aste, without passion, solemnly for himself must
decide this great controversy. Any other rule attributes infallibility
to human laws, places them beyond question, and degrades all men to an
unthinking, passive obedience.

* * * * *

The mandates of an earthly power are to be discussed; those of Heaven
must at once be performed; nor should we suffer ourselves to be drawn
by any compact into opposition to God. Such is the rule of morals.
Such, also, by the lips of judges and sages, is the proud declaration
of English law, whence our own is derived. In this conviction, patriots
have braved unjust commands, and martyrs have died.

And now, sir, the rule is commended to us. The good citizen, who sees
before him the shivering fugitive, guilty of no crime, pursued, hunted
down like a beast, while praying for Christian help and deliverance, and
then reads the requirements of this Act, is filled with horror. Here
is a despotic mandate "to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient
execution of this law." Again let me speak frankly. Not rashly would I
set myself against any requirement of law. This grave responsibility
I would not lightly assume. But here the path of duty is clear. By the
Supreme Law, which commands me to do no injustice, by the comprehensive
Christian Law of Brotherhood, by the Constitution, which I have sworn to
support, I AM BOUND TO DISOBEY THIS ACT. Never, in any capacity, can
I render voluntary aid in its execution. Pains and penalties I will
endure, but this great wrong, I will not do. "Where I cannot obey
actively, there I am willing to lie down and to suffer what they shall
do unto me"; such was the exclamation of him to whom we are indebted for
the Pilgrim's Progress while in prison for disobedience to an earthly
statute. Better suffer injustice than do it. Better victim than
instrument of wrong. Better even the poor slave returned to bondage than
the wretched Commissioner.

There is, sir, an incident of history which suggests a parallel, and
affords a lesson of fidelity. Under the triumphant exertions of that
Apostolic Jesuit, St. Francis Xavier, large numbers of Japanese,
amounting to as many as two hundred thousand,--among them princes,
generals, and the flower of the nobility,--were converted to
Christianity. Afterwards, amidst the frenzy of civil war, religious
persecution arose, and the penalty of death was denounced against all
who refused to trample upon the effigy of t