They have a nebulous notion that the law of moral retribution is in some peculiar way God's law, while the law of physical retribution is the law of what they call nature, somehow not quite so much God's law as the other is.

Such an absurdity only requires to be stated to be exposed.

The law of moral retribution is precisely as blind, deaf, and meaningless, and entitled to be respected just as little, as the law of physical retribution.

Why, sir, of the two, the much-abused law of physical retribution is decidedly more moral, in the sense of obvious fairness, than the so-called law of moral retribution itself.

For, while the hardened offender virtually escapes all pangs of conscience, he can't escape the diseases and accidents which attend vice and violence.