e all
know that he is a great light in that respect--'

"'He would be a burning light, too, my lord,' observed Rant.

"No; his reverence for the Bible is too great, too sincere to profane
it by such vulgar perusal as it may have received at the hands of that
destitute old woman, who probably thumbed it day and night, without
regard either to dog-ears or binding, or a consideration of how she was
treating the property of the parish. The fact, however, gentlemen, seems
to be, that the old woman either altogether forgot the institutions
of society, or resolved society itself in her own mind into first
principles. Now, gentlemen, we cannot go behind first principles,
neither can we go behind the old woman. We must keep her before us, but
it is not necessary to keep the Bible so. It has been found, indeed,
that she did not sell, pledge, bestow, or otherwise make the book
subservient to her temporal or corporal wants, as Mr. Rant very
ingeniously argued. Neither did she take it to place in her library--for
she had no library; nor for ostentation in her hall--for she had no
hall, as my pious friend Counsellor Sleek has. But, gentlemen, even
if this old woman by reading the Bible learned to repent, and felt
conversion of heart, you are not to infer that the act which brought her
to grace and repentance may not have been a hardened violation of the
law. Beware of this error, gentlemen. The old woman by stealing this
Bible may have repented her of her sins, it is true; but it is your
business, gentlemen, to make her repent of the law also. The law is as
great a source of repentance as the Bible any day, and, I am proud to
say, has caused more human tears to be shed, and bitterer ones, too,
than the Word of God ever did. Even although justified in the sight of
heaven, it does not follow that this woman is to escape here. It is
the act, and not the heart, that the law deals with. The purity of
her motives, her repentance, are nothing to the law; but the law is
everything to the person in whom they operate; because, although
the heart may be innocent, the individual person must be punished. A
penitent heart, or a consciousness of the pardon of God, are not fit
considerations for a jury-box. You are, therefore, to exclude the
motive, and to take nothing into consideration but the act; for it is
only that by which the law has been violated.

"'But is there no such thing as mercy, my lord?' asked a juror.

"In the administration of