Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/163

140 death, and the seven ages between, compose the little drama of existence, as of yore. The laws of Nature never change,—in the beginning, Omniscience enacted them for all time; and we doubt not, though we cannot prove, that similar laws were enacted for moral and social existence. That code is the code of immutable justice. Happy the nation whose sages have read here a line and there a line of it. Their wisdom will bless many generations, and survive after they have passed from earth. But assuredly, under all selfish, unjust human laws, burns the divine law of change, restless as Etna's molten entrails; and the parchments of kings and emperors, bearing enactments intended for a long future, each inscribed Esto perpetua, shrivel up over its lava flood, and drop into it black, unnoticeable ashes.—Journal of Jurisprudence.