They certainly did not wait altogether for the revenges of
posterity. If they lost their ears, it is satisfactory to remember that
they made those of their mutilators tingle with a rhetoric more sharp
than polite.
A worthy New England deacon once described a brother in the church as a
very good man Godward, but rather hard man-ward. It cannot be denied
that some very satisfactory steps have been taken in the latter
direction, at least, since the days of the Pilgrims. Our age is tolerant
of creed and dogma, broader in its sympathies, more keenly sensitive to
temporal need, and, practically recognizing the brotherhood of the race,
wherever a cry of suffering is heard its response is quick and generous.
It has abolished slavery, and is lifting woman from world-old degradation
to equality with man before the law. Our criminal codes no longer embody
the maxim of barbarism, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," but
have regard not only for the safety of the community, but to the reform
and well-being of the criminal.
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