ten o'clock
Would to God I could help you to prove it to these people ! '' The terrible strain gave way suddenly , her proud head was laid against his arm , and suppressed emotion shook her , as a December storm smites and bows some shivering weed . Friday , the fifth and last day of the trial , was ushered in by a tempest of wind and rain , that drove the blinding sheets of sleet against the court-house windows with the insistence of an icy flail ; while now and then with spasmodic bursts of fury the gale heightened , rattled the sash , moaned hysterically , like invisible fiends tearing at the obstacles that barred entrance . So dense was the gloom pervading the court-room , that every gas jet was burning at ten o'clock , when Mr. Dunbar rose and took a position close to the jury-box . The gray pallor of his sternly set face increased his resemblance to a statue of the Julian type , and he looked rigid as granite , as he turned his brilliant eyes full of blue fire upon the grave , upturned countenances of the twelve umpires : `` Gentlemen of the Jury : The sanctity of human life is the foundation on which society rests , and its preservation is the supreme aim of all human legislation . Rights of property , of liberty , are merely conditional , subordinated to the superlative divine right of life . Labor creates property , law secures liberty , but God alone gives life ; and woe to that tribunal , to those consecrated priests of divine justice , who , sworn to lay aside passion and prejudice , and to array themselves in the immaculate robes of a juror 's impartiality , yet profane the loftiest prerogative with which civilized society can invest mankind , and sacrilegiously extinguish , in the name of justice , that sacred spark which only Jehovah 's fiat kindles .