question. The subject was considered by Wil-1 disowning the true religion, so, of all govern liam Penn to be of so much importance to the interest of his colony, that he deemed it needful to take some course to counteract the court influence of Baltimore. About this time also he received accounts of the renewed persecution of nonconformists, more especially those of his own Society. These things, together with the spread of malicious and unfounded reports affecting his reputation, and some matters of a private nature, led him to the conclusion that it was right for him to return to England; and having appointed a commission for conducting the affairs of the government during his absence, he went on board in the Sixth Month, 1684. The prospect of leaving Pennsylvania at this interesting stage of its progress was deeply felt by William Penn. The temporal interests of the settlers was an object which he ardently sought to promote, but the spiritual advancement of his friends was that for which above all he was the most deeply solicitous, and, just before he sailed, he addressed them in the following beautiful exhortation :— ment, to behold us exemplary and Christian in the use of it will not only stop our enemies, but minister conviction to many, on that account prejudiced. O that you may see and know that service, and do it for the Lord in this your day! "And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, named before thou wast born, what love, what care, what service, and what travail has there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile thee! "O that thou mayest be kept from the evil that would overwhelm thee; that, faithful to the God of thy mercies, in the life of righteousness thou mayest be preserved to the end! My soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thy children may be blessed of the Lord, and thy people saved by his power. My love to thee has been great, and the remembrance of thee affects my heart and mine eye.-The God of eternal strength keep and preserve thee to his glory and peace! "So, dear Friends, my love again salutes you "To Thomas Lloyd, J. Claypole, J. Simcock, C. all temporal blessings, may abound richly among all, wishing that grace, mercy, and peace, with Taylor, and J. Harrison, to be communicated in Meetings in Pennsylvania, and the Terri-you!-So says, so prays, your friend and lover in the truth." tories thereunto belonging, among Friends. My love and my life is to you, and with you, and no water can quench it, nor distance wear it out, or bring it to an end. I have been with you, cared over you, and served you with unfeigned love; and you are beloved of me, and near to me beyond utterance. I bless you in the name and power of the Lord, and may God bless you with his righteousness, peace, and plenty, all the land over! O that you would eye Him in all, through all, and above all the works of your hands, and let it be your first care how you may glorify him in your undertakings! for to a blessed end are you brought hither; and if you see and keep in the sense of that Providence, your coming, staying, and improving, will be sanctified: but if any forget Him, and call not upon his name in truth, He will pour out his plagues upon them, and they shall know who it is that judgeth the children of men. "O you are now come to a quiet land; provoke not the Lord to trouble it! And now that liberty and authority are with you and in your hands, let the government be upon his shoulders in all your spirits, that you may rule for Him, under whom the princes of this world will one day esteem it their honor to govern and serve in their places. I cannot but say, when these things come mightily upon my mind, as the apostles said of old, 'What manner of sons ought we to be in all godly conversation?' Truly the name and honor of the Lord are deeply concerned in the discharge of yourselves in your present station, many eyes being upon you; and remember that, as we have been belied about per WM. PENN. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT INEXPEDIENT. (Continued from page 760.) A legislator, who knows the operations and tendencies of human nature, will study to give as little publicity to any, but especially the worst class of crimes, as possible. He will be aware, that the mere knowledge of their perpetration will tend to increase them; and the fact results, mainly, from that law of sympathetic or conta gious participation of which we have spokenthe effect being, of course, in proportion to the frequency of occurrence, and the virtuous or vicious bias of the character. All history, and individual consciousness establish this opinion. The more familiar a nation is with cruel usages, crimes, and punishments, the less antagonistic feeling do they excite; and, on the criminally disposed, the virtuous antagonism will not only be weakened, but conquered, so far as to induce the ascendency of violence. The cruel punishments of breaking upon the wheel, burning alive, or pouring molten lead down the throat excite in us feelings of the most vehement and painful abhorrence; but let us return to these awful cruelties, and our susceptibilities will indurate till we view them with no more emotion than we may now regard the act of momentary strangu lation. The witnesses of executions are those who are least of all accustomed to reflection-feeling determines their conduct. It is a scene most congenial to the taste and sentiments of the most brutal and debased. The audience which it gene rally attracts proves this to be a fact. The very persons upon whom punishment ought to excite a salutary influence, the most dissolute and abandoned of mankind, are just those upon whom the scene of the gallows operates with most baneful effect. Instead of repressing, it nurses the murderous passion in the hearts of those who have, by a gradation in crime, become ready to indulge it. The ferocious and malignant spirit already exists, and there is too much reason to believe, that it has only required the witnessing of a public execution to provoke it to the awful outrage of actual murder. A strong testimony is found in the fact, that many virtuous and Christian people, who uphold the gallows in argument, are the very last who would be found beholding its revolting tragedies. It cannot be supposed that the effects of murders and executions are confined to the localities where they occur; the sight may be witnessed only here and there, but the contagion spreads to wherever the intelligence of the fact may extend. The process of infection and excitement may not be traceable throughout all its workings, but no man can say how far this or that act of murderous outrage, whether in the form of selfdestruction or homicide, is attributable to the prevalence of similar tragedies elsewhere, the intelligence of which, having reached the ear, may have acted upon a morbid and vicious predisposition, and terminated in some fatal result. The number actually brought to the scaffold, or committing the act of murder, is no gauge of the demoralization caused by the dangerous excitement attending the anticipation and incidents of an execution. When all the facts are considered, there can be no doubt that the system of the gallows is one of the most prolific causes of the very crime it is erected to suppress, and it is according to very principles of our nature that it should the be so. It appears to be of no practical consequence, whether we confine our view to judicial executions, or extend it to lawless assassination,-the effects of familiarity with death are uniformly the same. Indeed, we are persuaded that, the wider the survey, the more certain and ample the data upon which the abolitionist may rest his case. We might refer to Ireland, to France, and even to America, in proof of the fact, that wherever human life is most frequently violated, it is most lightly esteemed. There is no other part of this kingdom in which so much blood has been shed, in expiation of political and social outrage, as in Ireland; the consequences on the prevalent estimate of life are known to every one. In the revolutions of France, the reckless effusion of blood appears, for the time, to have induced a contempt of death. The permanent effects of these fearful events upon the sentiments of the mass of the French people cannot yet be calculated. It will probably require many years, supposing a favorable concurrence of circumstances, to recover a due impression of the awful sacredness of human life in that country. The inhumanizing effects of war upon the soldier himself, and upon his abettors, as well as the reactionary outrage of those who have endured its terrible scourge, prove but too clearly that the carnage of one generation is only the certain presage of a revenge that will hold life itself in pledge to its mortal designs. The history of war is the strongest testimony of the abolitionist. With such facts before our eyes, we are the more comfirmed in our conviction of the utter impolicy of capital infliction under any circumstances, and for any salutary purpose whatever. The effects of executions, like those of dramatic representation, will be according to the constitution or predominant character of the spectator; and this, we think, affords a very strong argument, on the ground of expediency, for the abolition of capital punishments, since the worst of all classes are their usual beholders. The opposite effects produced upon the mind of Mr. Dickens, and those whom he describes, may be taken as a fair index of the general effect upon those two classes of the community-debasing the one, disgusting the other. Whatever be the causes from which the inefficacy of capital punishment arises, there can scarcely, on an impartial view of the facts, remain a doubt, that, in the present stage of the world's progress, it is worse than futile; to plead its necessity, therefore, is absurd. All the worst passions of the most impulsive portion of mankind are excited to a dangerous activity by it, while the reflecting and virtuous are filled with abhorrence and disgust. The facts stated in a former part of this discussion amply bear out the assertion, that capital punishment, as a preventive, is an utter failure. The statistical evidence we have adduced is not a hundredth part of what is available on behalf of our argumeut; but every one may have access to the sources from whence it is derived. The causes of this failure we hold to be-1st. The uncertain operation of the law, arising from the hope of concealment-the reluctance of witnesses-the chance of escape, even if detectedthe state of public sentiment, and the perjury of jurors, from their indisposition to convict, when death is the penalty. 2nd. The second cause of failure is, the tendency of the punishment when executed. Its effects upon the criminal himself, before and after conviction, and upon society at large. Unfortunately for the capital law of murder, it is at once open to the charge of promoting the crime, by the uncertainty of its infliction, and also, that when most certain most in vain-for the fact is, both causes do operate, and which ever may, the tendency of capital punishment is "It then becomes the duty of the Court to cause to foster them. The example of frequent escape a record to be made of the matters so proved, and tempts to the commission, and thus degenerates such record being exhibited to any Judge, Comalso a description of the person escaping, and into an impunity; the example of uniform pun-missioner, or other officer authorized by law to ishment provokes by sympathy and induration cause persons escaping from service or labor to those feelings which occasion the crime. The be delivered up, shall be held and taken to be penalty is extreme-the jury falters; the operation of the law is uncertain-the crime is adventured-or, the sanguinary spectacle is unsparingly exhibited the infectious brutality of the scene stuns and extinguishes the sensibility of dread, or inspires and excites its own spirit of reckless violence, increasing the very crime in a constantly augmenting ratio. Whether the man contemplating the deed of murder cherishes the hope of escape, or desperately braves the terrors of death, is indifferent to our argument, the law is ineffectual. We object to the punishment of death, then, as inexpedient, on the ground that it tends to impair the deterring power of the law; and thus, not only fails to compass the primary object of punishment, but positively and directly contra venes it. (To be continued.) FRIENDS' REVIEW. PHILADELPHIA, EIGHTH MONTH 19, 1854. The abridgment of Judge Smith's decision in the case of Sherman M. Booth's application for a discharge from custody, is further continued in our present number. Since that opinion was pronounced by Judge Smith, an appeal has been taken from his decision to the full bench, and on the 19th ult., at Madison, Chief Justice E. V. Whiton, delivered the opinion of the court, (Justice Crawford only dissenting,) sustaining the opinion of Judge Smith and reaffirming the order for discharging the petitioner. conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and that the service or labor of the person escaping is due to the party in such record mentioned. This testimony is taken and this record is made proceeding; he has no opportunity to cross-ex in the absence of the person to be affected by the amine the witnesses who depose to the facts which are thus conclusively proved; but without his knowledge, evidence is manufactured, which, by virtue of this act, proves beyond question that he is a slave, and that he has escaped from servi tude. "We are at a loss to perceive how this proceeding, by virtue of which a freeman becomes a slave, can be justly called due process of law,' in the sense in which that language is used in the Constitution. We are aware that it has been said that the proceedings before the Commissioner do not determine the question of freedom or slavery, that the fugitive is only sent back to the State from which he is alleged to have escaped; and when he reaches there, he is a freeman or a slave, as his status shall be determined by the local law. It is further said that these proceedings are analogous to those by which the fugitive from justice is delivered up, to be taken to the State from which he has escaped; that a person may be arrested by virtue merely of indictment, founded on an affidavit, made before a magis trate, charging him with treason, felony, or other crime, committed in some other State; and that, upon a production of a copy of the indictment or affidavit certified as authentic by the Governor or Chief Magistrate of the State or Territory from which he fled, he shall be delivered up, to be taken back. "It is said, that as this proceeding does not deprive the person of his liberty in the sense in which that term is used in the Constitution, but merely delivers him up, to be taken to the State where, according to the indictment or affidavit, The court pronounces the law of 1850 unconthe offence was committed, to be dealt with ac stitutional on two separate grounds. The law at- cording to the local law, so neither do these protempts to vest judicial powers in officers created ceedings accomplish more than the mere transfer by Congress, and unknown to the Constitution; of the alleged fugitive to the State where, as is and it withholds, from the person claimed, the claimed, he owes service or labor, by force of the local law. We think this is a mistaken view of right of a trial by jury, before he can be delivered the question. The fugitive from justice is deliv up to the claimant. Upon this second point the ered to an agent appointed by the Governor of the court cites the words of the Constitution, that no State where the offence is alleged to have been person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or prop-question of his guilt or innocence; in other committed, without any adjudication upon the erty without due process of law and also the words, he is delivered to the officer of the law, language of judicial decisions that due process of and is in the custody of the law, for the purpose law means by indictment or presentment of good of being taken to the State where alone he can be and lawful men. tried for the alleged offence. But the case is very different with the alleged fugitive from labor. There is an adjudication before the Commissioner that he owes service or labor, and that he has es caped. By force of the act of Congress under consideration, the record made in the State from which he is said to have escaped, is conclusive evidence that his status is that of a slave. In closing the argument, the court holds the following language. "It will be observed, that the claimant can go before any Court of record, or any Judge thereof, in vacation, and make satisfactory proof to such Court or Judge in vacation, of the escape, and that the person escaping owes service or labor to such party. "The Commissioner is obliged, if his identity is proved, ɛo to adjudge, and the certificate which is given to the claimant is given because the Com- | the voice of warning disregarded. She was still missioner has so adjudged. Moreover, the Com- more employed in searching the scriptures, and in missioner can only give the certificate to the frequent, fervent supplication. claimant, who must be the person to whom the Seeing her parents in deep affliction, she urged labor or service is due. his agent or attorney, and them not to mourn her early departure, for although it is given to him for that reason. It is not mate-life was sweet, yet the enjoyments of heaven were rial to inquire what the condition of the person much more abundant. will be when he has been taken to the State where Long will her younger sisters remember her the labor or service is said to be due. He may words of tender affection, and earnest advice, regain his freedom; but if he does, it will be by breathed out by her departing spirit; and the last force of the law of the State, and not by virtue of farewell with her school mates and teacher, will the act of Congress under consideration; for un-be treasured up in their hearts with the mingled der that he has been adjudged a slave, and by feelings of affection and regret. force of it he has been taken as a slave, by the person adjudged to be his owner, his agent or attorney, from the State where he was arrested to the State from which he is alleged to have escaped. "We are therefore obliged to conclude that the alleged fugitive from labor is taken back to the State from which he is said to have escaped, not as a person merely charged with being a slave, but as a person who has been proved and adjudged to be a slave, and, as we believe, without due process of law-without having his rights passed upon and determined by a jury of his peers. We think it essential that his right should be maintained by all courts and all tribunals, and for the reasons above given we must affirm the order made in this case, discharging the relator." This reasoning appears unanswerable. , On the 19th of last month, at the residence of her husband Jesse Jessop, in Perquimans co., N. Carolina, after a protracted illness, during which she was favored with great Christian patience and composure of mind, MARY JESSOP, a member and elder of Piney Woods Monthly Meeting, in the 62d year of her age. 7th mo. last, ASENATH, wife of Caleb Johnson, In Henry County, Indiana, on the 21st of after an illness of about six months, in the 32d year of her age, a member of Spiceland Monthly Meeting of Friends. She bore her long affliction friends and relatives the consoling hope that her with much patience, leaving to her numerous end was peace. MARY HODGSON, Jr., No. 94 N. Tenth street, is willing to accommodate with board the daughters of such Friends as wish their children educated in session commences the 4th of 9th month. A limited number only being accommodate 1, early application for admission is necessary. For terms apply at her residence, or to W. Hodgson, Jr., Tenth and Arch streets. HAVERFORD SCHOOL. The Winter Term will commence on the second DECEASE OF RACHEL PRIESTMAN.-By late let her school, where they will have the comforts of ters from England information has been received a home, and receive instruction in the usual Engof the decease of our dear friend Rachel Priest-lish branches, French, Latin and Drawing. The man, who paid a religious visit to some parts of this country about ten years since. She attended the last Yearly Meeting in Dublin in company with her husband, Jonathan Priestman, and subsequently, during her visit in Ireland, was seized with sickness, and after an illness of several weeks at the house of Richard Allen, near Waterford, died on the 16th ult. The funeral took place on the Fourth-day of the Tenth month next. Application may be made to JONATHAN RICHARDS, Superinten26th ult., from her late residence near Newcastle, dent, at the school, in person or by letter addressed England. A friend of the latter city writes:-to West Haverford, Delaware County, Pennsyl"To her sorrowing friends and society at large, who shall fill the vacant place? who can fill it like the dear departed? But, on the other hand, how glorious is the change to her! the goal reached, the conflict over, the victory gained, the mansions of the Father's house, hers forever! There is something touchingly affecting, too, in the Christian believer going home from the very field of labor-in hearing there the glorious welcome-come, ye blessed of my father!" DIED. On the 22d ult., SARAH ELLEN, eldest daughter of Jonathan and Mary Hadley, in the 14th year of her age, a member of Lytlescreek Monthly Meeting. An early seated consumption had gradually wasted away her vital system; but her mental energies increased, and her faculties brightened into an unusual clearness of mental vision. For several months she seemed favored with a premonition of her hastening dissolution, nor was vania, by whom all the information required will CHARLES YARNALL, A FRIGHTFUL PICTURE. In a recent temperance meeting in New York, a member of the Common Council stated that there were in that city 7,103 places where rum is sold, 4,222 of which are unlicensed; 5,893 are kept open on the Sabbath, and 5,597 are kept by foreigners. During 1853 there were 28,000 arrests for crime and vagrancy. Taking the average receipts of the rum-shops in the city at ten dollars per day, they exceed $25,000,000 a year, which divided among the 28,000 arrested would give each $900. It would give $40 to every man, woman, and child in the city. It would add four per cent. annually to the real, and personal estate of New York, and double it in twenty five years. It is nine millions more than the sum devoted to education in the State. It would be equal to 12 per cent. on the entire export trade of the United States.-N. Y. Paper. With the outline of the life of Joseph John Gurney, not a few of our readers will probably be already acquainted. His was a character of singular beauty and completeness; in which purity, spirituality, wisdom, and benevolence, formed a whole of excellence, that made him an example of piety and good works. His home-life, as depicted by those who enjoyed the privilege of access to the domestic circle at Earlham, his copious journals of inward experience and daily labor, his large correspondence with friends and relatives, and his public life in the eye of the world, all present him as the earnest Christian, faithfully fulfilling his calling. young 6 were falling down upon my bed to crush me; and many a time did I spring from my bed, and seek refuge with some kind friend or sister, particularly my sister Elizabeth, who well understood me, and never failed, as occasion required, to pity and protect me. I was by no means insensible, in very early life, to religious conside rations; being no stranger, from the first Memoirs of Joseph John Gurney; with selec-ing of my domestic faculties, to those precious opentions from his Journal and Correspondence. visitations of Divine love, which often draw the Edited by JOSEPH BEVAN BRAITHWAITE. Two vols. Norwich: Fletcher and Alexander. derness. If religion has indeed grown in me, mind to its Creator, and melt it into tenLondon: W. and F. G. Cash. (as I humbly believe it has, though amidst innu merable backslidings), it has pretty much kept pace with the growth of my natural faculties; for I cannot now recall any decided turning. point in this matter, except that which afterwards brought me to plain Quakerism.' Cases of this description are, in my opinion, in no de gree at variance with the cardinal Christian doctrine of the necessity of conversion and of the new birth unto righteousness. The work which effects the vital change from a state of nature to a state of grace, is doubtless often begun in very early childhood-nay, it may open on the soul, with the very earliest opening of its rational faculties; and that its progress may be sometimes so gradual, as to preclude our perceiving any very distinct steps in it, we may learn from our blessed Lord's parable, 'So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how,' &c. I have no doubt that some seed was sown in my heart when I was lit tle more than an infant, through the agency of my watchful mother and afterwards that seed was sedulously watched and cultivated by my dearest sister Catherine. Yet I believe that much of the feeling into which my young mind was at times brought, on the subject of religion, was the simple result of those gracious visitations, which are independent of all human agency, and like the wind which bloweth where it listeth.' My pursuits as a child were far from being of the hardy order; I was fond of reading, often made verses, and loved to keep company with my sisters, rather than unite with my elder bro ther Samuel or manly James, and in following the farming-men in their various pursuits, ri ding on the team to the hay-field," &c. Joseph John Gurney did not commence his life so long ago, but that much of it has been spent within the memory of most men of middle age; so that the place he filled in public, as one of the leaders of the philanthropy of his generation, is pretty accurately estimated by general observers. Additionally, much has become known of him personally, and of his career in the prime of his days, through the memoirs of his sister, Elizabeth Fry, and of his brother-inlaw, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. We do not feel it to be necessary, therefore, to sketch his life-story-as we do in the case of a literary or professional life, which, till after death, tells no story save in the works of the party-or in the case of the statesman or age-worker, who has so stamped himself on existing institutions or movements, that his biography is a part of the history of his time. We will rather, by a few brief extracts, seek to induce our readers to resort to these volumes for themselves; possessing, as they do, more fitness to the presentation of a study of the spiritual life, to a reverent Christian mind, than to the furnishing materials to a literary critic. Joseph John Gurney was born in 1788, and was the tenth child in the Earlham family of that period. Thus does he recall his own impressions of his early life : "I do not look back upon my childhood with much comfort or satisfaction. I was a very fearful, nervous child, not, I believe, fractious in temper, or by any means destitute of a relish for enjoyment, but acutely alive to suffering of mind. Often in the night I was overtaken by an indescribable nervous agitation, as if the very walls The above remarks on the silent and unobserved awakening of the spirit in childhood (of which numerous cases come to the knowledge of the Christian pastor, but have been very imperfectly understood and mischievously treated by conventional religious people), are marked by clearness and judiciousness; and these were ever the characteristics of the religious views of this excellent man. In all his zeal for the distinguishing doctrines of the early Friends, and with all the profundity of conviction possible to him, as to their scriptural character and wholly su |