Guard against executing your fellow-men piously. I would prefer that you should execute them brutally, like wild savages, than to see you destroy them under a Christianly guise. I prefer a sentence that is roared out like the roar of a lion to the one that is hypocritically clothed in a prayer or a lamentation.
Ah, if the churches and religious institutions could proclaim an amnesty to their victims, if the judges who have laid the impress of the cross upon the seals by which they consecrate their judgments could break these seals without fearing to break charity, a stone would be removed from the conscience of the world; we would breathe more freely, as nations breathe on the day of an amnesty, when hands meet, when old crimes are pardoned, when an inspiration passes over the earth, coming from on high, appeasing resentment and awakening good will.
Amnesty! Amnesty! Power of forgiveness! Clearness of soul; disposition toward mercy; a desire not to condemn any one definitely; a fear; a great fear; a terror of committing injustice; a terror of using one's soul to weigh the soul of others and to condemn them. May God teach us all these things! May the simple word of the One who was divine simplicity be holily carried out by us. His counsel is at the height of a child's head, yet it is also at the height of the stars.—
