On this point, then, I think that moral theory and teaching can never be stern and rigorous enough in its precepts, especially as regards individuals. It is not, indeed, a question about words, but about their interpretation, and what is meant by those who use them; and in this respect there may be, and often is a false and over-scrupulous delicacy of conscience. When, however, we remember how, in particular ages of history, oaths have been played with--millions of oaths lavishly proffered and shortly retaken in quite a different and opposite sense, and soon again abjured with as little difficulty; and when we consider the evil effects this trifling with the most solemn of obligations must have had on the moral character of a people, we can not but see some excuse in this monstrous fact for certain small communities of Christians who absolutely refuse to take an oath in any case. For when, in the important point of truth and falsehood, a grave error has been committed on one side, it is better to meet it on the other by too great strictness. A rigorous severity can never entail such fearful consequences in such a case, as the opposite fault of an over-indulgent laxity, or, what is even still more false and erroneous, the regarding the matter as trifling and indifferent. But the further prosecution of this topic would lead me out of my proper province, and I have only touched upon it in passing to that which lies more immediately before us. If, then, there is nothing so dangerous to the character of an individual, both inwardly and outwardly--if there is nothing that works so insidiously, conveying its secret poison to the very lowest roots and extremities of the moral character, as untruth and the spirit of lying, how much more fearful must its malignant influence prove when it is become the universal and prevailing fault of an age which has not only wandered far from the truth, but is even animated with a deadly hatred of it! It is to this spirit of lies, and the false splendor of his colossal empire, and to the final conflict which truth will have to wage with it on earth, that the most awful of the prophecies already alluded to refer. And the application is easily made, since a greater part of their warning denunciations have in our age already come to an actual fulfillment. If, then, this giant spirit of destruction and untruth was strong enough even in his cradle to throttle two quarters of the world,[47] what must it be now that the permitted interval of rest has passed away without being profitably employed to the cause of truth, and now that this same spirit of murder and lies, with a far greater body, and endued with far more magical powers, is let loose again to tread the earth for a while with iron feet, and to deceive the nations?