; but in any
event, if there be falsehood with the purpose of deceiving, it is a
sin--to be regretted and repented of.

Dorner makes a fresh distinction between the stratagems of war and
lying, which is worthy of note. He says that playful fictions, after
the manner of riddles to be guessed out, are clearly allowable. So "in
war, too, something like a game of this kind is carried on, when by
way of stratagem some deceptive appearance is produced, and a riddle
is thus given to the enemy. In such cases there is no falsehood;
for from the conditions of the situation,--whether friendly or
hostile,--the appearance that is given is confessedly nothing more
than an appearance, and is therefore honest."

The simplicity and clearness of Dorner, in his unsophistical treatment
of this question, is in refreshing contrast with the course of
Rothe,--who confuses the whole matter in discussion by his arbitrary
claim that a lie is not a lie, if it be told with a good purpose and a
loving spirit. And the two men are representative disputants in
this controversy of the centuries, as truly as were Augustine and
Chrysostom.

A close friend of Dorner was Hans Lassen Martensen, "the greatest
theologian of Denmark," and a thinker of the first class, "with high
speculative endowments, and a considerable tincture of theosophical
mysticism."[1] Martensen's "Christian Ethics" do not ignore God
and the Bible as factors in any question of practical morals under
discussion. He characterizes the result of such an omission as "a
reckoning of an account whose balance has been struck elsewhere; if
we bring out another figure, we have reckoned wrong." Martensen's
treatment of the duty of veracity is a remarkable exhibit of the
workings of a logical mind in full view of eternal principles, yet
measurably hindered and retarded by the heart-drawings of an amiable
sentiment. He sees the all-dividing line, and recognizes the primal
duty of conforming to it; yet he feels that it is a pity that such
conformity must be so expensive in certain imaginary cases, and he
longs to find some allowance for desirable exceptions.[2]

[Footnote 1: See Kurtz's _Church History_ (Macpherson's transl.),
III., 201; _Supplement to Schaff-Hertzog Encyc. of Relig. Knowl_., p.
57; _Johnson's Univ. Cycl._., art. "Martensen."]

[Footnote 2: Martensen's _Christian Ethics (Individual)_, (Eng.
trans.,) pp. 205-226.]

Martensen gives as large prominence as Rothe to love for one's