od, for thy
own behoof or another's; and silently await the issue? Thou
knowest not such a Court? Hast merely heard of it by faint
tradition as a thing that was or had been? Of thee, I think, we
shall get little benefit.

For the gowns of learned-sergeants are good: parchment records,
fixed forms, and poor terrestrial justice, with or without
horse-hair, what sane man will not reverence these? And yet,
behold, the man is not sane but insane, who considers these alone
as venerable. Oceans of horse-hair, continents of parchment, and
learned-sergeant eloquence, were it continued till the learned
tongue wore itself small in the indefatigable learned mouth,
cannot make unjust just. The grand question still remains, Was
the judgment just? If unjust, it will not and cannot get harbour
for itself, or continue to have footing in this Universe, which
was made by other than One Unjust. Enforce it by never such
statuting, three readings, royal assents; blow it to the four
winds with all manner of quilted trumpeters and pursuivants, in
the rear of them never so many gibbets and hangmen, it will not
stand, it cannot stand. From all souls of men, from all ends of
Nature, from the Throne of God above, there are voices bidding
it: Away, away! Does it take no warning; does it stand, strong
in its three readings, in its gibbets and artillery-parks? The
more woe is to it, the frightfuller woe. It will continue
standing, for its day, for its year, for its century, doing
evil all the while; but it has One enemy who is Almighty:
dissolution, explosion, and the everlasting Laws of Nature
incessantly advance towards it; and the deeper its rooting, more
obstinate its continuing, the deeper also and huger will its ruin
and overturn be.

In this God's-world, with its wild-whirling eddies and mad
foam-oceans, where men and nations perish as if without law, and
judgment for an unjust thing is sternly delayed, dost thou think
that there is therefore no justice? It is what the fool hath
said in his heart. It is what the wise, in all times, were wise
because they denied, and knew forever not to be. I tell thee
again, there is nothing else but justice. One strong thing I
find here below: the just thing, the true thing. My friend, if
thou hadst all the artillery of Woolwich trundling at thy back in
support of an unjust thing; and infinite bonfires visibly
waiting ahead of thee, to blaze centuries long for thy victory on
be