ts
own words, and I trust to sound, hard, English common sense to put them
aside.

But there is another objection to capital punishment, which we must deal
with much more respectfully and tenderly; for it is made by certain good
people, people whom we must honour, though we differ from them, for no
set of people have done more (according to their numbers) for education,
for active charity, and for benevolence, and for peace and good will
among the nations of the earth. And they say, you must not take the life
of a murderer, just because he is made in God's image. Well, I should
have thought that God Himself was the best judge of that. That, if God
truly said that man was made in His image, and said, moreover, as it were
at the same moment, that, therefore, whoso sheds man's blood, by man
shall his blood be shed--our duty was to trust God, to obey God, and to
do our duty against the murderer, however painful to our feelings it
might be. But I believe these good people make their mistake from
forgetting this; that if the murderer be made in God's image and
likeness, so is the man whom he murders; and so also is the jury who
convict him, the judge who condemns him, and the nation (the society of
men) for whom they act.

And this, my dear friends, brings us to the very root of the meaning of
law. Man has sense to make laws (which animals cannot do), just because
he is made in the likeness of God, and has the sense of right and wrong.
Man has the right to enforce laws, to see right done and wrong punished,
just because he is made in the likeness of God. The laws of a country,
as far as they are just and righteous, are the copy of what the men of
that country have found out about right and wrong, and about how much
right they can get done, and how much wrong punished. So, just as the
men of a country are (in spite of all their sins) made in the likeness of
God, so the laws of a country (in spite of all their defects) are a copy
of God's will, as to what men should or should not do. And that, and no
other, is the true reason why the judge or magistrate has authority over
either property, liberty, or life. He is God's servant, the servant of
Christ, who is King of this land and of all lands, and of all
governments, and all kings and rulers of the earth. He sits there in
God's name, to see God's will done, as far as poor fallible human beings
can get it done. And, because he is, not