CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

Mr. EDITOR:—In your paper of the 12th last, are found a few remarks in reply to your comments on Capital Punishment by "P.," which is deserving of notice, inasmuch as it appears (to me) to reflect discredit on the revealed word of God. He writes as follows: "Now Mr. Editor, how many atrocious iniquities has a thus saith the Lord covered and excused in past ages." To this question I can make no serious objection so far as it can be applied to determining beyond a possibility of mistake that "Thus saith the Lord." But when such quotations are made, so as to give discredit to the authority of that word, as well to render its authority (as such as believe in it) for the commission of crime, then must I beg permission to record my objections. In reply to the following period, (allow me to make a remark:) "To many the words of the Bible are as authoritative as if God spoke in an audible voice." Should we take particular notice with respect to time, circumstance, and persons addressed, we should find less to censure and more to admire. Again, in Leviticus 28th chap., 4th, God is recorded as directing (44th verse) that the Israelites should take bondsmen and bondswomen of the heathen; then, in the 46th verse, he is recorded as commanding Moses as follows: "And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondsmen forever." And in addition to this he says: "Here we have a thus saith the Lord, for perpetual slavery." That Jewish servitude, and not American slavery, was allowed to the Israelites, with the right of the servant to claim his or her liberty at certain times, is not the point of difference, but of its perpetuity, so far as it depends on the word . I was once one of that unhappy number who believed in eternal punishment of those who died impenitent from this fact, the Bible seemed to teach it so strongly, from the frequent connection of the words forever.—Everlasting and eternal with the punishment of that class of individuals and now with equal propriety can the Jew claim that Aaron's priesthood should be an everlasting priesthood, and that the covenant of circumcision of the flesh should be an everlasting covenant, and the American slaveholding Christians, too, can declare from the word of God, that slavery was made perpetual.

Now arrives a very intelligent question.—Where is the difficulty? We all know from what is declared from every leaf of the book of nature, and every noble impulse of man, that God never intended that slavery should be perpetual. The answer to the question so far as it relates to the perpetuity of slavery, rests in the word forever. To me it is of great value to know the , and I find that a little truth eliminates much error. The word forever in

this quotation is a translation from the adverbial modification of the Greek noun "alon?" and the word was used by "the seventy" who translated the Hebrew scripture into Greek, or what is commonly known as "the Septuagint version" of the old testament from which was taken out not only the English, but every Old Testament, in every language in the world.

The word "alon" is substituted for the Hebrew word olam, which any one can discern from a little examination, (the same as alon,) often as a noun of time, without respect to limitation, and is nowhere used by either Biblical or Classical writers to represent positive eternity, and where it is used in connection with eternal things is modified rather than modifies its connection. The same word is often used to represent a life with respect to its character, as the life of holiness as well as its opposition, where its time depends on its quality. Hence there is no doubt in my mind that the correct meaning of the word rendered "forever" in this quotation, is not perpetual, nor eternally, as Theologians often render it, but , [illegible], period of time, depending on the authority which gave it an entity. No scholar who values a reputation will deny the foregoing explanation in the main, now that such was the use made of that word by Oregon who wrote only 225 years after Christ, in Greek his own native language—was the head of a Philosophical school in Alexandria, and whose authority is of more value than an army of Greek scholars of the present day. What I have said is sufficient to such as desire the truth to incite them to an investigation of this word on which rests so much value. Any person of fair natural, or acquired talents, even without a personal knowledge of Classics, can in one month's time fully satisfy himself on this subject without spending to exceed thirty minutes each day, by an impartial, unprejudiced examination of the writings of those who have left no leaf unturned to known the —Prompted by baser motive than to honor the truth, has led me to this conclusion, and it is from no desire to criticise, to find fault, or to seek a controversy, with so noble a spirit as friend P. divulges in his expressed contempt for American slavery, or any other kind of slavery, but from a desire to do good by encouraging, but from a desire to do good by encouraging an investigation of the word of God, upon which too many have passed a verdict of condemnation before they have given it a fair hearing, and consequently have failed to imbibe the spirit of its teachings, which is life by a forced construction of the .

W. C. SHAW.