do not believe that governments have no right to take life, and that the command, Thou shalt not kill, was designed to prohibit the taking of life under all circumstances. Such an interpretation is contradicted by the example of Moses. We are aware that we differ from most advocates of the repeal of the death-penalty in the foregoing particulars, but we do not design to give here the reasons of our dissent from them. We grant that government has no right to take life when the safety of the community does not demand it.

We have room only for the following extract from the Essay before us.

"It is virtually acknowledged by the gallows-advocating community, that the death-penalty is inefficient, and that its influence upon the motley crowd who assemble to witness an execution is anything but salutary; for now executions are mostly private. If their influence is beneficial, why are not the people allowed to profit by them? Formerly, executions were public, and the people thronged promiscuously to witness them, but now they occur in the seclusion of the jail-yard, in the presence of a few witnesses summoned by law, and others especially invited. Why this change? Is it not a tacit confession that the spectacle of hanging a fellow-being exerts an unholy influence ! Has not the undeniable fact, that many capital crimes have not unfrequently been committed, at the very time of execution, effected this change? The hands of the hangman have scarcely secured the fatal knot, and the body of the murderer has yet been vibrating in the air, when among the dense crowd of spectators, offences have been committed of a like character of those they assembled to witness! A London paper stated that during the public execution of two pick-pockets, forty watches were stolen among the crowd of assembled spectators! This, too, was the identical crime of the two men whose execution they were witnessing! A thief at Newgate made the following reply to a query proposed by the chaplain to him,- Executions are the best harvests we have; for when the eyes of the spectators are fixed above, their pockets are unprotected below!' Do these facts tend to prove that the influence of the gallows is beneficial, or that it deters from crime? Dr. Dodd, a celebrated English divine and popular London preacher, has the following just remark on this subject: We constantly hear of crimes not less flagitious than those for which the criminal is to die, perpetrated even at the very place and moment of his punishment.' This individual afterwards suffered the punishment of death for committing forgery under circumstances of great temptation; and in less

than two years one of the jury who brought in a verdict against Dr. Dodd, which sentenced him to die, was himself hung on the same gallows, for the same crime !"-pp. 23, 24.

PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.

Nos. 31 and 32, of Wiley and Putnam's Library of Choice Reading, contain M. S. Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy. These are very valuable numbers. Tupper is a sound philosopher and a real poet. Many parts of his work are admirably executed. The article on Prayer is one of the best answers we ever read to the Infidel argument against prayer. The whole work is highly suggestive, and cannot be read without improving the mind and heart. It may be had of B. B. Mussey, Bookseller and Stationer, Cornhill, at whose store an extensive assortment of Standard Works on Divinity, History, Law, &c. may be always found. The following extract will show the author's style.

"To-morrow, whispereth weakness; and To-morrow findeth him the weaker;

To-morrow, promiseth conscience; and behold, no to-day for a fulfilment.

O name of happy omen unto youth, O bitter word of terror to the dotard,

Goal of folly's lazy wish. and sorrow's ever-coming friend,

Fraud's loophole,-caution's hint,-and trap to catch the honest,—
Thou wealth to many poor, disgrace to many noble,

Thou hope and fear, thou weal and woe, thou remedy, thou ruin,
How thickly swarms of thought are clusternig round To-morrow,
The hive of memory increaseth, to every day its cell;
There is the labor stored, the honey or corruption;
Each morn the bees fly forth, to fill the growing comb,
And levy golden tribute of the uncomplaining flowers:
To-morrow is their care; they toil for rest To-morrow;
But man deferreth duty's task, and loveth ease to-day.

To-morrow is that lamp upon the marsh, which a traveller never reacheth;

To-morrow, the rainbow's cup, coveted prize of ignorance;
To-morrow, the shifting anchorage, dangerous trust of mariners;
To-morrow, the wrecker's beacon, wily snare of the destroyer.
Reconcile conviction with delay, and To-morrow is a fatal lie;
Frighten resolution into action, To-morrow is a wholesome truth;
I must, for I fear To-morrow; this is the Cassava's food ;
Why should I? Let me trust To-morrow,-this is the Cassava's
poison.

Lo, it is the even of To-day,-a day so lately a To-morrow;
Where are those high resolves, those hopes of yesterday?

O faint fond heart, still shall thy whisper be, To-morrow,

And must the growing avalanch of sin roll down that easy slope? Alas, it is ponderous, and moving on in might, that a Sisyphus may not stop it;

But haste thee with the lever of a prayer, and stem its strength Today:

For its race may speedily be run, and this poor hut, thyself,

Be whelmed in death and suffocating guilt, that dreary Alpine snow wreath.

Pensioner of life, be wise, and heed a brother's counsel,

I also am a beadsman, with scrip and staff as thou:

Wouldest thou be bold against the past, and all its evil memories, Wouldest thou be safe amid the present, its dangers and temptations, Wouldest thou be hopeful of the future, vague though it be and endless?

Haste thee, repent, believe, obey! thou standest in the courage of a legion:

Commend the Past to God, with all its irrevocable harm,

Humbly, but in cheerful trust, and banish vain regrets;

Come to him, continually come, casting all the Present at his feet,
Boldly, but in prayerful love, and fling off selfish cares;
Commit the Future to his will, the viewless fated Future;
Zealously go forward with integrity, and God will bless thy faith.
For that, feeble as thou art, there is with thee a mighty Conqueror,
Thy friend, the same forever, yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow;
That friend, changeless as eternity, himself shall make thee friends
Of those thy foes transformed, yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow."

DEATH OF MRS. FLETCHER.

The following letter, which we copy from the Trumpet, contains the painful intelligence of the death of Mrs. Fletcher, wife of Br. Fletcher, who has been recently settled at Cambridgeport. She died at the residence of her father, in Langdon, N. H.

Langdon, N. H., Feb. 19, 1846. DEAR BROTHER-It becomes my painful duty to inform you and my friends in Cambridge, that at half past three o'clock this afternoon, my beloved wife bade adieu to this life. For four days she has been rapidly failing, and for the last two we have not expected her life from one hour to the next.

These days, though full of pain, were the happiest of her life. She longed for the messenger to come who should call her home; and, when she felt him near, she bade him a joyful welcome. The triumphs of faith never were more glorious; a death-bed more calm and joyful. But I cannot write; my soul is full of bitterness and gladness. I feel deeply my affliction, yet am I comforted by that gospel which is able to give joy in death.

Brother, remember me in your prayerful communion with our Father

in heaven.

Yours truly,

L. J. FLETCHER.

Rev. L. R. PAIGE.

GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN INDIANA.-A bill has passed the Legislature of the above State, declaring in all cases where a man is convicted of murder, the jury may decide whether he shall be hung or imprisoned for life. We look upon this as a virtual abolition of the deathpenalty, or we do not believe that any Jury could be had in the State, formed from the people promiscuously, which would decide that a man should be hung.-Star in the West.

TO ALL to whom these presents shall come, and to the Universalist public especially:

THE Committee to whom was referred the consideration of the accusation preferred against the character of Br. E. B. Wheelock, beg leave respectfully to report, that upon mature examination of the witnesses, so far as we have had an opportunity, we are convinced that his conduct has been not only imprudent, but immoral, and we have therefore

Resolved, that the said E. B. Wheelock be suspended from the fellowship of the Association until a more full investigation can be had, and his innocence be established. And also, that he is hereby called upon to appear before the council of the Central Association at its next annual session and answer to the charges preferred against him.

J. H. SANFORD,
B. F. WOODMAN,
S. MILES.

Com.

Expounder.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN RUSSIA AND TUSCANY." The penalty of death as part of the ordinary penal law was done away in Rus sia more than a century ago, by the Empress Elizabeth. Her successor Catharine in adopting the same policy, in her new code of laws, attested in these words her conviction of its wisdom, as proved by twenty years' experience. The twenty years' reign of the Empress Elizabeth gave the fathers of the nation a more excellent pattern than that of all the pomps of war, victory and devastation.' Since then that penalty has been inflicted in Russia on only two occasions, in both for rebellion against the Government. And so satisfactory has been the result of its abolition, that in the early part of the present emperor's reign, the wise reform was extended to Finland, until then under the laws in force when it was a Swedish province. Count de Segur, on his return from an embassy in Russia, in 1791, declared that country to be one of those in which the fewest murders were committed, adding that Catharine had several times said to him, we must punish crime without imitating it: the punishment of death is rarely anything but a useless barbarity.' O'Sullivan says, the Russian representatives in this country, with whom we have conversed, have borne a similar testimony as to the comparative frequency of murders, in view of the vast multitudes and rude character of the population; and stated that all the intelligent public opinion there, is perfectly settled on this subject, no one thinking of returning to the death punishment.'

In 1765, the punishment of death was abolished in Tuscany, imprisonment at hard labor for life taking its place. The result was, as the

Grand Duke Leopold testifies, in an edict issued twenty-one years afterward, that instead of increasing the number of crimes, it considerably diminished that of the smaller ones, and rendered those of an attrocious nature very rare.' A report to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1830 alluding to this subject, says, 'the mildness of the penal legislation [in Tuscany] had so improved the character of the people, that there was a time when the prisons of the Grand Duchy were entirely empty.' Edward Livingston states, on the authority of a gentleman who resided five years at Pisa,' a Tuscan city, that only five murders had been perpetrated' in the Grand Duchy in twenty years since the Abolition.' He adds that in Rome, where the manners, principles and religion of the inhabitants are the same,' and where death, inflicted with great pomp and parade, is the penalty for murder, sixty murders were committed in three months, in the city and vicinity." -Burleigh's Work.

MONTHLY RECORD.

DEDICATION. The Meeting-house erected in Stamford, Con. was dedicated on the 5th of Feb. Sermon by Br. S. B. Brittan.

ORDINATION.-Br. E. A. Holbrook was ordained in Melone, N. Y. Jan. 15th. Sermon by Br. J. Baker.

NEW SOCIETIES-A Second Society has been formed in Louisville, Ky. They have procured a hall in which they have preaching regularly every Sunday afternoon. Br. Pingree, pastor of the first society supplies them. A society has also been formed in Beaver, Ohio; another in M'Connolsville, O.; another in Bremen, Ky.

DISCUSSIONS.-There was a discussion on Universalism between Br. Gunnison and Rev. J. Hill a month or two since, in West Waterville, Me. We have read the sketch of it in the Gospel Banner with much satisfaction. Br. G. sustained himself to the entire satisfaction of his friends. Another was held in New Baltimore, N. Y., between Br. Bunker, of Hudson, and Rev. Mr. Martin, Christian. It was to have been renewed a few days after, but Mr. M's. friends thought it was not productive of any good!

REMOVALS. Br. L. B. Mason, late of Albany, N. Y. has removed to Lebanon, N. H.; Br. S. Brimblecom to Dudley; Br. C. S. Shipman to Columbus, N. Y.; Br. J. Gregory to Willotson, Vt.; Br. T. J. Tenney to Camden, Me.; Br. A. C. Barry to Richmond, Va.

NEW MEETING-HOUSES.-Measures have been adopted for the erection of a Meeting-house in Camden, Me.; also in Franklin, Ind. ; also in Jackson, Mich. and in Mesopotamia, O.

STAR OF BETHLEHEM.-This paper has passed into the hands of Br. Wm. Bell. Many years ago, Br. B. had charge of the Watchman and Repository, which he conducted with ability and tact, and which he made a useful paper. We are glad that he has taken charge of the Star, and we hope that it will no longer be the medium through which the rankest deism shall be taught as Christianity. We shall hope to see the productions of Brs. Miner and Brooks again in its columns.