THERE is an old story, a well-known Biblical story that begins early one morning in the grounds of the temple, as Jesus sat teaching. The story, as told in the King James Bible, begins:

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but wh