ll the good that he does,
and our deep sympathy in all the temptations under whose strength he
falls. But to help him in his sin, to remain partners with him in
the slave-trade, is more than he has a right to ask. He would be a
strange preacher who should set out to reform his circle by joining
in all their sins! It is a principle similar to that which the tipsy
Duke of Norfolk acted on, when seeing a drunken friend in the gutter,
he cried out, "My dear fellow, I can't help you out, but I'll do
better, I'll lie down by your side."

OBJECTION XII.

But consider, the abstaining from all share in Government will leave
bad men to have everything their own way--admit Texas--extend
slavery, &c. &c.

ANSWER. That is no matter of mine. God, the great conservative power
of the Universe, when he established the right, saw to it that it
should always be the safest and best. He never laid upon a poor
finite worm the staggering load of following out into infinity the
complex results of his actions. We may rest on the bosom of
Infinite Wisdom, confident that it is enough for us to do justice,
he will see to it that happiness results.

OBJECTION XIII.

But the same conscientious objection against promising your support
to government, ought to lead you to avoid actually giving your
support to it by paying taxes or sueing in the courts.

ANSWER. This is what logicians call a _reductio ad absurdum_: an
attempt to prove our principle unsound by showing that, fairly
carried out, it leads to an absurdity. But granting all it asks, it
does not saddle us with any absurdity at all. It is perfectly
possible to live without petitioning, sueing, or holding stocks.
Thousands in this country have lived, died, and been buried, without
doing either. And does it load us with any absurdity to prove that
we shall be obliged to do from principle, what the majority of our
fellow-citizens do from choice? We lawyers may think it is an
absurdity to say a man can't sue, for, like the Apostle at Ephesus,
it touches our "craft," but that don't go far to prove it. Then, as
to taxes, doubtless many cases might be imagined, when every one
would allow it to be our duty to resist the slightest taxation, did
Christianity allow it, with "war to the hilt." If such cases may
ever arise, why may not this be one?

Until I become an Irishman, no one will ever convince me that I
ought to vote, by proving that I ought not to pay taxes! Suppose
all these diffic