Efficiency in government.

Different estimates of it.

but one which unfortunately is not very popular in this world. Efficiency in government is popular or unpopular according to the character of the individual who judges of it. An efficient administration secures protection and happiness to the good, but to the bad, it brings suffering, and perhaps destruction. It is natural, therefore, that the latter should be very slow to praise the justice which they fear; and in this world, there is so large a portion upon whom God's efficiency as a moral Governor will bear very heavily, that the whole subject is exceedingly unpopular among mankind.

It is curious to observe how men's estimates of the same conduct vary according to the way in which they are themselves to be affected by it; for nothing is more admired and applauded among men, than efficiency in the execution of law, in all cases where they are themselves safe from its penalties. There have been great disputes in respect to the bounds which ought to be assigned to political governments, or, in other words, the degree of power which the magistrate ought to possess. But within these bounds,- in the exercise of this power, -every body admires and praises firmness, energy and inflexible decision. Nobody objects except the criminal who has to suffer for the safety of the rest. He always protests against it.

About fifty years ago an English clergyman of elevated rank and connexions, and of high literary reputation, committed forgery. The law of England says that the forger must die. Now England is a highly commercial country, and all the transactions of business there, connected with the employment, and the sustenance and the property of millions and millions, entirely depend upon confidence in the truth of a written signature. Destroy the general confidence in the identity of a man's handwriting in signing his name, and all the business of the island would be embarrassed or stopped, and universal

Severe punishment.

Necessity for it.

Alternative.

confusion, distress and ruin would follow in a day. The man therefore, who counterfeits a signature in such a country, points his dagger at the very vital organs of society.

The law of England does right, therefore, in affixing a very severe penalty to the crime of forgery, not for the purpose of revenging itself on the hapless criminal, but for the sake of protecting that vast amount of property, and those millions of lives, which are dependant upon the general confidence in the writing of a name. It is a sad thing for a clergyman of refined and cultivated mind to pass through the scenes which such a law prepared for him. Consternation, when detected; long hours of torturing suspense, before his trial; indescribable suffering when, on being brought to the bar, he saw the proof brought out, step by step, clearly against him, and witnessed the unavailing efforts of his counsel to make good his defence; and the sinking of spirit, like death itself, while the judge pronounced the sentence which sealed his awful fate. Then he is remanded to prison, to spend some days or weeks in uninterrupted and indescribable agony, until his faculties become bewildered and overpowered by the influence of horror and despair; and he walks out at last, pale, trembling, and haggard in look, to finish his earthly sufferings by the convulsive struggles of death. Sad consequences these, we admit, although they come only upon one; and all for just affixing another man's name to a piece of paper, without any intention of defrauding anybody! For it is highly probable that in this case, as in many similar ones, the criminal meant, in mercantile language, to have taken up the paper before it fell due. In fact he must have designed this, for this would be the only way to escape certain detection. Awful results, we admit, for a sin so quickly, and so thoughtlessly committed; but not so sad as it would be to let the example go on,-until the frequency

Public sentiment.

Consequences of yielding to crime.

Petitions.

of forgery should destroy all mutual confidence between man and man, and business be stopped, and millions of families be reduced to beggary. Better that here and there a violator of the law should suffer its penalties, than that the foundations of society should be sapped, and the whole structure tumble into ruin. The question, therefore, for the government of that island, was simply this; will you be firm, notwithstanding individual suffering, in executing the law, or will you yield, and take the consequences? If you yield, you open the flood-gates of crime and suffering upon the country; and there will be no place to stop, if you once give way to crime, till the land becomes one wide-spread scene of desolation,- famine raging in every hamlet,-banditti lurking in the valleys or riding in troops upon the highways-and wretched mothers with their starving babes, roaming through the streets of desolated London, in a fruitless search for food. That was the question; and the energetic government of the country understood it so. The unhappy criminal gave every indication of penitence. He was universally believed to be truly penitent then, and is universally believed to have been so, now. All England too, with one voice, sent in earnest petitions for his pardon. But it was in vain. The British ministry understood their duty better, and though it was perhaps as painful a duty as a government ever had to discharge, they were firm, unyielding to the last. They gave him neither pardon nor reprieve; and though they would probably have submitted to almost any personal suffering, to save him, they were compelled to leave him to drink to the full, the bitter consequences of his sin.

There were thousands and thousands of petitioners in his favor, overcome by compassion for the man. The tide of popular feeling was altogether against the government then, for men generally are weak minded, inefficient, yielding, when the performance of duty is painful. But

Public sentiment now. Impartiality. Opinions influenced by character. since the time has gone by, and the momentary weakness of the occasion has passed away, there has been as strong a tide of public approbation in their favor. In fact this so conspicuous and so terrible a case of sin and suffering, has made a permanent impression, not only upon England, but upon the whole civilized world. Every man feels it. He may not trace back the feeling to its origin, but it is undoubtedly, in a very great degree, owing to this, and precisely similar transactions, that that distinct, that almost indelible impression has been made upon the community, and is handed down from generation to generation, which connects in every mind, such strong and mysterious associations of sacredness with the signature of the written name. From that day to this, every writer who has commented upon the transaction, while he has many expressions of sympathy for the suffering, has a far more emphatic tribute of praise for the inflexible firmness and decision which refused to relieve it.

Undoubtedly all my readers see this in the same light. We are, in a great measure, incapacitated from regarding some transactions, analogous to this, in a correct manner, on account of their coming too near to ourselves;-but this one can be understood; its moral bearings and relations are seen as they are, without distortion; and the simple fact which enables us to take the view of this subject which truth and justice present, is this, — we have not committed forgery ourselves. Suppose there had been in the prison where this unhappy criminal was confined, a room full of other forgers, and their opinion had been asked about the justice or the necessity of condemning him. Could they be made to understand it? No; they would be vociferous in their outcries at the unjust severity of inflicting such protracted and terrible suffering for so little a sin. We however can understand it, for we are impartial observers We have not com

Points illustrated.

Time spent in sin.

Fifteen seconds.

mitted the crime, and we consequently have nothing to fear from sustaining the law. We rather see the value of an efficient administration of justice, in the protection it affords to our rights, and the addition it makes to our happiness. I have accordingly taken this case to present to my readers, to illustrate four or five points, which we can see more plainly than when we look at them directly in the government of God. As I enumerate the points which such a case illustrates, let the reader listen to the voice of reason and conscience within, and he will find that it testifies in their favor.

1. The time spent in committing the sin, has nothing to do with the just duration of the punishment of it. It took Dr. Dodd fifteen seconds, to write Lord Chesterfield's name. He suffered indescribable agony for many months, and was then blotted from existence for it. He would have lived perhaps forty years. So that here, for a sin of fifteen seconds, justice took forty years in penalty. She took more; for he would have been glad to have exchanged death for forty years of exile and suffering. In fact he petitioned for such a commutation.

Some one may say that I fix too small a time for the commission of the sin;- that he spent many hours and perhaps days in devising his plans, and practising his counterfeit signature, and getting his bond drawn, and that his guilt was extended over all these. His guilt was, to be sure, but he was not punished for guilt. He was punished for crime. If the last fatal act had not been performed, he would not have committed any offence against human law. God might have punished him, but man would not;- so that, strictly and fairly, the fifteen seconds spent in delineating the letters of his pupil's name, was the whole. For a sin of fifteen seconds, then, there followed a penalty worse than suffering for forty years, and mankind have, by common consent, from that day to this, pronounced the punishment just