But if this conciliating principle do not pronounce its sentence, or if it be not attended to, extreme injustice only can spring from this rigid and inflexible application of extreme law; and this is quite in the spirit of the old saying of the Jurists, which we must here apply in a more general sense, in order to estimate with truth and accuracy the nature of the contests which divide the world. "Let justice be done," they say (and the word is here used in the juridical sense of strict and absolute law), "let justice be done, though the world should be ruined." And we may well say in reply:--Woe to mankind, woe to every individual, woe to the world, were they doomed to be finally judged according to this rigid justice, and this rigid justice only, by _Him_ who alone has the power and the right to dispense such severe justice unto men, and judge them by its rules. But since such full and inexorable justice belongs to God only, who is incapable of error; and since all human justice is but the temporary delegate of the divine; it should necessarily be mild, indulgent, qualified by circumstances; and should on the principle of equity be as lenient as possible, and be ever mindful of its due limits. And this principle is applicable to the most important as well as the most insignificant relations of life, and is so thoroughly connected with them all that, according as we adopt the one or the other principle of strict and absolute law, or of mild equity, the whole of our conduct, opinions, and views of the world must differ. The power of the state is only a temporary, and delegated, power, destined to accomplish the ends of divine justice; and this dignity, indeed, is sufficiently exalted, and the responsibility attached to it sufficiently great; but this supreme human justice, unless it disregard its own limits, as well as those of mankind, is not divine justice, nor the immediate authority of God, nor God himself.