ern
marauder whom we have enthroned as our ruler everywhere, from everyone,
seizes, tears, and despoils the fruits of toil, and has never added a
penny to the wealth of humanity.

"And what do we find him doing? In the midst of poverty that means
hunger and nakedness, disease and death, we have the shameless
flaunting of insane luxury. And to what purpose? To challenge the envy
of the vain and the foolish, to dazzle the minds of the poor and
inflame the lusts of the criminal.

"Do we believe that such things are the decrees of a just and loving
God who created this world? Slavery, Polygamy, Famine, and Plague were
once universal scourges and accepted as the mysterious ways of God. We
have outgrown them all and created a new and nobler God. We find that
these things are not the results of his law, but the results of the
violation of law."

The speaker paused, drew close to the judge and then in low impassioned
tones told as if he were talking to a father the story of Woodman's
life and the events which drove him to madness on the fatal night of
his crime. In flashes of vivid eloquence he described the magnificent
ball and drew in sombre heart-breaking contrast the desolation and
despair of a proud and sensitive man made desperate by want and ruin,
the man who had given his blood to his country and his daily life in an
unselfish ministry to the homeless and friendless.

"I do not ask of your honour," he cried in ringing tones, "the repeal
of the law against theft--thou shalt not steal! This law, old as the
human race, will be as good a thousand years from to-day as it was a
thousand years ago. I only ask the suspension of its penalty on this
heart-broken man until we can extend it to his oppressors as well,
until its thunder shall also echo through the palaces of the rich--_thou_
shalt not steal!

"The prosecution is enforcing the law, I grant. I appeal to this court
to-day for more than man's law. I ask for divine justice. I ask for a
bigger thing than the law itself--the equality of all men before the
law!

"The possession of millions may not constitute true wealth, but it
always means power over men. The thing which seems to be wealth may be,
'tis true, 'but the gilded index of far-reaching ruin, a wrecker's
handful of coin gleaned from a beach whose false light has beguiled an
argosy, a camp follower's bundle of rags from the breast of goodly
soldier dead, the purchase price of potter's fields', but it still