" The two
maxims are twin sisters, and children of the father of lies. Persons who
think they have delicate consciences not unfrequently tell what they
call small lies, or lies of expediency, in order that some good may come
of it, which they esteem so great that it overbalances the evil of the
falsehood. This class of persons is very numerous, and of all degrees,
running from the mother who deludes her child into being a "good boy"
by the promise of punishment or of favor that she has no intention of
bestowing, to the juror who swears to speak the truth, and then affirms
that a guilty man is innocent, fancying that it is less a sin for him
to commit perjury than for the powers that be to commit what he calls
oppression, injustice, or legal murder. This willingness to commit one
sin, in order to prevent our neighbor from committing another, is a form
of brotherly love we are nowhere enjoined to practise; it springs
from an overweening self-love, that believes itself too pure to be
contaminated by a small sin, while it forgets that a wilful disobedience
of one commandment is in its essence disobedience towards the whole law.
All who do evil that good may come of it, in any department of life,
belong to this same class of persons. They ever look upon the sins of
their neighbors with a sharper eye than they turn upon their own;
and ever hold themselves in readiness, by "righteous indignation,"
intemperate zeal, and wisdom beyond, that which is written, to do battle
for the Lord with weapons he has forbidden us to use, and to set the
world in order by means and principles in direct opposition to his laws.
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