Archdeacon Wordsworth preached last Sunday in Westminster Abbey in favour
of " the punishment of death for wilful mur- der," but he took as his text, " 1Vhoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," which certainly, in its context, does not apply to wilful murder only, but to every sort of blood-shed- ding. It is even said, " And surely your blood of your lives will I require ; at the hand of every beast I will require it, and at the hand of man." Now "beasts" can scarcely be considered as capable of " wilful murder." And yet the Archdeacon actually had the presumption to say that "it is not left optional with men whether they will punish murder with death or not ; they are required by God himself to do so." If they, are, they are required to punish manslaughter, and even justifiable homicide, by death also,—and even to punish by death animals which happen to cause death. If the worthy Archdeacon had the least vestige of critical feeling for the traditions of Genesis, and their relation to human law and history, he would not talk such atrocious nonsense. He might just as well say that the injunction "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you," leaves us no option whether to eat frogs or not.
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