re such
light ones as men shall give account of at the Day of Judgment. The real
sin of blasphemy is not in the saying, nor even in the thinking; but in
the wishing which is father to thought and word: and the nature of it is
simply in wishing evil to anything; for as the quality of Mercy is not
strained, so neither that of Blasphemy, the one distilling from the
clouds of Heaven, the other from the steam of the Pit. He that is unjust
in little is unjust in much, he that is malignant to the least is to the
greatest, he who hates the earth which is God's footstool, hates yet
more Heaven which is God's throne, and Him that sitteth thereon.
Finally, therefore, blasphemy is wishing ill to _any_ thing; and its
outcome is in Vanni Fucci's extreme "ill manners"--wishing ill to God.

On the contrary, Euphemy is wishing well to everything, and its outcome
is in Burns' extreme "good manners," wishing well to--

"Ah! wad ye tak a thought, and men'!"

That is the supreme of Euphemy.

97. Fix then, first in your minds, that the sin of malediction, whether
Shimei's individual, or John Bull's national, is in the vulgar
malignity, not in the vulgar diction, and then note further that the
"phemy" or "fame" of the two words, blasphemy and euphemy, signifies
broadly the bearing of _false_ witness _against_ one's neighbor in the
one case, and of _true_ witness _for_ him in the other: so that while
the peculiar province of the blasphemer is to throw firelight on the
evil in good persons, the province of the euphuist (I must use the word
inaccurately for want of a better) is to throw sunlight on the good in
bad ones; such, for instance, as Bertram, Meg Merrilies, Rob Roy, Robin
Hood, and the general run of Corsairs, Giaours, Turks, Jews, Infidels,
and Heretics; nay, even sisters of Rahab, and daughters of Moab and
Ammon; and at last the whole spiritual race of him to whom it was said,
"If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?"

98. And being thus brought back to our actual subject, I purpose, after
a few more summary notes on the luster of the electrotype language of
modern passion, to examine what facts or probabilities lie at the root
both of Goethe's and Byron's imagination of that contest between the
powers of Good and Evil, of which the Scriptural account appears to Mr.
Huxley so inconsistent with the recognized laws of political economy;
and has been, by the cowardice of our old translators, so maimed of its
vitality, that