"Rather say that retributive justice pursues and overtakes the guilty to the ends of the earth," answered the Recluse, raising his head erect from the table. "Oh God, how just and appropriate are thy punishments! How true and discriminating is thy retribution. Behold here a wretch who has fled three thousand miles from the scene of his crimes in the vain delusion that he could flee from himself and the mysterious all seeing eye above! Young man, there is a mysterious system of ethics which the world understands not--the reputed wise, subtleize it, and the vainly wicked contemn and despise it. It is comprised in the simple words justice--probity--and benevolence! There is a power of bringing about its own ends in the first which none but the wickedly wise know. Yea, and bringing it about by the very weapons used against its dictates, and if not upon the very scene of the crime, at least in a place peculiarly appropriate. Behold here before you this worn down remnant of humanity, summoned, as he supposed, to rescue the last of his race from the power of the oppressor; but in truth, only to weep over the grave of his real son, buried on this spot years ago. This hand once aided in severing the links between father and son,--a man as innocent and unoffending as his offspring was helpless. A royal line they were. Just heaven, how that crime has been avenged! How strangely and how justly! Probity and benevolence are mysteriously bringing about their own righteous purposes, as does justice her avenging decrees. The worldly wise look with contempt upon simple honesty, but the highest ultimatum of earthly wisdom and experience is to have the power and the knowledge of the wicked with the simple guide, that justice, probity and benevolence unerringly work out their own reward.