SPEECH BEFOKE THE PEACE LE.VGUE. 11 



"Thou sliiilt. not kill," .^ays tlu' hiw. It also says, 

 ''Thou shalt not steal." Here is a pour man. His 

 wife and children, emaciated "with want, are languishing 

 on foul straw in one of those penfolds that abound in 

 gretit cities tilled with luxurious palaces. In the fever 

 of his distress, in the delirium excited in his soul by 

 the tears he has su})pL-d from his wife's cheeks and his 

 little children's hands, this man snatches a loaf of 

 bread, or a piece of money, and brings back, not joy, 

 but life into the dwelling of famine. Thither human 

 justice pursues him ; it tears him from that weeping 

 family; it smites him, with one blow, in bis love, his 

 honor, and his liberty. And here, on the other hand, 

 is a government which is meditating some straightening 

 or other of the frontier without — [cqjphmse] — some able 

 diversion of public attention within — [apjjiausc] — some 

 traj) or other, baited with glory to catch liberty — [sJiouis 

 of Bravo, long continued ;~\ — and while waiting for the 

 judgment of history, and the surer judgment of God, 

 the public conscience will condone, perhaps will glorify, 

 the robbery of so many cities or provinces, the crafty 

 or violent annexation of a whole peo2)le ! For my part, 

 as a minister of the living God, laying my hand upon 

 the Ten Commandments, I am not afraid to say : In 

 the former case, if there be sin, it is venial sin ; in the 

 latter case it is mortal sin ! [Long applause.] 



'' Thou shalt not covet," proceeds the book of inspi- 

 ration. And in fact, in the judgment of the Chris- 

 tian conscience, the sin is not only in the hand that 

 acts, it is in the longing eye, the plotting heart. 

 kings, potentates, peoples — for the peoples have their 

 times of madness, and democracies as well as personal 

 governments, have those who flatter them to their 

 ruin — [apj^Iause] — whoever you are, kings or peoples, 



