really paramount in this world, and never to give way?
and when a soul of _power, unable to refrain_, rubs off, though it be with rasping words, all the varnish from rottenness and lies, is he to be tried in our courts of compliment for a misdemeanor?
Is there never a higher duty than that of either pitying or converting guilty men,--the duty of publicly exposing them?
of awakening the popular conscience, and sweeping away the conventional timidities, for a severe return to truth and reality?
No rule of morals can be recognized as just, which prohibits conformity of human speech to fact; and insists on terms of civility being kept with all manner of iniquity." I certainly have not appealed to any conventional morality of drawing-room compliment, but to the highest and purest principles which I know; and I lament to find my judgment so extremely in opposition.

To me it seems that _inability to refrain_ shows weakness, not _power_, of soul, and that nothing is easier than to give vent to violent invective against bad rulers.

The last sentence quoted, seems to say, that the speaking of Truth is never to be condemned: but I cannot agree to this.

When Truth will only exasperate, and cannot do good, silence is imperative.

A man who reproaches an armed tyrant in words too plain, does but excite him to murder; and the shocking thing is, that this seems to have been the express object of Jesus.