and chasing away all the
charities of the Religion of Jesus!

But from all lesser proofs, our attention is drawn to one of a still
larger size, and more determined character. Surely the reader will here
anticipate our mention of the practice of Duelling: a practice which, to
the disgrace of a Christian society, has long been suffered to exist
with little restraint or opposition.

This practice, whilst it powerfully supports, mainly rests on, that
excessive over-valuation of character, which teaches that worldly credit
is to be preserved at _any_ rate, and disgrace at _any_ rate to be
avoided. The _unreasonableness_ of duelling has been often proved, and
it has often been shewn to be criminal on various principles: sometimes
it has been opposed on grounds hardly tenable; particularly when it has
been considered as an indication of malice and revenge[77]. But it
seems hardly to have been enough noticed in what chiefly consists its
_essential_ guilt; that it is a deliberate preference of the favour of
man, before the favour and approbation of God, _in articulo mortis_, in
an instance, wherein our own life, and that of a fellow creature are at
stake, and wherein we run the risk of rushing into the presence of our
Maker in the very act of offending him. It would detain us too long, and
it were somewhat beside our present purpose, to enumerate the
mischievous consequences which result from this practice. They are many
and great; and if regard be had merely to the temporal interests of men,
and to the well being of society, they are but poorly counterbalanced by
the plea, which must be admitted in its behalf by a candid observer of
human nature, of a courtesy and refinement in our modern manners unknown
to ancient times.

But there is one observation which must not be omitted, and which seems
to have been too much overlooked: In the judgment of that Religion which
requires purity of heart, and of that Being to whom, as was before
remarked, "thought is action," he cannot be esteemed innocent of this
crime, who lives in a settled habitual determination to commit it, when
circumstances shall call upon him so to do[78]. This is a consideration
which places the crime of duelling on a different footing from almost
any other; indeed there is perhaps NO other, which mankind habitually
and deliberately resolve to practise whenever the temptation shall
occur. It shews also that the crime of duelling is far more general in
the higher