the
impassive Judge. It was this, he continued, which lifted his heart as
he approached the building. And yet--he had entered it with an
uncertain--he might almost say--a timid step. And why? He knew,
gentlemen, he was about to confront a profound--aye! a sacred
responsibility! Those hymn-books and holy writings handed to the jury
were NOT, as his Honor had surmised, for the purpose of enabling the
jury to indulge in--er--preliminary choral exercise! He might, indeed,
say, "Alas, not!" They were the damning, incontrovertible proofs of the
perfidy of the defendant. And they would prove as terrible a warning to
him as the fatal characters upon Belshazzar's wall. There was a strong
sensation. Hotchkiss turned a sallow green. His lawyers assumed a
careless smile.

It was his duty to tell them that this was not one of those ordinary
"breach-of-promise" cases which were too often the occasion of ruthless
mirth and indecent levity in the court-room. The jury would find
nothing of that here. There were no love-letters with the epithets of
endearment, nor those mystic crosses and ciphers which, he had been
credibly informed, chastely hid the exchange of those mutual caresses
known as "kisses." There was no cruel tearing of the veil from those
sacred privacies of the human affection; there was no forensic shouting
out of those fond confidences meant only for ONE. But there was, he was
shocked to say, a new sacrilegious intrusion. The weak pipings of Cupid
were mingled with the chorus of the saints,--the sanctity of the temple
known as the "meeting--house" was desecrated by proceedings more in
keeping with the shrine of Venus; and the inspired writings themselves
were used as the medium of amatory and wanton flirtation by the
defendant in his sacred capacity as deacon.

The Colonel artistically paused after this thunderous denunciation. The
jury turned eagerly to the leaves of the hymn-books, but the larger gaze
of the audience remained fixed upon the speaker and the girl, who sat in
rapt admiration of his periods. After the hush, the Colonel continued
in a lower and sadder voice: "There are, perhaps, few of us here,
gentlemen,--with the exception of the defendant,--who can arrogate to
themselves the title of regular church-goers, or to whom these humbler
functions of the prayer-meeting, the Sunday-school, and the Bible-class
are habitually familiar. Yet"--more solemnly--"down in our hearts is the
deep conviction of our shortcom