"Just think of two men, for instance, who had been friends for years, and in some unguarded moment had used intemperate language towards each other. Their companions tell them that this is a matter for giving and receiving satisfaction. So, in perfectly cold blood, with the most ceremonious politeness, the time and place of meeting are fixed by the seconds, who make all arrangements for their principals; and at the time appointed these two men stand face to face, with no malice, it may be, in either heart, feeling rather that there were faults on both sides, and at any rate no more wrong done or intended than a little mutual forbearance and concession might easily set right. And yet there they stand; at a given signal aim each at the other's heart; and, if that aim is true, each is murdered by his brother, and hurried in a moment red- handed into the awful presence of his Maker and Judge. And this used to be called `satisfaction,' and the man who refused to give it was branded as a coward. And such was the tyranny of this fashion which Satan had imposed upon thinking and immortal men, that rarely indeed was a man found who had the true moral courage to refuse to fight a duel when challenged to do so." "Ah then, auntie," said her nephew, "you would give the laurels for moral courage to the man who declined to fight." "Certainly I would. Yes, I should have called him a truly noble and morally courageous man who, in those sad duelling days, should have declined a challenge on the ground that he feared God rather than man-- that he was willing to brave any earthly scorn and loss rather than be a cold-blooded murderer and do violence to his own conscience, and break the laws of his Creator and Redeemer. Such courage as this would be worth, in my eyes, a thousandfold more than all the `pluck' in the world." "Indeed, dear Aunt Kate," said Walter seriously, "I believe you are right; but can you give me any example of such moral courage?"