Wine may be abused, and so may a leg of mutton.
Second.

It is lawful for any one to use his fists in his own defence, or in the defence of others, provided they can't help themselves; but it is not lawful to use them for purposes of tyranny or brutality.

If you are attacked by a ruffian, as the elderly individual in Lavengro is in the inn-yard, it is quite lawful, if you can, to give him as good a thrashing as the elderly individual gave the brutal coachman; and if you see a helpless woman--perhaps your own sister--set upon by a drunken lord, a drunken coachman, or a drunken coalheaver, or a brute of any description, either drunk or sober, it is not only lawful, but laudable, to give them, if you can, a good drubbing: but it is not lawful, because you have a strong pair of fists, and know how to use them, to go swaggering through a fair, jostling against unoffending individuals; should you do so, you would be served quite right if you were to get a drubbing, more particularly if you were served out by some one less strong, but more skilful than yourself--even as the coachman was served out by a pupil of the immortal Broughton--sixty years old, it is true, but possessed of Broughton's guard and chop.

Moses is not blamed in the Scripture for taking part with the oppressed, and killing an Egyptian persecutor.

We are not told how Moses killed the Egyptian; but it is quite as creditable to Moses to suppose that he killed the Egyptian by giving him a buffet under the left ear, as by stabbing him with a knife.