fellow-man? how dares he raise his hand against one of God's works, and mar it so? how dares he thus destroy what he did not make, and can never restore? Whence comes the spirit that can prompt a man to commit so horrid a crime as to kill his fellow-man? Men were created to love each other, and do good to each other, and make each other happy. How can they, then, so pervert the purpose of their being, as to hurt and kill one another? Ah! man's heart, man's heart! how black a thing it is! how changed has it become, since it first left its Creator's hands, beautiful and pure!
The crime of murder, deliberate murder, is the most horrid of all crimes. It is the deepest of evils, and, indeed, includes within it all others: nay, it is the very principle of evil itself, in form and in act. For evil is that which is opposite to goodness, and to God who is goodness itself. Now, the spirit of murder is God's exact opposite; for it is the nature of God to create, and then to bless that which is created: it is the nature of the murderer to hurt that which exists, and if possible to destroy its very existence. Thus they are exactly opposite. The principle of evil is in its very nature murderous; and therefore it is, that in the Scriptures it is said, "the devil was a murderer from the beginning:" "the devil" signifying the principle of evil itself, and "from the beginning" meaning from inmost principles. When God, then, from the top of Sinai, spake the command, "Thou shalt not kill"—in those words, taken in their broadest sense, he forbad all evil; for, as just shown, evil is, in
