Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-03-03
BREWER ON IMMORTALITY
JUSTICE REGARDS IT ASSURED
AS A COMPENSATION.
Experience as a Jurist Applied to
Promise of Rev
= elation.

life is an assurance of life to come" de-
clared Mr.. Justice Brewer of the SUI
preme Court of the United States last
evening in an address before the Mems
Club of the Mount Pleasant Congrega-
tional Church. Outside of the declara-
ton of Revelation he continued. and
putting the thought have presented one
side immortality is but possibility.
Over the river they beckon to me- is only
the voice of hope. To that hope and that
possibility comes the strong testimony
from the inevitable failure OF human JUS
tice as contrasted with the full knowl-
edge of the laws governing the material
world. for it is abhorrent to our concep-
lions of an Infinite Being that He should
endow us with the latter while investing
the highest product of creative intelli-
gence, the human SOUL with mysterious
environment which no man can ever faith
ON and which to the end of its existence
will prevent that soul from receiving the
exact award which is essential to absolute
justice.
Finite Limitations.
81 have looked into the faces of persons
on trial before me for alleged crimes or
litigants in civil cases; have searched ev-
cry item of testimony which the laws of
evidence allow to be introduced, in the.
hope of gathering therefro msome knowl-
edge of the influences which the past OF
heredity and environment have cast, and
finding but little to guide or instruct have
yielded to the necessity of determining
facts on the basis of only the concrete
and visible. l have been over and over
again oppressed with the limitations Of
finite nature and longed to know some
thing Of those unseen and unknown in
f1uences which have brought the individual
to his place before me.
CONSCIOUS of these ever-present 1imita-
tons, l have asked whether this Is the
best that God has done for men? And
the answer which has come out of my
long experience upon the bench is that
somewhere and some time all the failures
of human justice will be made good.
Through the light of the judicial glass
have seen the splendid vision of 1mmor-
tally. Rising above the confused, con-
f1icting voices of the courtroom / have
heard the majestic and prophetic words
of the great apostle.
For this corruptible must put on in
corruption and this mortal must put on
immortality. But the fact of immOr-
tality,' continued Justice Brewer. us one
thing, its lessons another. Is it freighted
with joy or burdened with despair? Does
1t mean merely the making certain the
result of our wrongdOings? Is it nothing
but an appeal to higher court in which
more just sentence will be pronounced.
a change as it were, from Jeffreys to Sir
Matthew Stole? Will the exact pound
Of flesh be taken? On the even scales of
the blind goddess will there be only the
remorseless weighing out of just punish
ment?
The Place of Mercy.
Must we look forward to Immortality
<l>~x
the wrongs we have here concealed will
be made known. and the doom we have
evaded be cast upon us? I know that in
human courts mercy is futile plea.
Only in an appeal to the executive is
judicial function But in the great
tribunal of eternity the same being is
both Judge and Executive. and we
cannot sound the depths of infinite wis
dom SO we may not measure the reach
OF infinite love. We catch even here
and sweetness. Some faint rays from the
sacred lights burning evermore along the
great highways of the life beyond fall
upon our pathway and guide our trem-
bling footsteps to the shores of the silent
river.
"Mercy Seasons Justice"
Upon the broad background of human
experience we see.'' said Justice Brewer,
1.-The dim vision of omnipotent arms be-
meath the wearied, suffering, bleeding
children of earth, and If this, even in
faint outline. be manifest here, shall we
not look for a like picture with stronger
and more glowing colors on the canvas
which shall be unrolled in the life to
come? While mercy. which is akin to
love. may be judicial function. is JUS
tice always satisfied with only the rigor
of the law? Is condemnation the sole
aim and end? Was the gentle lawyer
Portia wholly wrong when she said.
Mercy seasons Justice Doubtless there
is wisdom in the provision that the finite
judge who Is called upon to declare the
with it. that that power shall not be ex
ercised until after condemnation and
then by one other than the judge. Does
the wisdom and therefore the necessity
of this separation. inhere in the nature
of things? Does it not rather spring from
the fact that the power to grant the one
may lead the judge to ignore the other.
and so the public may gradually be dead
ened to sense of the danger as well
as the wickedness of crime? But with
infinite wisdom in the judge. pardon Is
safely left with him. He will wisely de-
termine its conditions and never toss
out as free gift to every criminal. He
will never cast. pearls before swine and
of guilt. The same lips that declared
like as a father pitieth his children. so
the Lord pitieth them that fear him also
declared the soul that sinneth it shall
die
I'm conclusion. said Justice Brewer.
Justice and mercy are alike handmaids
of the Omnipotent Not inaccurately did
the great apostle, himself a lawyer,
brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. de-
clare that love is the fulfilling of the
law So out Of my judicial experience
and looking through the glass Of my life
work [ have learned to see in the cross
the visible symbols Of faultless Justice
and in the resurrection of Christ the
prophecy and proof OF its, final triumph"
Commissioner Henry L. West, president
of the club, presided over the meeting and
introduced Mr.. Justice Brewer A re-
ception was held in, the church parlors
before the meeting. Mr.. Justice Brewer
was the guest of honor. though the re-
ception served to allow Commissioner
frfa dc 70 1>:-