ry of duelling. Its object is not to wipe out an insult, but to
furnish sport and to reap the incidental profits. In normal conditions
there is no danger to life or limb. Sharkey might stop with the point
of his chin a blow that would send many another into kingdom come; but
so long as Sharkey does the stopping the danger remains non-existent.
If, however, hate instead of lucre bring the men together, that motive
would be sufficient to make the game one of blood if not of death.

Lynching, is another kind of murder, and a cowardly, brutal kind, at
that. No crime, no abomination on the part of the victim, however
great, can justify such an inhuman proceeding. It brands with the crime
of wilful murder every man or woman who has a hand in it. To defend the
theory of lynching-is as bad as to carry it out in practice. And it is
greatly to be feared that the Almighty will one day call this land to
account for the outrageous performances of unbridled license and
heartless cruelty that occur so frequently in our midst.

The only plea on which to ground an excuse for such exhibitions of
brutality and disrespect for order and justice would be the inability
of established government to mete out justice to the guilty; but this
is not even the case, for government is defied and lawful authority
capable and willing to punish is spurned; the culprit is taken from the
hands of the law and delivered over to the vengeance of a mob. However
popular the doctrine of Judge Lynch may be in certain sections of the
land, it is nevertheless reprobated by the law of God and stands
condemned at the bar of His justice.

CHAPTER LXXII.
ON THE ETHICS OF WAR.

IN these days, since we have evolved into a fighting nation, our young
men feel within them the instinct of battle, which, like Job's steed,
"when it heareth the trumpet, saith: 'ha, ha'; that smelleth the battle
afar off, the encouraging of the captains, the shouting of the army."
Military trappings are no longer looked upon as stage furniture, good
only for Fourth-of-July parades and sham manoeuvers. War with us has
become a stern reality, and promises to continue such, for people do
not yield up willingly their independence, even to a world-power with a
providential "destiny" to fulfil. And since war is slaughter, it might
be apropos to remark on the morality of such killing as is done on the
field of battle and of war in general.

In every war there is a right side and a wrong side;