Fifty Notable Years / Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical Sketches

by John G. Adams

has been a subject of much thought and discussion during the generation just passed. It has been, and still is, an open question among the more thoughtful, whether the subject of the proper treatment of criminals has been regarded aright. We may justly plead for benevolent sympathy without being the apologist of crime. Conscience must be remembered as well as the cry of pitying tenderness, and punishment must have a meaning, or the distinctions of right and wrong are lost. "It will be a sad day," as one has truly said, "when those who violate our laws are more pitied than blamed." Christians are bound by their religion to labor for the prevention of crime, and for the strict application of all righteous laws to the criminal; to impress as they can the awfulness of sin on their own and on other's consciences, and to recall the fallen back to virtue, shamed by his sin, and resolute and strong in the working of a regenerated will, thus vindicating and imitating "the goodness and severity of God." The treatment of convicts in our prisons at the present time is generally more in accordance with these considerations than in the past, when severity was deemed more needful as applied to criminals who were subjects of total depravity, than a proportionate mercy, which regarded them not only as lost ones, but as capable of a possible restoration to their rightful Owner and Almighty Friend. The reform schools in our different States are working in this Christian direction. The subject of

Capital Punishment

has elicited much attention during the time of which we are speaking. It has been discussed in newspapers, pamphlets, legislatures, pulpits, and lyceum halls. Some of our States have abolished the gallows, others are agitating this subject in their legislatures. The present governor (Long) of Massachusetts, in his annual messages of the last two years, has recommended the abolition of the death penalty. A large number of ministers of the Universalist Church have constantly affirmed their opposition to it. Rev. Charles Spear published a sensible work on the subject, and Rev. Hosea Ballou, D. D., thirty years since, gave the whole question a very thorough investigation, in reply to Rev. Dr. Cheever of New York, and others.[33] Michigan was the first State in the Union to abolish the death penalty, and a late Report makes the statement that, with a population of 1,500,000, no man has been executed in the State during the last thirty-five years, and that a less number of murders have been perpetrated during the last ten years, in ratio to the population, than during the same decade in any other State where public or even private executions have prevailed.[34] Capital punishment has also been abolished in Maine.

The Position and Work of Woman

has also been a subject of deep and widespread interest. Christianity has ever given to woman a place denied her by all other religions. As Christian thought has had freer course, and Christian theology and practical work new and brighter development, the relations of woman to the welfare and progress of human society have been more clearly understood and appreciated. Her rights in law are now more plainly and justly defined, and the importance of her equal education with the other sex admitted and emphasized. She is prominent and indispensable as a teacher, all over the land; she is a graduate of the college and a professor there; she is a successful practitioner in the legal and medical professions; she is an ordained minister of the Gospel; she is a merchant, a book-keeper and accountant, an editor, an artist, a mechanic, a farmer, and has more than average success in all these departments of activity. Her right to the ballot is slowly but surely coming to a settlement, which it will take time and thought on her part (for when she asks for the ballot it will be hers), and enlightened legislation to effect. Where she has exercised this right, none but favorable results have been witnessed.[35] Our State legislatures are called upon to give attention to the subject, and a committee of our national Congress have just decided to report a proposed amendment to the Constitution, declaring that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex, and giving Congress the power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article." If Congress will agree to propose this amendment, and three fourths of the States will ratify it, woman suffrage will be legalized.

Other Questions.

The philanthropic and successful efforts in behalf of the blind, the deaf and dumb, and feeble minded, of fallen women, and orphan children, are becoming more and more apparent every year, all in cheering accord with that restorative mercy and power evinced in Him whose mission was to relieve the sorrows and remove the afflictive evils that beset mankind. And no more unmistakable evidence of the decline of that horrible doctrine of endless suffering for the wicked can be realized, than the instituting and maintaining societies for the suppression of cruelty to animals. Surely, the Father of our spirits will not be less merciful towards any of his children, than these children are justly called upon to be to the inferior creatures of his forming hand! These are some of the signs of Christian progress during the last half-century. Laus Deo!

[31] Chambers' Miscellany.

[32] New Amer. Enc.

[33] Universalist Quarterly, Vol. VI. No. 4, October, 1849.