Truth and Justice

Some one who admires the indeed admirable comment on Lord Chief Justice Reading's sentence against Sir Roger Casement, sends it to us as worthy of reproduction.

The Daily Chronicle's correspondent, describing the final scene in the Casement trial, says:

"I think few men who heard him will ever forget the summing up of the Lord Chief Justice. Instead of the passionate defense on the one hand, and instead of the cold and deadly accusation on the other, we heard the quiet, even, passionless voice of the Justice seeking neither to take a man's life nor to save it, but seeking to find something which transcends human life, something which is spiritual and not physical, something which is above the fate of individuals, and the fortunes of nations-truth.

"For many of us, as his deep voice sounded through the breathless court, it seemed that justice is a so immeasurably higher and a grander thing even than mercy, that pity for the prisoner ceased to move our minds. Here was something to which all men could look up, all men could honor, all men could reverence-truth and justice; truth and justice unswayed by interests; truth and justice impersonal, unprejudiced, and unsparing; truth and justice such as strong men in every civilized race have always named as the attributes of God."

Would to God that in the Christian sphere the same love of truth and justice prevailed as is here expressed to have taken place in the secular sphere; that truth were loved for its own sake and beauty, regardless of results; without deviation to suit this or that purpose or person; without favoritism, for truth (which in itself is justice) is too high, too noble, too sacred, to be manipulated and made to say a little more or a little less than it must say. Two and two make four:that is what truth says. To try to make it say three-and-a-half or four-and-a-half to favor some one or something is defaming truth. Nowhere is truth so admirable as in the sphere of which Christ is the Center. But to violate it there for any motive is accordingly most sad, and obnoxious to God. What a life of suffering was our Saviour's, chiefly because the "love of truth and justice had gone from the leaders of the Jewish people. The same suffering has been going on ever since in all lovers of truth. But to them is addressed a most comforting word and encouragement to patience by the Lord Himself. He says, "Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness:for they shall be filled" (Matt. 5:6). When the Lord comes and establishes His kingdom on the earth, righteousness will suffer no more.

Another"not long since a remarkable will Remarkable Will, was made in this country in which the Testator pressed upon his children the necessity of holding fast to the atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had, no doubt, felt the burden of his own sins and knew the sweetness of the removal of that burden through faith in the atoning work of the Saviour. It was one side of the gospel – the sweet side. The other side, "Repentance toward God," shines out in another will reported by The National Geographic Magazine" (Washington, D. C.) of May, 1916. This will was made by one Marcio Serra de Lejesama, at Cuzco, Peru, in 1589. He was the last survivor of the Spanish forces which, under Pizarro, conquered the Incas of Peru and destroyed a "civilization" far superior to their own. The preamble of the will which follows is a confession which, in these days of pride and self-justification, is most refreshing and exemplary, which is our reason for reproducing it here. Here is an old warrior, of a proud race, humbly unbosoming himself to deliver his soul from further complicity with evil actions in which he had taken part long before. How beautiful is the work of the God of truth in the soul of man!

"First, before beginning my will, I declare that I have desired much to give notice to his Catholic Majesty King Philip, our lord, seeing how good a Catholic and Christian he is, and how zealous in the service of the Lord our God, concerning that which I would relieve my mind of, by reason of having taken part in the discovery and conquest of these countries, which we took from the Lords Incas, and placed under the royal crown, a fact which is known to his Catholic Majesty.

"The said Incas governed in such a way that in all the land neither a thief, nor a vicious man, nor a bad, dishonest woman was known. The men all had honest and profitable employment. The woods, and mines, and all kinds of property were so divided that each man knew what belonged to him, and there were no lawsuits. The Incas were feared, obeyed, and respected by their subjects, as a race very capable of governing; but we took away their land, and placed it under the crown of Spain, and made them subjects.

"Your majesty must understand that my reason for making this statement is to relieve my conscience; for we have destroyed this people by our bad examples. Crimes were once so little known among them that an Indian with one hundred thousand pieces of gold and silver in his house, left it open, only placing a little stick across the door, as the sign that the master was out, and nobody went in. But when they saw that we placed -locks and keys on our doors, they understood that it was from fear of thieves, and when they saw that we had thieves amongst us, they despised us. All this I tell your Majesty, to discharge my conscience of a weight, that I may no longer be a party to these things. And I pray God to pardon me, for I am the last to die of all the discoverers and conquerors, as it is notorious that there are none left but me, in this laud or out of it, and therefore I now do what I can to relieve my conscience."

The Christian spirit is at once attracted to such a man, for his love of truth rises above all his native pride. How soon would all disputes and wrangles and divisions end if such a noble mind prevailed among the people of God.

Why does it seem so hard to some to say, We have sinned ? Could it be that they have imbibed the idea that they have reached a point in their Christian experience above the danger of sinning? that because the Spirit of God dwells in them they are immune from the attacks of the flesh or of the devil? and that to confess sin would be coming down from a fancied height?