Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 207, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1910 — “Natural Life." [ARTICLE]

“Natural Life."

“Imprisonment for the rest of your natural life” is the form of the penalty next in dread to the death sentence. This phrase “natural life” puzzles some people who wonder if the law recognizes any “unnatural life.” It does not, but the old common law did recognize an unnatural death, as well as a natural one. When a man or woman takes the monastic vow people still speak of it as “leaving the world." In medieval times that was considered a form of death, and the phrase “natural life” came into use to describe an existence terminated by the grave, not by the convent or the abbey.—London Globe.