SOME PERTINENT STATEMENTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3030, 10 April 1912, Page 10

SOME PERTINENT STATEMENTS.

BISHOP CROSSLEY ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. AUCKLAND, April 2. " It is an abominable thing to put a human being to death, but it is still more abominable when a human being is pvjt to death through the outrages of society, said Bishop Crossley in the course of a midday address ;n connection with tho Holv Week meetings To-day the subject of the address was "The Crucifixion." At the close his Lordship said he bad hoped to say fxnncthing about the criminal system, but time prevented him. " Sometimes I go to gaol,'' he proceeded, "to hold service. I wish I could bring the men of Auckland to see that sight. I hold that under the cross of Jesus Christ no right exists to punish any man unless it be to improve him or to arrest him in his criminal career; and I tell you that your system of criminal punishment is a system of revenge.' (" Hear, hear.") Ifis Lordship further stated that until the people of New Zealand made their system of punishment arrestful instead of revengeful it would not be in keeping with the spirit of the Church. "It never will be so," he continued, "until you bring this swearing, cursing criminal to become a man of penitence and reform." " People don't go to heaven when they die, or to hell cither," was the remark made by Bishop Crossley in a midday address to men to-dny. " It was a popular belief," his Lordship said, "but if it was true, where would be the moral of the day of judgment long afterwards? " " Oh, no," he continued. " when we come to the root of things the old Church is never far wrong. People when they die don't go to heaven or to hell, but depart to a state where they may be with Christ, and who can tell but that in that long state of waking the truth that was so darkened here, the life that was so cruelly wrong, may be set right? There is nothing to warrant it, but, thank God, there is nothing to say that it is impossible The Church of God is always praying for her dead, and the man who thinks it Popish or superstitious to kneel down and pray for his blessed mother loses one of the wealths of intercession. I pity that man. It is not purgatory, but we do believe in never leaving out of our prayers those whom we love."