VI. The next four precepts are a series beginning with the most vital, designed to protect the rights of person and life; of chastity; of property; and of reputation. The precepts forbid murder, adultery, theft, false witness, or defamation. The prohibition of murder must be construed broadly enough to forbid personal injuries on the one hand; and on the other all those passions――hate, malice prepense――which naturally lead on toward violence and murder.――――The prohibition of adultery in like manner forbids not only all illicit sexual connection, but even unchaste desire (Matt. 5: 27, 28). So the prohibition of theft devolves the duty of caring for our neighbor’s property so far as the law of loving our neighbor as ourself would require. It is not enough that we do not take his property and appropriate it to our own use. We must protect his right to his property as he should ours. In like manner the law forbidding the bearing of false witness against our neighbor involves the duty of protecting and cherishing his reputation. We may never forget that our neighbor’s good name is a treasure to him which we not only must not steal away, but must so far as in us lies guard and defend as if his good were worth as much as our own. The one comprehensive principle which embraces all these points of law toward our neighbor and determines their true interpretation is given in the law of Moses as well as in the law of Christ――“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Lev. 19: 34 and Matt. 22: 39 and 19: 19). As to this passage from Moses it should be noted that _in terms_ it speaks not precisely of one’s neighbor but of the _stranger_――one toward whom you are wont to think your obligations less than toward any other human being; for he is not a brother born of the same father――not a relative of the same tribe――not a citizen of the same commonwealth or nationality; but an alien, a foreigner, a stranger toward whom you recognize no other relation than that of a fellow-being of human kind. Of such an one the law holds――“The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and _thou shalt love him as thyself_; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God”――and I enjoin upon you this all-embracing love for the lowest of human kind.