bject, she might not have disarmed them by that
might that lies in the good, the just cause, the cause whose defense
and shield God himself will be? And even if she had to suffer what is
unworthy, who dare maintain that she could not in suffering preserve
her moral worth?"

Martensen recalls the story of Jeanie Deans, in Scott's "Heart of
Midlothian," who refuses to tell a lie of exigency in order to save
her sister's life; yet who, having uttered the truth which led to her
sister's sentence of death, set herself, in faith in God, to secure
that sister's pardon, and by God's grace compassed it. "Most people
would at least be disposed to excuse Jeanie Deans, and to forgive
her, if she had here made a false oath, and thereby had afforded her
protection to the higher truth." And if a loving lie of exigency be a
duty before God, an appeal to his knowledge of the fact is, of course,
equally a duty. To refuse to appeal to God in witness of the truth of
a falsehood that is told from a loving sense of duty, is to show a
lack of confidence in God's approval of such an untruth. "But she
will, can, and dare, for her conscience' sake, not do this."

"But the best thing in this tale," adds Martensen, "is that it is
no mere fiction. The kernel of this celebrated romance is actual
history." And Sir Walter Scott caused a monument to be erected in his
garden, with the following inscription, in memory of this faithful
truth-lover:

"This stone was placed by the Author of 'Waverley' in memory of Helen
Walker, who fell asleep in the year of our Lord 1791. This maiden
practiced in humility all the virtues with which fancy had adorned the
character that bears in fiction the name of Jeanie Deans. She would
not depart a foot's breadth from the path of truth, not even to save
her sister's life; and yet she obtained the liberation of her sister
from the severity of the law by personal sacrifices whose greatness
was not less than the purity of her aims. Honor to the grave where
poverty rests in beautiful union with truthfulness and sisterly love."

"Who will not readily obey this request," adds Martensen, "and hold
such a memory in honor?... Who does not feel himself penetrated with
involuntary, most hearty admiration?"

In conclusion, in view of all that can be said on either side of the
question, Martensen is sure that "the lie of exigency itself, which we
call inevitable, leaves in us the feeling of something unworthy, and
this unworthin