e downright truth maintained that you were not to
deceive--though you felt quite sure that by your telling the truth, or
by your silence altogether, immediate murder would ensue. The advocate
declared, that without a moment's hesitation he should act upon his
decision. He would have done no such thing. People are better than their
creeds, and, it should seem, sometimes _better_ than _their_ principles.
In which case would his conscience prick him most, when the heat was
over--as accessory to the murder or as the utterer of untruth? I cannot
but think it a case of instinct, which, acting before conscience, _pro
hac vice_ supersedes it. The matter is altogether and at once, by an
irresistible decree, taken out of the secondary "Court of Conscience"
and put into the primary "Court of Nature."

Truth, truth! well may Bacon speak of it thus--"'What is truth?' said
laughing Pilate, and wouldn't wait for an answer." If there be danger in
the deviation shown in the case stated, what a state are we all in? All,
as we do daily in some way or other, putting our best legs foremost.
Look at the whole advertising, puffing, quacking, world--the flattering,
the soothing, the complimenting. Virtues and vices alike driving us more
or less out of the straight line; and, blindfolded by habit, we know not
that we are walking circuitously. And they are not the worst among us,
perhaps, who walk so deviatingly--seeing, knowing--those that stammer
out nightly ere they rest, in confession, their fears that they have
been acting if not speaking the untrue thing, and praying for strength
in their infirmity, and more simplicity of heart; and would in their
penitence shun the concourse that besets them, and hide their heads in
some retired quiet spot of peace, out of reach of this assault of
temptation. And this, Eusebius, is the best prelude I can devise to the
story I have to tell you. It is of a poor old woman; shall I magnify her
offence? It was magnified indeed in her eyes. Smaller, therefore, shall
it be--because of its very largeness to her. But it will not do to
soften offences, Eusebius. I see already you are determined to do so. I
will call it her crime. Yes, she lived a life of daily untruth. She
wrote it, she put her name to it--"litera scripta manet." We must not
mince the matter; she spoke it, she acted it hourly, she took payment
for it--it was her food, her raiment. Oh! all you that love to stamp the
foot at poor human nature, here is