is human blood. By this phrase I would understand that he would allow any animal to be slain for slaying man. Nay, indeed, not only allow it to be slain, but he solemnly requires it to be slain.

Francis. While I accord with the preacher who says that all cruelty, oppression, and hard service imposed on animals, deserves the frowns of indignant heaven; and while I believe that the man who for his pleasure, or even for his interest, abuses a horse, an ox, or a dog, will be charged with it in the day of judgment, if he repent not; especially horse-racers, bull-baiters, and cock-fighters, I think this is fully taught in other places, and that here exclusive reference is had to shedding human blood.

"Thou

Rufus. Truly, I think that he that said, shalt not muzzle the ox treading out the corn,' will not hold that man guiltless who starves his horse, who overworks his ass, or wantonly torments any creature detrimental to his existence.

Mary. Mr. Cowper on this subject, exactly expresses my idea, only more elegantly than I could have done it

"I would not place him on my list of friends,

Though polish'd with fine manners and good sense
Who heedlessly would tread upon a worm."

Olympas. I may conclude, then, that we all agree in the sentiment, while we repudiate this as the sense of the passage.

Thomas Dilworth. I think in this case, as in all others, the context helps us out of the difficulty. The preservation of human life from violence seems to be the mind of the Spirit in this connexion.

It may read, "At the hand of every beast, and at the hand of man will I require the blood of your lives." Nay, farther, he adds, "At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man."

Reuben. And this certainly is confirmed by the following unequivocal precept: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Does not this command some person to kill the man who has voluntarily killed his brother? And if man must die for killing man, surely a beast ought to die for the same deed, although incapable of reason, and therefore not a subject of moral law. Rufus. But this would not simply allow, but constrain the punishment of murder by inflicting death in every case. And was this the law ever

since the flood?

Francis. It was not the law before the flood; for Cain, the first murderer, who literally slew his own brother, was not put to death, although his blood called to heaven for vengeance. And is it the Christian law?

Olympas. Cain was not killed-civil government was not yet set up-nor, indeed, does it appear that civil government was instituted by any divine authority before the flood. And this may explain the reason why the earth was filled with violence, private vengeance and retaliation. But in newly organizing human society after the flood, God early provided against the outrage of the antediluvian age, by making it the duty of man to set up a magistracy clothed with power of life and death.

Thomas. Are we, then, to understand that it is now the duty of the civil magistrate to punish

murder with death, in consequence of a precept given to Noah? Is not the Old Testament done away by the New, and a better—that is, a milder, a Christian government set up? I read some thing about the lex talionis, the law of reprisals and retaliation, as being contrary to the genius of Christianity. I would be glad to understand this

matter.

Olympas. The Scriptures called the "Old Testament," said to be done away, is that described by Paul which came from Mount Sinai in Arabia. That was the covenant of the Jewish peculiarities. It was an episode or digression from the patriarchal institution, and not being identified with it at its rise, or in its history, it could not be abolished with it. Some learned men have, indeed, confounded this precept with the law of Moses, and thus subjected it to the same abrogation. But this precept is older than Abraham by three hundred and fifty years, and older than Moses by more than seven centuries. The precept is therefore as old and as universal as the present world. The Jewish code had its cities of refuge for the innocent man-slayer, and its death for the murderer, and various other regulations on this subject. But here is a precept of God antecedent to it, not confined by it, and as broad as the whole stream of human nature, and extending through all dispensations and generations of men, neither vacated nor abolished by law or gospel.

Reuben. Does not the Sermon on the Mount teach "No longer eye for eye, tooth for tooth, stripe for stripe, burning for burning?"

Olympas. So it does; but that sermon was addressed not to civil governments but to Christ's

disciples. And what have Christians, as such, to do with putting men to death, or of sitting on civil judgment seats! There is no compulsion in Christ's kingdom-no prosecution of disciples of Christ by disciples before civil magistrates on any account known in the New Testament. It proves nothing here to admit that Christians are not to retaliate any injury whatever. The question is not what Christian or Jewish governments, but what human governments are to do. The text says, "He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." This is a positive statute of man's Creator; and if civil government be an ordinance of God, then the ministers of that government have sin upon them who disobey the precept which institutes all civil and political rule. For to what precept, if not to this, shall men look for civil authority of any sort! This precept has in it the whole of civil government. In giving to man power over the life of man, as God's minister to execute wrath, power over the entire person and property of man is delegated, inasmuch as the greater always includes the less. God has sometime and somewhere given the sword to the civil magistrate. It is a real sword, and not a picture of one, which the civil magistrate wears upon his thigh. It is a sword to shed the blood of him that has taken the life of man in deliberate wrath or malice. Now if God has given the sword, when and where did he do it, if not in the text before us? This, my young friends, is the true and primitive and divine institution of civil government which has to do with man as man-not with man as a Jew or a Christian; but I repeat it, with men as man. Those who would strip the

magistrate of the sword, have mistaken God's precepts, and have aimed, without intending it, a mortal thrust at all civil government. When there is no world, but all church, we will need no jails, pillories, scaffolds, swords, or magistrates; but till then I plead for the civil magistracy and the civil sword for a terror to evil doers, and for a praise to them that do well.

If God's precept were obeyed, and every duellist and murderer were promptly put to death as the Lord has commanded, many lives would be saved, and the world would stand in awe of the righteous judgment of God. But I fear there is much blood-guiltiness on the heads of this land for their winking at various forms of murder, and therefore disobeying a positive command of God,-"By man shall his blood be shed."

Rufus. Ought the civil sword of which you speak to be employed in shedding any other blood than that of the murderer? For example, ought the thief, the robber, the burglar, or the man guilty of arson, to suffer death?

Olympas. By no means: except in case of house-burning human life be not taken.

Francis. But the reason given for slaying the murderer, or for enforcing the precept, is to me somewhat mysterious. It is, "For in the image of God made he man.'

Olympas. This speaks a volume. It is not in the spirit of retaliation nor of restitution that the murderer is slain. It is because he has profaned the image of God by casting it to the ground. To kill a man wrongfully is to despise the image of God, and for this alone the malefactor deserves to die. No man therefore has a right to forgive