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common standard. What he would do, you cannot easily conceive.
We always hear of the folly of a criminal. It is very rare that a
great crime is committed without prompting such remarks as, °1 that
he would not be foot enough to have acted so unwisely, so indis-
creetlY." It is not in the order of Divine Providence, that a man
engaged in a criminal enterprise shall retain the possession of those
faculties which were given him to be used in the work and the ways
of virtue. And the course he takes may be, to the intelligence of the
merest child, the extremest follv, when, in his own mind, it is the
height of adroitness and art. Crime is foolish; it has always been
so, from the beginning; it always, will be so, until the end. It
is as true now as it ever ryas, that °' guilt bedarkens and confounds
the mind of man,"-that "human will, of God abandoned. in its web
of snares strangles its own intent."
One further suggestion, arising out of the proof in this case, may
impress your minds, as it has my own. If a man has an object
which he wishes to get rid of, the possession of which is fatal to him,
or, rather, the world's knowledge of the possession of which would be
fatal to him, what is the most obvious thing that occurs to him, a.,
the iustrument and agency of destruction? Fire! fire!-for that
reduces the orgunized structure to a mass of undistinguishable
ashes.
Mr. Foreman, suppose, to-day, a person should intrust to your
keeping the simplest thing, with an injunction upon you, that your
possession of it must riot. be known to any human being; that thc,
discovery of it in your possession would be ruinous and fatal, involv-
ing your reputation, your liberty, your life. Now, put it to yourself,
in what manner you would endeavor to dispose of it, so that all trace
of your connection with it might be beyond the reach of human dis
coverv. You might have an opportunity to bury it. Still, the fear
would arise that some person might exhume it. It would burn. You
must get rid of it. °' And yet," you say, °1 if I leave any trice of it,
I am not certain- I am not safe. Its relics may come up at some
future time to confront me. If I throw it into the sea, that sea may
give it up again; and it may be traced to me. But if I can destroy
it by fire, I shall be secure."
It is not the possession of the thing, but the terrible consequences
that will follow from the world's knowledge of that possession, that
renders its destruction so difficult and perplexing to him upon whom
those consequences will be visited. A narrow line, marked out upon
a level floor, may be confidently traversed by a child, without an incli-
nation to either side. But broaden that pathway ten-fold, and let it
stretch across a chasm, and the man of the firmest nerves, and the
most practised self-command, would no more dare to cross it than he
would to
11 0'erwalk a current roaring loud,
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear."
And so with this learned Professor! For in that his intellectual
self-discipline makes him no exception to the common lot. When he
had that body to dispose of, he had two things to do. And we come
now to a consideration of what he did, to show his connection with
the murder of Dr. George Parkman. He had, I say, two things to
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