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ty should be on the outer verge of severity. Our sense of property wrongs is much less active than our sense of personal wrongs, and hence there is a disposition to treat the former with undue leniency, and the latter with perhaps undue rigor. To inflict a just sentence, we must introduce, into our estimate, the penal force of reflection. Hence, when a crime is done by calculation, as in larceny and forgery, the penalty must rise with the amount of reflection. When such crimes wide-spread in their injurious effects,-like counterfeiting, the adulteration of food, or short weight or measure,-and fall particularly on the ignorant and the poor, the penalty should be still more severe; and when this class of crimes touches on the sanctity of man's person, or the privacy of his domicile, as in pocket-picking and robbery, burglary and rape; or annuls the franchises of the citizen, as in bribery and ballot-box stuffing, there the highest grade of punishment is demanded. This class of reflective crimes is specially frequent, because our sense of public justice is sluggish; yet it belongs to the larger justice to visit them with exemplary punishment, because government is the divinely constituted guardian of the poor and the ignorant, and those who have no helper. A penal legislation, which does not promptly, rigorously, and cheaply punish this kind of crimes, is not yet above the level of barbarism. This class of criminals is the product of civilization, presupposing a high degree of intelligence, cunning and general malice, in the capitalists of crime, as well as a good degree of similar qualifications in their confederates. These crimes of reflection must be put under the ban, because they belong to that sort of wrong-doing which educates to crime. Crimes of passion beget crimes, by provoking retaliation; but crimes of reflection promote crime, by appeals to self-interest. The former, by raising up a prosecutor in the outraged community, seldom go unpunished; the latter, because the victims are simply wronged but not outraged, seldom lead to prosecution. There is only one grade of crimes that rises above these in their iniquity and guilt; namely, the crimes which add revenge to deliberation-reflection guiding revenge, and revenge inflaming reflection. From this evil alliance come acts of malicious mischief; such as cutting fruit trees, poisoning springs and cattle, arson, obstructing railroads, mayhem and murder.

What are the means of reform, and what the relative degrees of hopefulness, as to the reformation of these two classes of criminals? Penal laws are of very little efficacy against crimes of passion. These, as there name imports, are committed in hot blood. To diminish this class, we must raise the tone of living and feeling; abate coarse pastimes, and remove debasing temptations. This is the work of sumptuary laws, of education, and of religion. But on the other hand, crimes of reflection are little affected by mere intelligence. They are chiefly amenable to law, and the efficacy of law is only limited by the ignorance of the legislator, and the indifference of the executive. Crimes of reflection being under the surveillance of law, it is possible to adjust legislation with reference to them; it is not so with crimes of passion. They can not be anticipated by the law-giver, because they are not foreseen by even the perpetrator.

In the matter of punishment, the two classes occupy equally distinct ground. Passion is the phenomenon of a moment, and as soon as the passion subsides, the victim comes under the influence of his better nature. He is in a reformable attitude. He was the demoniac of Gadara-but the evil spirit has gone out of him, and he is sitting clothed, and in his right mind. He is responsive to moral and rational appeals and appliances. Crimes of reflection, on the other hand, instead of producing a moral revulsion, stimulate to further crime. Success encourages the offender to their recommittal. If caught, he is not open to conviction-he has simply been baffled, defeated and possibly provoked. He is fit material for a recidivist; and figures show that from this class it is that our prison ranks are kept full. Here are found the real, because inveterate, enemies of society. They deliberately break down the dykes of civilization, and give over the hard won accumulations of industry, economy and order, a prey to the wild waves of lawlessness. The bands and ligatures of the body politic, whose surest influences guide the national life and secure our prosperity and peace, they loose, leaving us to disorder and ruin.

Crimes of reflection, are, as a class, more wide-reaching in their hurtfulness than crimes of passion. The counterfeiter infects the whole fiscal body. He spreads his contagion everywhere. The adulterator of food, and his cousins-german, the short-weight and short-measure men, levy black-mail on all

honest traders, and make the whole body of consumers their victims. Like other epidemics, these distempers live on the most needy. The briber and ballot-stuffer commit high treason against the first principles of republican government. This class of offenders pit themselves against the wit and vigilance of the lawmaker. Each new law that the wisdom of man puts on the statute-book, the wiles of this adversary seeks to elude by some new fetch or invention. It is always an educated class, it may not be in book-learning, though that is possessed by many of them. This is the class that is most open to repression, because of their keen appreciation of freedom, and their dread of restraint. Not frequent but long sentences are the proper regimen for such patients. Short and frequent sentences are the bane of our police courts. Of this class, too, it is most easy to keep criminal registers. Such a book would be to them a book of doom.

When, as in this class of crimes, crime tends to repetition, sentences should rise by rapid degrees in length and severity. The hope of reformation is slight, as the penalty must be deterrent rather than preventive. Exact justice must be the governing motive. First offenders in crimes of passion should be leniently dealt with; but not so in crimes of reflection; obsta in principiis, when a man has contemplated crime. In sentencing recidivists, it should be considered how much time has intervened between his successive offences, because a certain proximity of time is necessary to constitute a professional criminal. If his honest intervals have been long, justice must be gentle.

Summary of Principles.

1. There is a recognized distinction between crimes of passion, and crimes of reflection.

2. Except in vindictive crimes, passion and reflection are in inverse ratio to each other. The more passion the less reflection, and vice versa.

3. Person is the most sacred right. The turpitude of all crimes is measured from it.

4. Crimes of passion are malign and non-malign.

5. Malign crimes are few, objective, directed only at the person, affect individuals, and aim to inflict pain.

6. Non-malign crimes are numerous, subjective, directed to

ward property, affect the community, but seek only self-gratification.

7. Crimes of passion do not tend to repetition; crimes of reflection do. Recommitments are from the latter class. They are the professional criminals.

8. Crimes of reflection tend to organization, localization, and are sensitive to deterrent laws. Crimes of passion yield more to preventive legislation.

9. Punishment that does not reform, hardens. To reform, justice must be just throughout. Penalties to be deterrent must be just, and to be just, they must not be horrible, brutal, vindictive or spectacular. Penalties to reform must be just, and to be just they must not be degrading, debasing or discouraging.

10. First offenses in crimes of reflection, should be dealt with sharply; in crimes of passion, leniently.

11. Sumptuary legislation is valid against vice only where vice becomes public.

12. Crimes are not licensable.

ished, they must be punishable.

Where they cannot be abol

ART. III. THE IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF THE DEATH OF

CHRIST.*

By Rev. WILLIAM M. K. IMBRIE Jersey City, New Jersey.

The republication in this country of Stroud's Physical Cause of the Death of Christ has once more turned the attention of students to that subject.

Physical, in such a connection, is opposed to ethical, and of course implies that theological opinions are not directly involved. That is to say, the question to be itself nothing to do with the doctrine of the

any of the doctrines connected therewith.

considered has in atonement, or with As far as this sub

* The Physical Cause of the Death of Christ. By Wm. Stroud, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1871.

The Life of Our Lord. By Wm. Hanna, D D., LL.D. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1870.

The Life of Our Lord upon the Earth. By S. J. Andrews New York: Chas. Scribner & Co 1868.

Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. M'Clintock & Strong. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1967.

ject is concerned, John Young and John Calvin might hold the same opinion, and still remain in good and regular standing ministers of the Presbyterian Church.

But physical is also naturally opposed to mental; and inasmuch as the oldest and most prevalent hypothesis attributes Christ's death to the exercise of will-power on his part, a broader term than physical is needed, under which to group the various theories which are advocated. For the lack of a better one we have used Immediate. What then was the Immediate Cause of the Death of Christ? and to answer this question, is to answer for Christ the question so frequently put with reference to others, "Of what did he die ?"

On consulting the literature of the subject it will be found that four different answers have been given. These we shall state and consider in order.

I. The first of these answers which we shall notice, is the one which declares that the immediate cause of Christ's death was a spear-thrust at the hands of a soldier. This answer is based upon a reading inserted at the close of Matt. xxvii. 49. After stating that a soldier ran and filled a sponge with vinegar, and that the rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him, four MSS. (B. C. L.N.) insert, "But another having taken a spear, pierced his side, and there came forth water and blood :” άλλος δὲ, λαβῶν λόγχην, ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευρὰν καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα. The words, "and Jesus having cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost," following immediately: if the inserted reading could be established, the question would be settled. Without doubt,

however, the reading is spurious; and as such is rejected by Tischendorf and all the other principal New Testament critics and editors, on grounds internal and external.

It is manifestly borrowed from John, and no less manifestly inconsistent with his statement that Christ's side was pierced after his death, not before. The passage is not cited by the early Fathers in two pages of quotations upon the point at issue, and it does not appear in the vast majority of ancient MSS. This answer to the question, therefore, is clearly inadmissible. It is of interest only as forming a part of the history of opinion upon the subject, and need occupy our attention no longer.