he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the
temptation we resist.

The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect,
and enmity, defend us, if we will, from selfishness and
fraud. Bolts and bars are not the best of our institutions,
nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of wisdom. Men suffer
all their life long under the foolish superstition that
they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man
to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to
be and not to be at the same time. There is a third silent
party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things
takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfilment of every
contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If
you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put
God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer
The payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound
interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this
exchequer.

The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to
cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope
of sand. It makes no difference whether the actors be many
or one, a tyrant or a mob. A mob is a society of bodies
voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason and traversing
its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending to the
nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night.
Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It
persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would
tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage