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I. SOME FACTS AND TENDENCIES IN LEGAL ADMINISTRATION.

1. The sentence pronounced against a poor man is often very heavy, and that against a rich man very light. In New Jersey a poor man was sentenced to five years of hard labour in prison for stealing a ham; in the same court a rich banker, who had ruined two banks and stolen the money of hundreds of people, received the same sentence.

2. After conviction rich convicts receive favours. In the case just cited the poor man and the rich man went to the same prison. But the poor man was put at hard labour; the rich man was made clerk in the prison library.

3. Rich men have an unfair advantage over poor men when brought to trial. The big fee that hires the eloquent pleader "buys out the law."

4. Even judges are sometimes corrupt.

5. Juries are accused of taking bribes.

II. THE PERILS OF THESE FORMS OF INJUSTICE.

1. They threaten the property and lives of the poor.

2. They weaken the spirit of obedience (Numbers 22:23).

3. They develop the communistic spirit of destruction.

4. We are all unsafe when one poor wretch is unsafe only because he lacks money or friends.

III. THE REMEDIES FOR EXISTING EVILS.

1. More and better teaching, in home, school, and church, on God's law of equality.

2. Wiser conversation on such matters when citizens meet together. It is dangerous and unpatriotic to treat the miscarriage of justice as a jest.

3. A sound public opinion should be cultivated by press, pulpit, and platform.

4. Our social power may be used to condemn a triumph over the law.

5. Seek to associate in all minds the idea of obedience to God with that of just judgment.

(Homiletic Monthly.)

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KJV: Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.

WEB: You shall not wrest justice: you shall not respect persons; neither shall you take a bribe; for a bribe does blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.