stanley, the african traveller, is a man of piety. he seems to be on pretty familiar terms with the "one above." during his last expedition to relieve emin—a sceptical gentleman, who gets along with less bloodshed than stanley—he was troubled with "traitors"; that is, black fellows who thought they had a better right in africa than the intrusive whites, and acted upon that opinion. this put stanley in a towering rage. he resolved to teach the "traitors" a lesson. one of them was solemnly tried—by his executioners, and sentenced to be hung. a rope was noosed round his neck, and he was taken under a tree, which was to be his gallows. the poor devil screamed for mercy, but stanley bent his inexorable brows, and cried, "send him to god!"
"we were troubled with no more traitors," says stanley. very likely. but the great man forgot to say what he meant by the exclamation, "send him to god!" did he mean "send him to god for judgment?" if so, it was rather rough to hang the prisoner before his proper trial. did he mean, "the fellow isn't fit for earth, so send him to heaven?" if so, it was a poor compliment to paradise. or did he simply use a pious, impressive form of speech to awe the spectators, and give them the notion that he had as much traffic with god as any african mystery-man or mohammedan dervish?
the middle one of these three theories fits in best with the general sentiment, or at any rate the working sentiment, of christian england. some brutal, drunken, or passionate wretch commits a murder. he is carefully tried, solemnly sentenced, and religiously hanged. he is declared unfit to live on this planet. but he is still a likely candidate for heaven, which apparently yawns to receive all the refuse of earth. he is sedulously taken in hand by the gaol chaplain, or some other spiritual guide to glory, and is generally brought to a better frame of mind. finally, he expresses sorrow for his position, forgives everybody he has ever injured, delivers himself of a good deal of highly edifying advice, and then swings from the gallows clean into the kingdom of heaven.
the grotesque absurdity of all this is enough to wrinkle the face of a cab horse. society and the murderer are both playing the hypocrite, and of course society is the worse of the two, for it is acting deliberately and methodically, while the poor devil about to be hung is like a hunted thing in a corner, up to any shift to ease his last moments and make peace with the powers of the life to come. society says he has killed somebody, and he shall be killed; that he is not fit to live, but fit to die; that it must strangle him, and call him "brother" when the white cap is over his face, and god must save his soul; that he is too bad to dwell on earth, but it hopes to meet him in heaven.
religion does not generate sense, logic, or humaneness in the mind of society. its effect on the doomed assassin is simply horrible. he is really a more satisfactory figure when committing the murder than when he is posing, and shuffling and twisting, and talking piously, and exhibiting the intense, unmitigated selfishness which is at the bottom of all religious sentiment. the essence of piety comes out in this tragi-comedy. personal fear, personal hope, self, self, sell, is the be-all and the end-all of this sorry exhibition.
a case in point has just occurred at leeds. james stockwell was hung there on tuesday morning. while under sentence of death, the report says, he slept well and ate heartily, so that remorse does not appear to have injured his 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 of kate dennis. he was careless whether she was in heaven or hell. not once, apparently, did it cross his mind that he had destroyed her young life after nameless horror; that he had killed her in the bloom of maidenhood; that at one fell swoop he had extinguished all that she might have been—perhaps a happy wife and mother, living to a white old age, with the prattle of grandchildren soothing her last steps to the grave. such reflections do not occur to gentlemen who are anxious about their salvation, and in a hurry to get to heaven.
"i and mine"—my fate, my mother, my father, my sisters, my brothers—this was the sole concern of james stockwell under the chaplain's ministrations. in this frame of mind, we presume, he has sailed to glory, and his family hope to meet him there snug in abraham's bosom. well, we don't. we hope to give the haunt of james stockwell a wide berth. if he and others like him are in the upper circles, every decent person would rather be in the pit.
let not the reader suppose that james stockwell's case is uncommon. we have made a point of reading the letters of condemned murderers, and thev all bear a family likeness. religion simply stimulates and sanctifies selfishness. in selfishness it began and in selfishness it ends. extreme cases only show the principle in a glaring light; they do not alter it, and the light is the light of truth.
james stockwell has gone to god. no doubt the chaplain of leeds gaol feels sure of it. probably the fellow's relatives are just as sure. but what of kate dennis. is she with god? what an awful farce it would be if she were in hell. perhaps she is. she had no time to prepare for death. she was cut off "in her sins." but her murderer had three weeks to prepare for his freehold in new jerusalem. he qualified himself for a place with the sore-legged lazarus. he dwells in the presence of the lamb. he drinks of the river of life. he twangs his hallelujah harp and blows his hallelujah trumpet. maybe he looks over the battlements and sees kate dennis in hades. the murderer in heaven, and the victim in hell! nay more. it has been held that the bliss of the saved will be heightened by witnessing the tortures of the damned. in that case kate dennis may burn to make james stockwell's holiday. he will watch her writhings with more than the relish of a sportsman who has hooked a lusty trout. "ha, ha," the worthy james may exclaim, "i tortured her before i killed her, and now i shall enjoy her tortures for ever."
