To all of us comes a supreme hour, when realizing the adamantine limitations of human power, the “thus far, no farther” of relentless physiological, psychological and ethical statutes under which humanity lives, moves, has its being—­our desperate souls break through the meshes of that pantheistic idolatry which kneels only to “Natural Laws”; and spring as suppliants to Him, who made Law possible.  We take our portion of happiness and prosperity, and while it lasts we wander far, far away in the seductive land of philosophical speculation, and revel in the freedom and irresponsibility of Agnosticism; and lo! when adversity smites, and bankruptcy is upon us, we toss the husks of the “Unknowable and Unthinkable” behind us, and flee as the Prodigal who knew his father, to that God whom (in trouble) we surely know.

Certainly Lennox Dunbar was as far removed from religious tendencies as conformity to the canons of conventional morality and the habits of an honorable gentleman in good society would permit; yet to-day, in the intensity of his dread, lest the “consummate flower” of his heart’s dearest hope should be laid low in the dust, he involuntarily invoked the aid of a long-forgotten God; and through his set teeth a prayer struggled up to the throne of that divine mercy, which in sunshine we do not see, but which as the soul’s eternal lighthouse gleams, glows, beckons in the blackest night of human anguish.  In boyhood, desiring to please his invalid and slowly dying mother, he had purchased and hung up opposite her bed, an illuminated copy of her favorite text; and now, by some subtle transmutation in the conservation of spiritual energy, each golden letter of that Bible text seemed emblazoned on the dusty wall of the court-room:  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

When a stern reprimand from the Judge had quelled all audible expression of the compassionate sympathy that flowed at the prisoner’s story—­as the flood at Horeb responded to Moses’ touch—­ there was a brief silence.

Mr. Dunbar rose, crossed the intervening space and stood with his hand on the back of Beryl’s chair; then moved on closer to the jury box.

“May it please your Honor, and Gentlemen of the Jury:  Sometimes mistakes are crimes, and he who through unpardonable rashness commits them, should not escape ‘unwhipped of justice’.  When a man in the discharge of that which he deemed a duty, becomes aware that unintentionally he has perpetrated a great wrong, can he parley with pride, or dally, because the haunting ghost of consistency waves him back from the path of a humiliating reparation?  Error is easy, confession galling; and stepping down from the censor’s seat to share the mortification of the pillory, is at all times a peculiarly painful reverse; hence, powerful indeed must be the conviction which impels a man who prided himself on his legal astuteness, to come boldly into this sacred confessional