________________
70
A STUDY IN KARMA
brium disturbed. Motive, .in this region, does not mitigate, any more than the pain of a burn is mitigated because the injury has been. sustained in saving a child from the fire. Where a good motive existed, however intellectually misdirected as the saving of souls from the torture of hell, in the case of the inquisitor, or the saving of bodies from the torture of disease, in the case of the vivisector—it has its full result in the region of character. Hence we may find a person born deformed, with a gentle and patient character, showing that in a past life he strove to see the right and did the wrong. The Angels of Judgment are utterly just, and the golden thread of completely misdirected love may gleam beside the black thread woven by cruelty; none the less will the black thread draw to the doer of cruelty a misshapen body. On the other hand, where lust of power and indifference
