he should
not smite him so pitilessly. Were we to take up his cause, it should
be somewhat in the following fashion. A scheme of guilt, till it be
put in execution, greatly resembles a train of incidents in a
projected tale. The latter, in order to produce a sense of reality in
the reader's mind, must be conceived with such proportionate strength
by the author as to seem in the glow of fancy more like truth, past,
present or to come, than purely fiction. The prospective sinner, on
the other hand, weaves his plot of crime, but seldom or never feels a
perfect certainty that it will be executed. There is a dreaminess
diffused about his thoughts; in a dream, as it were, he strikes the
death-blow into his victim's heart and starts to find an indelible
blood-stain on his hand. Thus a novel-writer or a dramatist, in
creating a villain of romance and fitting him with evil deeds, and the
villain of actual life in projecting crimes that will be perpetrated,
may almost meet each other halfway between reality and fancy. It is
not until the crime is accomplished that Guilt clenches its gripe upon
the guilty heart and claims it for his own. Then, and not before, sin
is actually felt and acknowledged, and, if unaccompanied by repentance,
grows a thousandfold more virulent by its self-consciousness. Be it
considered, also, that men often overestimate their capacity for evil.
At a distance, while its attendant circumstances do not press upon
their notice and its results are dimly seen, they can bear to
contemplate it. They may take the steps which lead to crime, impelled
by the same sort of mental action as in working out a mathematical
problem, yet be powerless with compunction at the final moment. They
knew not what deed it was that they deemed themselves resolved to do.
In truth, there is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full
resolve, either for good or evil, except at the very moment of
execution. Let us hope, therefore, that all the dreadful consequences
of sin will not be incurred unless the act have set its seal upon the
thought.

Yet, with the slight fancy-work which we have framed, some sad and
awful truths are interwoven. Man must not disclaim his brotherhood
even with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart
has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity. He must
feel that when he shall knock at the gate of heaven no semblance of an
unspotted life can entitle him to entrance ther