s digestion or any other part of his physical apparatus.
On learning that he would not be reprieved, and must die, he became very
attentive to the chaplain's ministrations; in fact, he took to preaching
himself, and wrote several letters to his relatives, giving them sound
teetotal advice, and warning them against the evils of drink.

But the fellow lied all the time. His crime was particularly atrocious.
He outraged a poor servant girl, sixteen years of age, and then cut
her throat. He was himself thirty-two years of age, with a wife and
one child, so that he had not even the miserable excuse of an unmated
animal. A plea of insanity was put forward on his behalf, but it did not
avail. When the wretched creature found he was not to be reprieved, and
took kindly to the chaplain's religion, he started a fresh theory to
cover his crime. He said he was drunk when he committed it. Now this was
a lie. The porter's speech in _Macbeth_ will explain our meaning. James
Stockwell may have had a glass, but if he was really drunk, in the sense
of not knowing what he was about, we believe it was simply impossible
for him to make outrage the prelude to murder. If he had merely drunk
enough to bring out the beast in him, without deranging the motor
nerves, he was certainly not _drunk_ in the proper sense of the word.
He knew what he was doing, and both in the crime and in his flight he
showed himself a perfect master of his actions.

Religion, therefore, did not "convict him of sin." It did not lay bare
before him his awful wickedness. It simply made him hypocritical.
It induced or permitted him to save his _amour propre_ by a fresh
falsehood.

James Stockwell's last letter from gaol was written the day before his
execution. It was a comprehensive epistle, addressed to his father and
mother and brothers and sisters. "God" and "Christ" appear in it like
an eruption. The writer quotes the soothing text, "Come unto me all
you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." He was
evidently familiar with Scripture, and thought this text especially
applicable to himself. "Many a prayer," he says, "have I offered to God
both on behalf of you and myself," and he winds up by "hoping to meet
you all hereafter."

Not a word about his crime. Not a word about his injury to society. Not
a word about the poor girl he outraged and murdered. James Stockwell had
no thought for her or her relatives. He did not trouble about what had
become