These principles apply strictly to relations between individuals. In the case of punishment by the state, the necessity of self-protection; of warning others; and of approximate uniformity in procedure; added to the impossibility of getting at the exact state of mind of the offender by legal processes, render it necessary to inflict penalties in many cases which are more severe than the best interest of the individual offenders requires. To meet such cases, and to mitigate the undue severity of uniform penalties when they fall too heavily on individuals, all civilized nations give the power of pardon to the executive. +Whether the penalty be in itself light or severe, it should always be administered in the endeavor to improve and reform the character of the offender.+--The period of confinement in jail or prison should be made a period of real privation and suffering; but it should be especially the privation of opportunity for indulgence in idleness and vice; and the painfulness of discipline in acquiring the knowledge and skill necessary to make the convict a self-respecting and self-supporting member of society, after his term of sentence expires. THE VICE OF EXCESS. +Lenity ignores the wrong; and by ignoring it, becomes responsible for its repetition.+--Lenity is sentimentality bestowed on criminals. It treats them in the manner most congenial to its own feelings, instead of in the way most conducive to their good. Forgiveness is regard for the offender in view of his ability to renounce the offense and try to do better in the future. Lenity confounds offender and offense in a wholesale and promiscuous amnesty. The true attitude toward the wrongdoer must preserve the balance set forth by the lawgiver of Israel as characteristic of Israel's God, "full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin: and _that will by no means clear the guilty_." Lenity which "clears the guilty" is neither mercy, nor graciousness, nor compassion, nor forgiveness. Such lenity obliterates moral distinctions; disintegrates society; corrupts and weakens the moral nature of the one who indulges in it; and confirms in perversity him on whom it is bestowed. THE PENALTY.