ussion in the form of simple dialogue, letting _O._ stand for
objector, and _R._ for response.

122. _O._--You define your paternal government to be the executive
fulfilment, by formal human methods, of the Divine will. But, assuredly,
that will cannot stand in need of aid or expression from human laws. It
cannot fail of its fulfilment.

_R._ 122. In the final sense it cannot; and in that sense, men who are
committing murder and stealing are fulfilling the will of God as much as
the best and kindest people in the world. But in the limited and present
sense, the only sense with which _we_ have anything to do, God's will
concerning man is fulfilled by some men, and thwarted by others. And
those men who either persuade or enforce the doing of it, stand towards
those who are rebellious against it exactly in the position of faithful
children in a family, who, when the father is out of sight, either
compel or persuade the rest to do as their father would have them, were
he present; and in so far as they are expressing and maintaining, for
the time, the paternal authority, they exercise, in the exact sense in
which I mean the phrase to be understood, paternal government over the
rest.

_O._--But, if Providence has left a liberty to man in many things in
order to prove him, why should human law abridge that liberty, and take
upon itself to compel what the great Lawgiver does not compel?

123. _R._--It is confessed, in the enactment of any law whatsoever, that
human lawgivers have a right to do this. For, if you have no right to
abridge any of the liberty which Providence has left to man, you have no
right to punish any one for committing murder or robbery. You ought to
leave them to the punishment of God and Nature. But if you think
yourself under obligation to punish, as far as human laws can, the
violation of the will of God by these great sins, you are certainly
under the same obligation to punish, with proportionately less
punishment, the violation of His will in less sins.

_O._--No; you must not attempt to punish less sins by law, because you
cannot properly define nor ascertain them. Everybody can determine
whether murder has been committed or not, but you cannot determine how
far people have been unjust or cruel in minor matters, and therefore
cannot make or execute laws concerning minor matters.

_R._--If I propose to you to punish faults which cannot be defined, or
to execute laws which cannot be made equi