Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 31 Article 2 Issue 3 September-October

Fall 1940 Hell and the Law Frank W. Grinnell

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Recommended Citation Frank W. Grinnell, Hell and the Law, 31 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 259 (1940-1941)

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Frank W. Grinnell'

James Truslow Adams has referred found-which had been consecrated to absolute truth-rocked to its foundations to "the extraordinarily large sphere ac- by the seductive teachings of a clever corded to the Devil in Puritan theol- lady. He could not help regarding that ogy,"'3 The state of mind of the gov- woman as an enemy of God. As gover- nor he was bound to do his utmost to erning group in Colonial Massachusetts protect the Word and the state from this may be described as one in which the instrument of Satan, lest the whole peo- hands of primary consideration was to fight the ple suffer punishment at the the Almighty." Devil in the name of God, and this This was a point of view of enlightened absorbing contest required an inde- New England Puritans which resulted pendence in their minds which made in banishment to Rhode Island, problems of allegiance to the King and merely their relations to Parliament of second- but its genuine sincerity should be re- ary importance. Their religious sym- membered in connection with the bru- pathy in this contest with Satan was talities to be mentioned presently, a dominant associative principle which many of which were the results of com- held them together, and, in the words mon convictions equally sincere. of Mr. George E. Ellis, "so controlling When we consider the early dominant as a direct source of law was the Old conception of "Hell" in Christian the- Testament that the religious and polit- ology regardless of creed, for it was ical motives were identical" and can common to Catholic and Protestant not be separated. alike, long before and long after the An illuminating article by E. . Reformation, I think we can see its Morgan Jr. appeared in the "New direct or indirect influence. This in- England Quarterly" for December, fluence appears on such matters as 1937, on, "The Case Against Anne penalties, the conduct of criminal'trials, Hutchinson." Referring to Governor the constitutional rights of accused per- Winthrop and his political conception sons, the so-called technicalities of the of the state and the duty of magistrates, criminal law (largely eliminated today Mr. Morgan says: but originally developed by judges as "He could not regard the case as that a humane protection against "hellish" of one opinion against another; it was punishment), the practice of jurors in personal opinion against truth. And the terrifying fact was that this personal refusing to convict (for the same rea- opinion was gaining ground; the Word son) in spite of their oaths which Black- of God was being undermined by a stone described as "pious.perjury," the woman. Winthrop saw the common- wealth which he had done much to rules of evidence (or the earlier lack 1 State Street, Boston, Mass. Editor, "Massa- 2A paper read before the Massachusetts His- chusetts Law Quarterly" and secretary Massa- torical Society. chusetts Bar Association. 3 "The Founding of New England," 82. [ 259 ] FRANK W. GRINNELL of them), and the common American bethan age when Shakespeare wrote conception of the weakened position the lines about "the quality of mercy," and function of the trial judge. and with two succeeding centuries; also Dean Pound has written of the in- with the period of the unrestrained fluence of the reputation of the "Bloody gaiety of the "Merry Monarch" follow- Jeffries," Chief Justice Sciroggs and ing the Restoration, and the more sober later of Lord Braxfield, the so-called settlement of New England by the Scotch "Jeffries," on the American Puritans. attitude toward the trial judge. The What were "civilized" Europeans, in- fairer modern practices have, as I see cluding Englishmen, not only tolerating, it, resulted not merely from a reaction but expecting, with general approval? against the brutal reputation of these The horrors of the Inquisition and the men, but from a widespread recogni- similar horror of the "fires of Smith- tion of "the quality of mercy" in the field," as well as other brutalities in the thinking and spiritual consciousness of name of God, are familiar history in people in general-a revival, perhaps, many books, notably in the chapters on of a hope of ultimate mercy expressed persecution by theologians in Lecky's by Origen, St. Clement of Alexandria 4 "Rationalism in Europe." But we will Christian theologians, and other early stick to secular practises, for the pres- and reflected, curiously enough, in the ent. A convenient collection appears in reign of Charles II, by Dryden, his William Andrews' "Bygone Punish- Poet Laureate, as well as later by ments." Boiling alive as a penalty for Goethe. poisoners was required for a few years "Hellish" Punishments in the time of Henry VIII., and not un- common before that. Pressing to death, Let us examine some of the symp- known as "Peine forte et dure" was a toms of the religious, social and politi- method of forcing a plea from an ac- cal state of mind in England during cused person so that his estates would several centuries in which honest error was regarded as an unpardonable and be forfeited, if found guilty. This form 1406 intolerable sin by most people regard- of procedure was substituted about less of creed or party. Of course, the for starvation as an act of mercy in natural resiliency of human nature al- order to relieve the accused of his suf- ways discounts and this underlies much ferings sooner! Major Strangeways human history), to some extent, the died under it to protect his family in excessive character of any prevailing 1676, as did a resident of Essex County, code of severity in thought and belief Massachusetts, during the witch-craft and keeps people out of the madhouse. craze. It gave way to thumb-twisting We must remember that we are dealing, in the eighteenth century, which was not with the brutality of primitive sav- not legally abolished in England until ages, but with the people of the Eliza- the act of 1827 directing the court to enter a plea, if a prisoner "stood mute." 4 Dearmer, 62, 81 and 84. "HELL" AND THE LAW

Other forms of torture to force testi- bers be cut off, your entrails to be taken mony were common. out of your body and you living, the same to be burned before your eyes and The old sentence for treason sur- your head to be cut off your body to be viled until the early nineteenth cen- divided into four quarters and head and tury when Sir Samuel Romilly agita- quarters to be disposed of at the pleasure of the King's Majesty and the Lord have ted against it and drew upon himself mercy upon your soul." the odium of the law officers of the The court then adjourned until seven Crown, who declared he was "breaking o'clock the next morning and all jury- down the bulwarks of the constitu- men and witnesses were commanded to be present on forfeiture of £100 apiece. tion." This sentence was the end and 5 Howell's State Trials 1034. immediate object of a trial for treason Sir Henry Vane and Rev. Hugh during generations, when in times of Peters, both early New Englanders, excitement almost any unguarded ex- were similarly sentenced and executed.5 pression of opinion might be turned The first sentence of this kind is said into treason, especially with the aid of historic liars like Titus Oates. There to have been inflicted on a pirate in is an old print in the British Museum, 1241, and it was not until 1813 that a copy of which is in the Harvard Law Sir Samuel Romilly introduced a bill School, showing, in operation, the grue- to modify the sentence to hanging, and some details of this final act of a treason even then it met opposition. In the trial. Lord Coke, the oracle of the law debate he said: under the earlier Stuarts and the pro- "I certainly did not foresee that in an genitor of our Revolutionary argu- English House of Commons in the nine- teenth century, one voice would have ments, found, somewhere in the Bible, been heard in defence of a law which a countenance for each of the details requires the tearing out of the heart and of the sentence. What was it? bowels from a body of a human being, The first trial of the regicides was while he is yet alive, and burning them in his sight," (p. 253). that of Thomas Harrison before Lord, But this was not all-for corruption Chief Baron Sir Orlando Bridgman, of blood involving confiscation of previously a conveyancer, who, after estates, thus punishing the innocent the jury found the prisoner guilty, pro- nounced sentence as follows: relatives, continued until modified by Romilly's exertions. Hanging for merely "You that are the prisoner at the bar, you are to (receive) the sentence of passing a forged one-pound note was death, which sentence is this: The common until about 1817, when George judgment of this court is and the court Cruikshank ridiculed the Bank of Eng- doth award, that you be led back to the place from whence you came and from land with a cartoon which stopped the thence to be drawn upon a hurdle to the issue of such notes. place of execution: and there you shall The mania for flogging in the army, be hanged by the neck, and being alive shall be cut down and your privy mem- when 1000 lashes was a common pun- 5 Women were burned alive for treason and Bloody Assize, but later commuted to hanging other crimes until 1790. That was the sentence by James II. pronounced by Jeffreys on Alice Lisle at the FRANK W. GRINNELL ishment, was described by Romilly, in fined for months, dragged back to gaol, debate, in 1812, as follows: and locked up again till they should pay sundry fees to the gaoler, the clerk of "'The Great Commentator onthe Laws assize, etc. of England. has said that the rack and "In order to redress this hardship, I the knout are unknown amongst us- applied to the justices of the county for that death, simple death, unattended a salary to the gaoler in lieu of his fees. with any circumstances of torture, is The bench were properly affected with the severest infliction which the Consti- the grievance, and willing to grant the tution allows!-And yet we tolerate this relief desired; but they wanted a prece- species of punishment,--this refinement dent for charging the county with the of cruelty;-we permit a fellow-creature expense." to be driven to the very verge of exis- His pictures of the prisons, tence, a Surgeon standing by to feel the both for pulse of the sufferer, and to pronounce criminals and debtors, were hideous, at what moment exhausted nature can but produced little results in legisla- bear no additional infliction. Then, when his soul is about to forsake his tion for thirty or forty years. tortured body, and to leap into eternity But enough of this! -then, indeed, the poor wretch is taken What was the position of a person down from the halberts and removed accused in these treason into an hospital, where he is left, his trials in the body more at ease, but his mind still time of the Scroggs and Jeffreys, espe- upon the rack, reflecting, that the faster cially during the feverish agitation over his wounds heal, the nearer he is to the the "Popish Plot," the murder of Sir renewal of his sufferings, and that his life is thus cherished by his tormentors, Edmond Bury Godfry, the Rye House only that it may be again subjected to Plot, the Meal Tub Plot under Charles their torments ...... II. and the Bloody Assizes after Mon- "Death would be a merciful substitute," mouth's Rebellion? Their position was urged Romilly. A small, and seemingly almost exactly what it was, for about entirely unimaginative, House nega- six months, in Massachusetts during tived the motion by 49 votes to 17."'6 the witchcraft craze in 1692. The introduction to John Howard's "Prisons in England and Wales," pub- "Hellish" Procedure lished in 1777, after he had been In those days when the rules of ju- thanked by Parliament for his reports, dicial evidence were in their infancy, begins as follows: a person accused either of witch-craft "The distress of prisoners, of which or of treason was practically convicted there are few who have not some im- in most cases perfect idea, came more immediately before the trial began. He under my notice when I was sheriff of had no information as to the witnesses the county of Bedford; and the circum- against him, he could not summon wit- stance which excited me to activity in nesses, his witnesses could their behalf was, the seeing, some-who not be by the verdict of juries were declared sworn and they could be attacked as not guilty; some- on whom the grand liars because of this fact, while the jury did not find such an appearance of witnesses for the government, many of guilt as subjected them to trial; and some-whose prosecutors did not appear whom were among the most notorious against them;-after having been con- perjurers in history, were considered 6 Oakes, Sir Samuel Romilly (pp. 230-231). more truthful because of their oath. "HELL" AND THE LAW

He generally had no counsel and had to care. You may cut out the heart of a do the cross-examining himself. Origi- sufferer and hold it up to the view of the populace, nal documents did not have to be pro- and you may imagine that you serve the community; but the real duced when relied on by the govern- effect of such scenes is to torture the ment. Witnesses were allowed to make compassionate and to harden the ob- speeches and to testify to anything that durate. In times of tranquillity you will not diminish offences by rendering guilt they wanted to, hearsay, rumors, etc., callous-by teaching the subjects to look and, in the credulous excitement with indifference upon human suffering; against the Catholics or Presbyterians, and, in times of turbulence fury will retaliate the cruelties which it has been the wildest statements from men like accustomed to behold." Titus Oates and his fellow perjurers "The bill was rejected. Again on April were swallowed whole by the court, 25, 1814, he moved a resolution for the the jury and the public. Even by House, to consider, as a committee, his bill for modifying the punishment for the House of Lords in the trial of high treason. He urged the substitution Lord Stafford, the Catholic peer eighty of hanging for beheading. Yorke pro- years of age was convicted under cir- posed an amendment that the hanging -should be followed by decapitation. cumstances which FitzJames Stephen Romilly rebuked Yorke for desiring the refers to as one of the most notable continuance of 'the disgusting spectacle miscarriages of justice in English his- . . . of holding up the bleeding head of the criminal to the view of the specta- tory. In his History of the Criminal tors .... I believe that the worst effects Law, he speaks of the opportunities are produced by it. We are so constituted and influence of perjurers as the by nature that such spectacles of horror are seldom beheld by any greatest contributing persons with factor to the impunity." (p. 253.) murders in the name of justice, al- though there were some, like Coleman, "Hellish" Theology who seem to have been clearly guilty But back of the habits of indifference under the law of treason as it then were centuries of theological teachings stood.6a and practical cruelty. Lecky quotes "Hellish" Indifference Julian as saying that no wild beasts What was the cause of all the bru- were so ferocious as angry theologians. tality? Why was it tolerated? The We are all familiar with the idea that immediate cause was the common cal- "the Lord works in mysterious ways lousness and indifference growing out his wonders to perform," but it is pass- of the habits of generations. As Rom- ing strange that the dominant belief illy said, in debate in 1813: should have required, of even thought- ful Christians, a course of conduct "'I call upon you to remember, that cruel punishments have an inevitable toward their erring brothers, as a tendency to produce cruelty in the peo- prologue to eternity, which seems to ple. It is not by the destruction of us to-day about as diabolical as the tenderness-it is not by exciting revenge, that we can hope to generate virtuous activities attributed to the Devil by the conduct in those who are confined to our most vivid mediaeval imagination. 6a See John Pollock, "The Popish Plot." We have all been vaguely familiar FRANK W. GRINNELL with the description of the Park Street "Denied the title of great poetry, as Church in Boston as "Brimstone Cor- shorn of its claim to peculiar infamy a supreme example of theologic fire- ner," and the doctrines with which Dr. breathing, it still does not deserve to be Oliver Wendell Holmes was brought forgotten even now when it can move up, described by him as the "Christian no one as it once moved the Puritan ' '6 children who huddled beside the fire and Tartarus, b but we think of it with became breathless with terror and awe only varying degrees of realization. To as they spelled out its lines." understand the influence of such doc- The best-known lines are those which trines on legal history, we need an ef- assign the unbaptized infants to "the fervescent moving picture and we find easiest room in Hell,"-an assignment two illuminating ones in Massachusetts. which appears to have been also a hope Michael Wigglesworth was a gentle, of St. Augustine. sensitive, devout soul, the minister in But the outstanding Calvinistic im- Malden and a Fellow of Harvard Col- agination in the eighteenth century wa lege. In 1662, he wrote a poem of 224 that of Jonathan Edwards, one of the verses on, "The Day of Doom." Mr. foremost New England intellects of the Kenneth Murdock, edited the latest period. Any one whoever heard edition in 1929 and tells us in his In- General Booth address a Salvation troduction that: Army meeting will realize the force of "There were then in New England a powerful personality like Jonathan probably about thirty-six thousand set- Edwards and others, before and after tlers, and in all the English colonies in the limits of the present United States, him, in a position to sway the emotions. about eighty-five thousand. A copy of Professor Dearmer quotes from a letter The Day of Doom was sold for one out written by General Booth to the future of every twenty persons in New Eng- land, or one out of every forty-five in Mrs. Booth, in 1854: the colonies as a whole. A book which "Send me some bare thoughts, some did as well today in relation to the startling outlines. Nothing moves peo- population would break records as a ple like the terrific. They must have 'best seller,' . . . hell-fire flashed before their faces or "Nor was the popularity of Wiggles- they will not move." ("The Legend of worth's verses but a flash in the pan. Hell," p. 32.) '"They were speedily reprinted; there Imagine yourself as an average unlet- were probably four American editions before 1701, and certainly two London tered person,c or one whose reading editions. 1701, 1711, 1715, 1751, 1774, 1777, was largely limited to the Bible, with, 1811, and 1828, saw new appearances of perhaps, the 41st. verse of the twenty- the book; and in 1867, though it was then considered merely a curious literary fifth Chapter of Matthew in mind, in a relic, it was published by the American credulous age. Imagine the effect on News Co. in New York. A friend of your mind in relation to the sufferings Wigglesworth suggested in 1705 that The Day of Doom would continue to be of others, of listening to sermons like read till the last dread day itself. this: 6h Over the Teacups, pp. 246-260. "benefit of clergy"-an earlier crude substitute 6c As late as the 19th century the ability to for probation. See Mass. Law Quart., for Aug., read was still legally regarded as a sufficient 1917. excuse to let a convicted man out of jail by ' AND THE LAW

EXTRACTS FROM THE SERMONS abideth on thee; this is the hell over OF JONATHAN EDWARDS which thou hangest, and into which thou (In the 4th Volume of his Works) art ready to drop every day and every night. (pages 260, 261.)" "Impenitent sinners will not be able to ". .. your bodies which shall have find any to befriend them and intercede been burning and roasting all this while with God for them." in these glowing flames, yet shall not "We can conceive but little of the have been consumed, but will remain to matter; we cannot conceive what that roast through an eternity yet, which will sinking of the soul in such case is. But not have been at all shortened by what to help your conception imagine your- shall have been past."T self to be cast into a fiery oven, all of more of this, a glowing heat, or into the midst of a If any one wants any glowing brick-kiln, or of a great furnace, he may find it in turning over the pages where your pain would be as much of the 4th Volume of the Works of greater than that occasioned by acci- Edwards, or the quotations gathered dentally touching a coal of fire as the heat is greater. Imagine also that your together in Professor Dearmer's book, body were to lie there for a quarter of and he can supplement the descriptions an hour, full of fire, as full within and by examining the pictures of, "Hell," without as a bright coal of fire, all the while full of quick sense; what horror "Satan," and "The Day of Judgment," would you feel at the entrance of such in which the lurid imaginations of And after you had endured a furnace! painters and sculptors as to the infernal it for one minute, how overbearing would it be to you to think that you had regions have found expression. Theo- it to endure the other fourteen! But logians, both Protestant and Catholic, what would be the effect on your soul, also emphasized the hideousness of it if you knew you must lie there enduring that torment to the full for twenty-four all by describing the joy of the saints hours! And how much greater would and the blessed in the sufferings of be the effect, if you knew you must the sinners! The Protestants were the endure it for a whole year; and how vastly greater still, if you knew you most rhetorical. Edwards preached: must endure it for a thousand years! "Positively, the sufferings of the 0 then how would your heart sink, if damned will be no occasion of grief to you thought, if you knew, that you must the heavenly inhabitants, as they will bear it forever and ever! That there have no love nor pity to the damned as would be no end! That after millions of such. They will rejoice in seeing the millions of ages, your torment would be justice of God glorified in the sufferings no nearer to an end than ever it was; of the damned. (Page 291.)" and that you never, never should be "You will find none that will pity you delivered! in hell. The devils will not pity you, but "But your torment in hell will be will be your tormentors, as roaring lions immensely greater than this illustration or hell-hounds to tear you in pieces represents. How then will the heart of continually. And other wicked men who a poor creature sink under it .. shall be there will be like devils; they 'Whoever thou art, whether old or will have no pity on you, but will hate young, little or great, if thou art in a and curse and torment you. And you Christless, unconverted state, this is the yourselves will be like devils; you will wrath, this is the death to which thou be like devils to yourselves, and will be art condemned. This is the wrath that your own tormentors. (Page 295.)" - See also Dearmer pp. 42-43. Since this Winslow, is worth reading. She points out paper was written an interesting biography of that the most lurid sermons were at the hys- Edwards has been published by the MacMillan terical period of "The Great Awakening" in Co. (in 1940). This book, by Ola Elizabeth New England about 174L FRANK W. GRINNELL

"You will then see those godly people the same writings that the writ with whom you shall have been ac- DeHoeretico comburendo was expunged quainted and who shall have been your from the Statute Book, and the soil of neighbors, and with whom you now England for the last time stained with often converse, rejoicing at the pronun- the misbeliever's blood!" ciation and execution of your sentence." The abolition of torture resulted less "You that have godly parents, who in this world have tenderly loved you.... from reasoning than from "the influ- You will then see them praising God for ence of certain modes of feeling which executing just vengeance on you for civilization produced." Following the setting so light by their counsels and reproofs." attacks on brutality by Voltaire, Mon- "After they shall have seen you lie in tesquieu, and Beccaria, "the doctrine hell thousands of years, and your tor- of a literal fire having almost ceased ment shall yet continue. without any rest, day or night, they will not begin to be a realized conception," the sense to pity you then; they will praise God of the excessive severity in punishments that his justice appears in the eternity developed, especially in England, under of your misery."8 the influence of John Howard. "The Quality of Mercy" "Nowhere perhaps," says Lecky, "in We are beginning to realize that the the annals of philanthropy do we meet a picture of more unsullied and fruitful "making" of law is not merely a judicial beneficence than is presented by the life process or a legislative process, but is of that great dissenter, who, having in many respects a community process, travelled over more than 40,000 miles in works of mercy, at last died on a in which the bar, the literary men, and foreign soil a martyr to his cause. Not the laymen all take part. When we con- only in England, but over the whole of sider the extent to which Shakespeare Europe, his exertions directed public opinion to the condition of prisons, and was read, studied, quoted, and listened effected a revolution the results of which to on the stage during the 18th and can never be estimated. Soon after fol- 19th Centuries, it seems probable that lowed the mitigation of the penal code." Portia's lines about "the quality of "A healthy civilization implies a dou- ble action-the action of great bodies mercy" must have had a very consid- of men moving with the broad stream of erable, even if unconscious, influence. their age,- and eventually governing Lecky says: their leaders; and the action of men of genius or heroism upon the masses, "'In the middle ages theology was raising them to a higher level, supplying supreme. . . . In the 17th century the them with nobler motives or more com- pre-eminence of theology was no longer prehensive principles, and modifying, decisive, and the great secular writers though not altogether directing, the gen- introduced a love of impartiality and of eral current. . free research which rapidly passed from natural science and metaphysics into Such men were Howard and Romilly. theology, and destroyed or weakened all The theologians had to be taught by those doctrines which were repugnant to it. It was between the writings of the humanitarians. Bacon and Locke that Chillingworth Beccaria, building, as he said in his taught, for the first or almost for the first introduction, on a foundation laid by time in England, the absolute innocence of honest error. . . . It was between Montesquieu, who "has but slightly 8 Cf. Tertullian as quoted by Gibbon, "Decline and Fall" U C. 15, Dearmer pp. 33-35. "HELL" AND THE LAW touched on this subject," laid the basis Mr. Wilson, one of the contributors to, for future development. At the end "Essays and Reviews," who appealed of his "Essay on Crimes and Punish- to the Privy Council from a judgment ments" he said: of heresy pronounced by Dr. Lushing- "From what I have written results the ton,' the distinguished ecclesiastical following general theorem, of consider- judge. In a judgment by a majority of able utility, though not conformable to custom, the common legislator of nations. four lay judges and the Bishop of Lon- "That a punishment may not be an don (Tait) against the two Arch- act of violence, of one, or of many against bishops, the court, speaking through a private member of society, it should be public, immediate and necessary; the Lord Chancellor Westbury, said: least possible in the case given; propor- "We are not required, or at liberty to tioned to the crime, and determined by express any opinion upon the mysterious the laws." question of the eternity of final punish- In the midst of all the hellishness, ment further than to say that we do not find in the Formularies, to which this it is interesting and refreshing to note Article refers, any such distinct declara- the rather surprising fact-as an illus- tion of our Church upon the subject, as tration, not only of the tolerant side of to require us to condemn as penal the expression of hope by a clergyman that Charles II., but perhaps, also, consider- even the ultimate pardon of the wicked, ing his dissolute character, a secret who are condemned in the day of judg- hope-that his poet laureate, Dryden, ment, may be consistent with the will of Almighty God." (Atlay, "Victorian in the address, "To the Reader," which Chancellors," 2, footnote 2.) (Moore, prefaced "Absolom and Achitophel" in 433.) 1681, qualified his picture of Shafts- This judgment produced very di- bury, as follows: verse reactions. Dean Stanley regarded "I have not so much as an uncharit- it as a charter of intellectual freedom able wish against Achitophel, but am content to be accused of a goodnatured within the walls of the establishment. error, and to hope with Origen, that the The effect on the wits resulted in the devil himself may at last be saved.... famous mock epitaph attributed to Sir God is infinitely merciful: and his vice regent is only not so because he is not Philip Rose, but the most pungent line infinite." of which J. B. Atlay attributes to Goethe expressed the same idea in a Charles Bowen, later Lord Bowen, who letter, more than one hundred years was one of the counsel in the case. later, when attacked for writing the "RICHARD, BARON WESTBURY. "Prologue in Heaven" to "Faust," and Lord High Chancellor of England. Bayard Taylor points out that at one He was an eminent Christian, time he contemplated the introduction An energetic and merciful statesman, of the idea in a continuation of "Faust" And a still more eminent and (Taylor's "Faust," Note 8). merciful Judge. During his three years' tenure of office But the doctrine of the Anglican He abolished the ancient method of Church was not judicially determined conveying land, until 1864, in the case of the Reverend The time-honoured institution of the Insolvents' Court, 94th English ed. (1775), pp. 178, 179. And FRANK W. GRINNELL

The Eternity of Punishment. barbarity of man, and it disappeared- Towards the close of his earthly career in spite of countless heroic and conse- In the Judicial Committee of the crated lives ... Privy Council "We understand now that cruelty is He disnissed Hell with costs, the vilest form of human selfishness; but And took away from orthodox members until recent times a man could be cruel of the Church of England without offending against any of the is Their last hope of everlasting damnation. accepted canons of morality. Cruelty not among the Seven Deadly Sins of the to the vast majority of the mem- "But medieval standard, and it is not specified of the Church of England the judg- bers in the Ten Commandments. In the ment caused the liveliest indignation and Middle Ages, sin was studied and ana- dismay. 'High' and 'Low' were for the lyzed with extraordinary subtle thor- moment united, and Lord Shaftesbury oughness; but cruelty almost escaped stood shoulder to shoulder with Dr. notice . . . and . . . our ancestors Pusey. A declaration of belief 'without had undeveloped minds on the subject." reserve or qualification' in the inspira- "The ancient world was grossly and tion of the Scriptures and in the ever- unimaginatively cruel No principle of lasting punishment of the wicked was Christ has been longer in obtaining signed by over 10,000 clergymen, and than that 'Essays and Reviews' was condemned wholehearted acceptance which is contained in the saying, Be ye as heretical by the Convocation of merciful, even as your Father is merci- Canterbury." (Atlay's "Victorian Chan- 0 cellors," 2, pp. 263-5.) ful."'1 When the details of the lives of in- With the current revival of the abso- dividuals during centuries are consid- lutism of more barbarous centuries in ered, the story of "hellishness" when different parts of the world, it is well viewed as a moving picture, is a ter- for us to remember that this principle rific tragedy. of mercy is still young, according to in his brief preface explaining the Browning's calendar of "God's instant reason for his book on "The Legend of men call years," and still needs nursing Hell," Professor Dearmer says: for the protection of society. "When I was in France during the War, I used to ask the men to put ques- Bibliography tions in a box. The question most fre- quently asked was, 'How can a just God Andrews, "Bygone Punishments." send people to everlasting torment?' John Laurence, "History of Capital Pun- Since then, I have found that, whenever ishment." questions were invited at large popular Lecky, "Rationalism in Europe." meetings, this was the difficulty in most (Chapters on the History of persecu- people's minds." tion). Later in his book he expresses his Michael Wigglesworth, "The Day of views as follows: Doom." (Murdock's Ed. 1929). Edwards, Sermons in "Works," "With the advent of Christianity in- Jonathan Vol. IV. deed pity had been proclaimed a virtue; but it failed to conquer the unregenerate 10 Luke 6-36, Matthew 5-7. "HELL" AND THE LAW

Dearmer, "The Legend of Hell" (1929). England and Wales, etc.'" 1777 et seq. E. S. Morgan, "The Case Against Anne Dixon, "Memoir of John Howard." Hutchinson." Sir Samuel Romilly, "Speeches." (New England Quarterly for Dec. 1937). Dante, "Inferno" with Dor6's Illustrations. Oakes, "Sir Samuel Romilly" (1934). Various English Poems on the Day of Dawes, An Essay on Crimes and Punish- Judgment catalogued in the Boston ments (1782). Athenaeum. Beccaria, Voltaire and Bentham. Howell, "State Trials." "What is Hell?" Twelve Essays on mod- John Pollock, "The Popish Plot." em conceptions of "Hell" by Dean Inge James Fitz-James Stephen, "History of and others, published by Harpers in the Criminal Law." 1930. John Howard, "The State of Prisons in Holmes, "Over the Teacups," pp. 246-260.