And so you take criminal caitiffs,murderers,and the like,and hang them on gibbets "for an example to deter others."Whereupon arise friends of humanity,and object.With very great reason,as I consider,if your hypothesis be correct.What right have you to hang any poor creature "for an example"?He can turn round upon you and say,"Why make an 'example'of me,a merely ill-situated,pitiable man?Have you more respect for misfortune?Misfortune,I have been told,is sacred.And yet you hang me,I am fallen into your hands;choke the life out of me,for an example!Again I ask,Why make an example of me,for your own convenience alone?"--All "revenge"being out of the question,it seems to me the caitiff is unanswerable;and he and the philanthropic platforms have the logic all on their side.
The one answer to him is:"Caitiff,we hate thee;and discern for some six thousand years ,that we are called upon by the whole Universe to do it.with a diabolic but with a divine hatred.God himself,we have always understood,'hates sin,'with a most authentic,celestial,and eternal hatred.A hatred,a hostility inexorable,unappeasable,which blasts the scoundrel,and all scoundrels ultimately,into black annihilation and disappearance from the sum of things.The path of it as the path of a flaming sword:he that has eyes may see it,walking inexorable,divinely beautiful and divinely terrible,through the chaotic gulf of Human History,and everywhere burning,as with unquenchable fire,the false and death-worthy from the true and life-worthy;making all Human History,and the Biography of every man,a God's Cosmos in place of a Devil's Chaos.So is it,in the end;even so,to every man who is a man,and a mutis beast,and has eyes to see.To thee,caitiff,these things were and are,quite incredible;to us they are too awfully certain,--the Eternal Law of this Universe,whether thou and others will believe it or disbelieve.We,to be partakers in thy destructive adventure of defying God and all the Universe,dare allow thee to continue longer among us.As a palpable deserter from the ranks where all men,at their eternal peril,are bound to be:palpable deserter,taken with the red band fighting thus against the whole Universe and its Laws,we--send thee back into the whole Universe,solemnly expel thee from our community;and will,in the name of God,with joy and exultation,but with sorrow stern as thy own,hang thee on Wednesday next,and so end."Other ground on which to deliberately slay a disarmed fellow-man I can see e.Example,effects upon the public mind,effects upon this and upon that:all this is mere appendage and accident;of all this I make attempt to keep account,--sensible that arithmetic will or can keep account of it;that its "effects,"on this hand and on that,transcend all calculation.One thing,if I can calculate it,will include all,and produce beneficial effects beyond calculation,and ill effect at all,anywhere or at any time:What the Law of the Universe,or Law of God,is with regard to this caitiff?That,by all sacred research and consideration,I will try to find out;to that I will come as near as human means admit;that shall be my exemplar and "example;"all men shall through me see that,and be profited beyond calculation by seeing it.
What this Law of the Universe,or Law made by God,is?Men at one time read it in their Bible.In many Bibles,Books,and authentic symbols and monitions of Nature and the World (of Fact,that is,and of Human Speech,or Wise Interpretation of Fact),there are still clear indications towards it.Most important it is,for this and for some other reasons,that men do,in some way,get to see it a little!And if man could see it by any Bible,there is written in the heart of every man an authentic copy of it direct from Heaven itself:there,if he have learnt to decipher Heaven's writing,and can read the sacred oracles (a sad case for him if he altogether can),every born man may still find some copy of it.
"Revenge,"my friends!revenge,and the natural hatred of scoundrels,and the ineradicable tendency to revancher oneself upon them,and pay them what they have merited:this is forevermore intrinsically a correct,and even a divine feeling in the mind of every man.Only the excess of it is diabolic;the essence I say is manlike,and even godlike,--a monition sent to poor man by the Maker himself.Thou,poor reader,in spite of all this melancholy twaddle,and blotting out of Heaven's sunlight by mountains of horsehair and officiality,hast still a human heart.If,in returning to thy poor peaceable dwelling-place,after an honest hard day's work,thou wert to find,for example,a brutal scoundrel who for lucre or other object of his,had slaughtered the life that was dearest to thee;thy true wife,for example,thy true old mother,swimming in her blood;the human scoundrel,or two-legged wolf,standing over such a tragedy:I hope a man would have so much divine rage in his heart as to snatch the nearest weapon,and put a conclusion upon said human wolf,for one!A palpable messenger of Satan,that one;accredited by all the Devils,to be put an end to by all the children of God.The soul of every god-created man flames wholly into one divine blaze of sacred wrath at sight of such a Devil's-messenger;authentic firsthand monition from the Eternal Maker himself as to what is next to be done.Do it,or be thyself an ally of Devil's-messengers;a sheep for two-legged human wolves,well deserving to be eaten,as thou soon wilt be!
