Consider this city, in which the throng that streams ceaselessly through its widest streets is crushed to pieces whenever anything gets in the way to check its course as it streams like a rushing torrent, this city in which the seating space of three theaters6 is required at one time, in which is consumed all the produce of the plow from every land; consider how great would be the loneliness and the desolation of it if none should be left but those whom a strict judge would acquit. How few prosecutors there are who would escape conviction under the very law which they cite for the prosecution; how few accusers are free from blame. And, I am inclined to think, no one is more reluctant to grant pardon than he who again and again has had reason to seek it. We have all sinned — some in serious, some in trivial things; some from deliberate intention some by chance impulse, or because we were led astray by the wickedness of others; some of us have not stood strongly enough by good resolutions, and have lost our innocence against our will and though still clinging to it; and not only have we done wrong, but we shall go on doing wrong to the very end of life. Even if there is any one who has so thoroughly cleansed his mind that nothing can any more confound him and betray him, yet it is by sinning that he has reached the sinless state.7