p. 180 | A Most Fiendish Murder by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1875

A Most Fiendish Murder.

By Uriah Smith

A LITTLE girl, Mabel H. Young, five years of age, was most wantonly and brutally murdered in Boston, Mass., on Sunday, May 23, at the Baptist church, in the vicinity of Chester Park, at the conclusion of the Sunday-school exercises, while the church was still thronged with people, and, finally, by the sexton of the church himself! These facts, array them as we will, present a climax of horror hard to be paralleled. The little child, being missed soon after the service, by her aunt, in whose care she attended the place, search was made for her, and she was shortly found in the lofty belfry, with her skull crushed and face horribly mangled, the instrument employed being a heavy club. Of this most astonishing phase of crime the Detroit Evening News says:—

“Another horrible murder!

“Scene, Boston, the boasted center of American culture.

“More precisely, the vicinity of Chester Park, one of the most respectable, and indeed aristocratic, quarters of the city.

“In fact, a Baptist church, on the corner of two highly respectable thoroughfares—much as Woodward avenue and Winder street might be in Detroit.

“Time: Sabbath afternoon; Sabbath-school just dismissed, and the building still thronged with teachers and children.

“Victim, an innocent child of five years.

“The grand-daughter of one of Boston’s most prominent merchants.

“Murderer, the trusted sexton of the church.

“Object, none.

“When this pass is reached, whose life is safe?

“What place a sanctuary?

“Parents! friends of humanity! social scientists! Christians! what will you do—what can be done, to stop this brutal, savage thirst for human blood, with which our sensibilities are almost daily shocked?”

The Boston Herald says in reference to this event:—

“Parents may well tremble when even the Sabbath sanctuary becomes a place for the slaughter of the innocents.” U. S.