d dismal colors, the fate which awaited him, and the awful judgment
to be pronounced at another Bar upon his crimes when his soul be
confronted with his innocent victims; when he fixed his gaze of
concentrated power upon him, the strong man's face relaxed; his
eyes faltered and fell; until, at length, unable to bear up
under self-conviction, he hid his head beneath the bar, and exhibited
a picture of ruffianly audacity cowed beneath the spell of true
courage and triumphant genius."

In his early practice in Mississippi, in closing a touching and
eloquent appeal to the jury on behalf of a client whose life was
trembling in the balance, Prentiss said:

"I have somewhere read that when God in His eternal councils
conceived the thought of man's creation, he called to him the three
ministers who wait constantly upon the throne, Justice, Truth, and
Mercy, and thus addressed them:

"'Shall we make man?'

"Then said Justice, 'O God, make him not, for he will trample upon
Thy laws.'

"Truth made answer also, 'O God, make him not, for he will pollute
Thy sanctuaries.'

"Then Mercy, dropping upon her knees and looking up through her
tears, exclaimed, 'O God, make him. I will watch over him through
all the dark paths he may have to tread.'

"Then God made man and said to him: 'Thou art the child of Mercy;
_go and deal in mercy with thy brother.'"_

In speaking of Mr. Webster's marvellous power over a jury, Mr.
Hubbard told me that he was present during the trial of a once
celebrated divorce case in one of the courts of Boston. The husband
was the complainant, and the alleged ground the one of recognized
sufficiency in all countries. Mr. Webster was the counsel for the
husband; Rufus Choate for the wife. As an advocate, the latter has had
few equals, no superiors, at the American bar. In the case mentioned,
with a distressed woman for a client, what was dearer than life, her
reputation, in the balance, it may well be believed that the wondrous
powers of the advocate were in requisition to the utmost.

At the conclusion of Choate's speech, as Mr. Hubbard assured me,
the case of the injured husband appeared hopeless. It seemed
impossible that such a speech could be successfully answered.

The opening sentence, in deep and measured tones, of Webster in
reply, the prelude to an unrivalled argument and to victory, was:

"Saint Paul in the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter of
his wondrous Epistle to the Roma