Was it not Christ who said: "He who is angry with his brother hath already committed murder in his heart?" There are many people who are called murderers who have no murder in their hearts, and many who are not called murderers who have. Thus the real difference between crime and so called goodness is not so wide as one imagines from any present state of human unfoldment. The nations that sanction and make the most gigantic preparation for war, to be ready if an opportunity offers, (and some of them eagerly seek that opportunity,) can not be said to be far removed from the outlaw who, for individual gain, goes out and slays hie kind; one is national, the other is individual.

Those in other conditions may not know that, in a state where physical violence is the highest law of being, there can be no moral responsibility, nor moral perception; it is, after all, only when the moral law is beginning to be the law of life that responsibility begins. The man who slays, not knowing that killing is forbidden by the moral law, can not be held amenable to the moral law as he who does it knowing that it is forbidden. Remnants are to be traced in each individual mind or life of those conditions, in which the highest human state was one of violence and crime, and physical violence toward criminals; when the moral perception sets in, the states of physical violence become immoral, for tie simple reason that the moral law teaches a higher and better method, not only of redressing wrong but of teaching the wrong-doer.

The perception of the moral law, and the appreciation of these principles are of slow and gradual growth in the minds of the people. The world waits long for all fulfillments, and the average human life is far from its highest victory, since each one criticises and condemns with violence a different kind of violence in another.

The general mind is prompted to say: oh, I can not believe that every one must pass through all degrees of degradation I But that which would be degradation to a higher stage of expression is not so to that state which knows nothing higher. The present expressions of degradation are what each has passed through when not yet aware of its import. The awakening comes when one already begins to rise above it. One might as well despise the state of childhood and never expect any human being to be born in any other condition than that of manhood and womanhood. Each one must experience every fault, failing, and foible, until they are overcome, the disgrace is not in the thing itself, but in a condition which knows of wrong and still continues in it; but even this is another state of childhood, like the wilfulness of the half grown boy or girl, not yet arrived at the estate of manhood or womanhood, hut feebly imitating the wisdom not yet possessed. But we have observed that the greatest philanthropists, the most fully rounded natures, those, of course, who have overcome all temptation in a given direction, are the most lenient toward the states of crime; this is because they can not only perceive the difference in states as an explanation of crime, but they are beyond any possible condition of temptation; and as consciousness of temptation in a similar direction is often the cause of the hatred of an offender, so he who censures his fellow man who errs, instead of pitying him, unwittingly betrays that he may have in his heart the germ of possible temptation in the same direction.

The various experiences in human existence, of prosperity, Borrow, pain, poverty, riches, power, bondage, etc, are different tests applied to the. different stages of growth, as well as for the growth itself. The finely wrought metal is thoroughly tempered and put to the moat crucial tests; when it is impervious it is pronounced perfect The ship clad in an armor of steel in which there is a single flaw will disappoint those who passed it or sent it out to sea, that flaw will prove its ruin. It is, therefore, in all the intricate ways and windings of human existence, when human beings feel the safest, and are hedged around with social, moral, and theological armor, that the temptation finds them; when it conquers them it simply proves that the victory in that direction has not been complete.

We know of a very philanthropic clergyman, in England, who, in order that he may sympathize with the state of the prisoner, locks himself up with the criminals and shares their food and lodging. This is about as absurd as for a man to be hung for murder, who has not committed murder, that he may know how a murderer feels. The state of the murderer is in the heart; one can not take the place of the criminal unless he is in a state of crime. He may endure, physically, what the criminal is called upon to do; but be has the armor with which to do it: the armor of innocence, so that which is a penalty to the criminal, is simply the heroism of self-appointed martyrdom to him who shares the dungeon but has not the darkness of guilt One must not mistake that which is transiently noble, and seemingly generous, for that which is real nobility and self-abnegation. This great moral chaos, where embodiments are thrown into existence, in which is illustrated all the complexity of man's moral being, is, nevertheless, governed by rules more absolute, by laws more unyielding than any laws that govern the physical realm. The degrees of moral growth are degrees not only of conquest over temptation, but of conquest of the self which is the physical arbiter of man's destiny. That self which you are taught to cultivate in physical existence, and which in some material and mental states you must cultivate, is the very self that you finally have to overcome. Just as in arithmetic you learn certain propositions and combinations of numbers which are valuable, but when you pass on to algebra you cease to use them, they are no longer valuable, you have learned that which is better; and in the higher branches of geometry you have still greater triumph, methods far superior with which to express and to solve the problems presented. In like manner this physical self, which is first nurtured and has its place in the primitive stages of expression, must afterward be overcome, superseded.