"As a citizen, bound to illustrate in his life the purity of the Christian, the integrity of the republican, he has never known the affections of a wife, or children, but his private career has been one long catalogue of the basest appetites, gratified at the expense of every tie of truth and honor. "In his long career, he has exhibited that saddest of all spectacles:--a lawyer, with no sense of right or wrong, higher than his fee; a statesman, regarding himself not as the representative of the people, but as the feed and purchased lawyer of a class; a man of god-like intellect, without faith in God, without love for his race." Esther concluded; her face was radiant, but her eyes dimmed with tears. "Gabriel Godlike, what say you to this accusation?" exclaimed the judge. A sardonic smile agitated the lips of the statesman, but he made no reply in words. At the same time, despite his attempt to meet the accusation with a sneer, its words rung in his very soul, and especially the closing clause, "_without faith in God, without love to his race_." Gabriel's head sank slowly on his breast, and his down-drawn brows hid his eyes from the light. He was thinking of other years; of the promise of his young manhood; of the dark realities of his maturer years. The judge spoke again. "Gabriel Godlike, you are silent. You have no reply. In your own soul and before Heaven, you know that every word of the accusation is true. You cannot deny it. Your own soul and conscience convict you." He paused; again the mocking sneer crossed Gabriel's lips, but a crowd of emotions were busy at his heart. The judge proceeded, in a measured tone. Every word fell distinctly upon the statesman's unwilling ears: "Gabriel Godlike, you may smile at the idea of being held accountable to God and man, for the use which you have made of your talents in the last forty years, but there will come an hour when History will pass its judgment upon you; there will come an hour when God will demand of you the intellect which he has intrusted to your care. That hour will come. Then, what will be your answer to Almighty God? 'Lord, thou didst intrust me with superior intellect, to be used for the good of my brothers of the human family; and after a life of sixty years, I can truly say, I have never once used that intellect for the elevation of mankind, and have never once failed, when appetite or ambition tempted, to squander it in the basest lusts.' What a record will this be for history; what an answer to be rendered to Almighty God!