Killed His Own Sister — Who Was Responsible?
By R. W. PARMELE
SOME months ago I was called to a jail to pray with a prisoner who was to be hanged the next day. Naturally I expected to see a hardened criminal, in whose estimation human life was worth but little. When I entered the death chamber, to my surprise, I found the sentenced man to be about twenty-six years of age, well dressed, with a kindly look, and presenting the appearance of a young man of intelligence and promise. As I conversed with him on religious subjects, I found him well informed, and learned that during his imprisonment he had given his heart to God, and had evidently obtained pardon and a genuine Christian experience. He still hoped for the governor’s commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment. He said that if the Lord could use him to bring fellow prisoners to Him, he wanted to live; but if He could not, he was ready to mount the gallows; and whichever should come, he would accept it cheerfully.653 The prison officials told me that he was an exemplary young man, so far as his prison life was concerned. Upon further inquiry, I learned that he had been led into drink, and while crazed with liquor, he had killed his sister. No malice aforethought seemed to have been charged, but the deed was done in an irresponsible moment, while he was under the influence of the liquor that our government had licensed a man to sell him to drink. Kind friends gave his body a respectable burial, as the governor's commutation did not come. A few days afterward I was called upon to conduct the funeral of a baby, which was laid to rest beside his grave. At the cemetery, the undertaker whispered to me, "I suppose the parents of that child would feel horror-struck if they knew that the grave next to their child's is that of a murderer." "Yes," thought I, "that is doubtless true. But he was once as pure and innocent as was that child. And what made him a murderer? — The accursed traffic that many professed Christian people have helped to license."