Page:The Praises of Amida, 1907.djvu/43

 chance of reprieve, this sentence will be executed upon us, and we shall stand helplessly there, riveted, as it were, with fetters of necessity, whilst our doom is fulfilled upon us. 7. "The word cannot," said Napoleon, "is only to be found in the dictionary of the fool." In the days when our experience was limited, we admired this sentence as containing a mighty truth. As we grew in wisdom and knowledge, we found that Napoleon himself ended his days a prisoner in St. Helena, whence escape was impossible, and so we learned that the word cannot is certainly to be found in the dictionary of the wise man as well as in that of the fool. We now know that this human life, which in our youth seemed to us a pleasure-park through which we might roam at will, is in reality nought but a prison-house, in which we find ourselves cribbed and confined, and from which we shall never escape till the sentence of death comes to set us free. We may say what we please about the justice or injustice of the proceedings which have brought us to