is to choose some high and worthy object, and pursue that object through
life.
Mrs. Barbauld.


XIV.

THE PATRIOT'S SWORD VINDICATED.

But my Lord, I dissented from the resolutions before us, for other reasons.
I dissented from them, because I felt that my giving them my assent, I
should have pledged myself to the unqualified repudiation of physical force
in all countries, at all times, and under every circumstance. This I could
not do. For, my Lord, I do not abhor the use of arms in the vindication of
national rights. There are times, when arms will alone suffice, and when
political ameliorations call for a drop of blood, and many thousand drops
of blood. Opinion, I admit, will operate against opinion. But, as the
honorable member for Kilkenny has observed, force must be used against
force. The soldier is proof against an argument, but he is not proof
against a bullet The man that will listen to reason, let him be reasoned
with. But it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can alone prevail
against battalioned despotism.

Then, my Lord, I do not condemn the use of arms as immoral, nor do I
conceive it profane to say that the King of Heaven--the Lord of Hosts! the
God of Battles!--bestows his benediction upon those who unsheathe the sword
in the hour of a nation's peril. From that evening, on which, in the valley
of Bethulia, he nerved the arm of the Jewish girl to smite the drunken
tyrant in his tent, down to our day in which he has blessed the insurgent
chivalry of the Belgian priest, his almighty hand hath ever been stretched