acred things, before the Throne of
God, and beneath the eye of Jesus Christ. Not surely, as it has
been too often done, in bitterness, and wrath, and clamour, and
evil-speaking, with really unjust suspicions, exaggerations,
slanders, (and those, too, anonymous,) in the columns of the public
prints. My friends, these are not God's weapons. Not such is
Ithuriel's magic spear, the very touch of which unmasks falsehood.
This is to try to cast out Satan by Satan, to make evil worse by
fighting it with fresh evil. Oh, my friends, if there is one
counsel which I would press on all here more earnestly than another,
it is this--never, never, howsoever great may be the temptation, to
indulge in anonymous attacks on any human being. No man has a right
to do it who prays daily to his Father in heaven, Lead us not into
temptation. For it is to lead oneself into temptation, and that too
sore to resist; into the temptation to say something which one dare
not say, and ought not to say, were one's name known; the temptation
to forget not only the charity of Christians, but even the
courtesies of civilized life; and to shoot, from behind the safe
hedge of anonymousness, coward and envenomed shafts, of which we
should be ashamed, did the world know that they were ours; of which
we shall surely be ashamed in that great day, when the secrets of
all hearts shall be disclosed. I speak strongly: but only because
I know by bitter experience the terrible truth of my own words.

And consider, my friends, can any good result come from handling
sacred matters with such harsh and fierce hands as they have been
handled of late? For ourselves, such evil tempers only excite,
irritate, blind us: they prevent our doing justice to the opposite
side--(I speak of all parties)--they put us into an unwholesome
state of suspicion, and tempt us to pass harsh judgments upon men as
righteous, and perhaps far more righteous, than ourselves: they
stir up our pride to special plead our case, to make the best of our
own side, and the worst of our opponents': they defile our very
prayers; till, when we ought to be praying God to bless all mankind,
we catch ourselves unawares calling on Him to curse our enemies.

For those who are without--for the infidel, the profligate, the
careless--oh, what a scandal to them! What an excuse for them to
blaspheme the holy name whereby we are called, and ask, as of old,
'Is this then the Gospel of Peace? See how these