ours. No other government
has such a broad and splendid foundation. We have nothing to fear.
Courage and safety can afford to be generous--can afford to act
without haste and without the feeling of revenge. So, for my part,
I hope that the sentence may be commuted, and that these men, if
found guilty at last, may be imprisoned. This course is, in my
judgment, the safest to pursue. It may be that I am led to this
conclusion, because of my belief that every man does as he must.
This belief makes me charitable toward all the world. This belief
makes me doubt the wisdom of revenge. This belief, so far as I am
concerned, blots from our language the word "punishment." Society
has a right to protect itself, and it is the duty of society to
reform, in so far as it may be possible, any member who has committed
what is called a crime. Where the criminal cannot be reformed,
and the safety of society can be secured by his imprisonment, there
is no possible excuse for destroying his life. After these six or
seven men have been, in accordance with the forms of law, strangled
to death, there will be a few pieces of clay, and about them will
gather a few friends, a few admirers--and these pieces will be
buried, and over the grave will be erected a monument, and those
who were executed as criminals will be regarded by thousands as
saints. It is far better for society to have a little mercy. The
effect upon the community will be good. If these men are imprisoned,
people will examine their teachings without prejudice. If they
are executed, seen through the tears of pity, their virtues, their
sufferings, their heroism, will be exaggerated; others may emulate
their deeds, and the gulf between the rich and the poor will be
widened--a gulf that may not close until it has devoured the noblest
and the best.

--_The Mail and Express_, New York, November 3, 1887.

THE STAGE AND THE PULPIT.

_Question_. What do you think of the Methodist minister at Nashville,
Tenn., who, from his pulpit, denounced the theatrical profession,
without exception, as vicious, and of the congregation which passed
resolutions condemning Miss Emma Abbott for rising in church and
contradicting him, and of the Methodist bishop who likened her to
a "painted courtesan," and invoked the aid of the law "for the
protection of public worship" against "strolling players"?

_Answer_. The Methodist minister of whom you speak, without doubt
uttered his real s