248 ASSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



critical, though every judgment of true and false, 

 of right and wrong, is a wielding of the sword of 

 God. Men who shrink with no feigned sensitive- 

 ness from God's stern judgments, as they are pro- 

 nounced in the Bible or in the solemn warnings of 

 the Athanasian Creed ; men who call righteous 

 anger vindictiveness, and the loyal hatred of a lie 

 intolerance, yet fling abroad their rash and random 

 judgments, and know not that they, too, wield the 

 sword. There is no such thing as irresponsible 

 judging. Yet within the little circle of our friends 

 we have our own canons of taste, our own rules of 

 right, our own views of unpardonable sins. And 

 it seems as if it matters not whom our criticisms 

 wound, or what are the principles on which we 

 judge. We, the younger members of this University, 

 are specially open to this danger of thoughtless 

 judging. Without the wise reticence of age, without 

 the sense of responsibility attaching to those who 

 are in authority, without the knowledge of those 

 who study all day long the law of God, without 

 the tender sympathy of Him, the Judge of all, 

 Who came in great humility, we rashly dare to 

 wield the sword of judgment. 



Yet every judgment is a pre-judgment. We 

 are formulating for ourselves and for others prin- 

 ciples, right or wrong, on which our future judg- 

 ments will proceed ; by which, so far as we have 

 power, we shall influence Law itself. It is here, at 



