Bishop
rebuked him. Both results are possible, and I sincerely hope that
the latter is true. The established and endowed teachers of religion
have not always used their influence on the side of mercy; but on
the question of reprisals I have observed with thankfulness that
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London have spoken
on the right side, and have spoken with energy and decision. They,
at any rate, have escaped the peril of induration, and in that
respect they are at one with the great mass of decent citizens.

I am no advocate of a mawkish lenity. When our soldiers and sailors
and airmen meet our armed foes on equal terms, my prayers go with
them; and the harder they strike, the better I am pleased. When a
man or woman has committed a cold-blooded murder and has escaped
the just penalty of the crime, I loathe the political intrigue
which sets him or her free. Heavy punishment for savage deeds,
remorseless fighting till victory is ours--these surely should be
guiding principles in peace and war; and to hold them is no proof
that one has suffered the process of induration.

Here I am not ashamed to make common cause with the stout old Puritan
in _Peveril of the Peak:_ "To forgive our human wrongs is Christian-like
and commendable; but we have no commission to forgive those which
have been done to the cause of religion and of liberty; we have
no right to grant immunity or to shake hands with those who have
poured forth the blood of our brethren."

But let us keep our vengeance for those who by their own actions
have justly incurred it. The very intensity of our desire to punish
the wrong-doer should be the measure of our unwillingness to inflict
torture on the helpless and the innocent. "Lest we grow hard"--it
should be our daily dread. "A black character, a womanish character,
a stubborn character: bestial, childish, stupid, scurrilous,
tyrannical." A pagan, who had observed such a character in its
working, prayed to be preserved from it. Christians of the twentieth
century must not sink below the moral level of Marcus Aurelius.

IV

_FLACCIDITY_

My discourse on "Induration" was intended to convey a warning which,
as individuals, we all need. But Governments are beset by an even
greater danger, which the learned might call "flaccidity" and the
simple--"flabbiness."

The great Liddon, always excellent in the aptness of his scriptural
allusions, once said with regard to a leader who had a