Some things, continued the speaker, may seem inconsistent at first, which, upon examination, are not inconsistent.  A thing may be legally right and morally wrong, and whilst he could defend it legally, he could not morally.  For instance, suppose a rich man had two sons, both of whom acted as sons should act, and the father in making out his will should devise his whole estate to one son, and cut the other off, as they say in England, with a shilling.  Now, who would deny his right to do so if it pleased him; who would say that it is not legally right?—­no one.  But would it be morally right?—­certainly not.  What is morality?—­love your God, your neighbour, and yourself.  And though he could defend the will as legal, yet in a moral point of view he could condemn it as unnatural.  The editor of the Post (said the speaker) confounds gambling with robbery, and what for?—­that future generations may grow up in faith.  It is, said he, a settled principle of morality never to hoist false colours, but to raise the standard of truth and defend it to the last.  (Applause.)

He remembered an anecdote:  a physician was sent to attend a poor sick boy, and when he arrived at the couch of pain and distress, he found it necessary to administer a pill—­a very nauseous dose.  Said the mother—­“Doctor, it would be better to put a little sugar on it, and then he can take it, and not know it’s a pill.”  “No, madam,” replied the doctor, “it won’t do to deceive him.  Here, my son,” said the practitioner, “take this medicine and it will cure you,” and the little fellow swallowed it like a man.  Thus it is with Mr. Green and the green editor; they associate the gambler, without distinction, with assassins and robbers.  In doing so they are wrong; they do not speak the truth.  The speaker then proceeded to show how a young man may often be lured into temptation—­by representing gamblers as assassins, who, upon acquaintance, he finds are apparently gentlemen, and he is induced to think that he has been hitherto misled and deceived in regard to such men.  He then cultivates their acquaintance, and finally, through his own depravity, he becomes worse and worse, until he is at last swallowed up in the vortex of degradation.  This is the result of employing dishonourable measures to prevent him from visiting such places, or to carry out honourable ends.

A man has a right to commit suicide, so far as propriety is concerned.  If he does not owe any thing, and feels it in his conscience that he would like to die, he has a right to do so—­but if that man owes five dollars, he would certainly violate a moral principle by killing himself, because he ought to live as long as he can to pay his debt.  The speaker once knew a man, in good circumstances, who was weary of existence, and feeling disposed to take a journey to “that bourne whence no traveller returns,” committed suicide.  There may be many who would call it murder—­but the community are murderers—­they sometimes murder in cold blood.  But lately a man was taken to the gallows, and they hung a young man because he had killed somebody else, and yet there are many persons who believe this is right, and that suicide, such as the speaker had selected, is wrong.