GUILT
The only thing needed to show guilt or innocence is sufficient light:
Aaron Burr once defended a prisoner charged with murder, and as the trial proceeded it became too manifest to him that the guilt of the murder lay between the prisoner and one of the witnesses for the prosecution. He accordingly subjected this witness to a searching and relentless cross-examination; and then, as he addrest the jury in the gathering dusk of evening, he brought into strong relief every fact that bore against this witness, and suddenly seizing two candelabra from the table, he threw a glare of light on the witness’s face, and exclaimed, “Behold the murderer, gentlemen!” Alarmed and conscience-stricken, the man reeled as from a blow, turned ghastly pale, and left the court. The advocate concluded his speech in a tone of triumph, and the jury acquitted the prisoner. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”
(1328)
H
HABIT
Says Jeremiah, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to evil.” The last chapter in the biography of habits is its enthronement, its tyranny over the will. The tragedy of every habit is that instead of being an aid to the will, it becomes its master. Donald Sage Mackay, in “The Religion of the Threshold,” says:
Henry Drummond once told of a man who had gone to a London physician to consult about his eyes. The physician looked into the man’s eyes with a delicate ophthalmoscope, and then said quietly to the man. “My friend, you are practising a certain sin, and unless you give it up, in six months you will be blind.” For a moment the man stood trembling in the agony of discovery, and then, turning to the sunlit window, he looked out and exclaimed, “Farewell, sweet light, farewell!”
(1329)