If every murderer in this enlightened Christian land of ours received the rope which is his or her due, according to the letter of the law, business would be brisk for quite a spell.  It is a small town that has not its professional babe-slaughterer, who succeeds in evading the law even when he contrives to kill two at one time.  He does not like to do it, but there is money in it, you know; and he pockets his unholy blood money without a squirm.  Don’t prosecute him; if you do, he will make revelations that will startle the town.

As for the unnatural mother, it is best to leave her to listen in the dead of night to the appealing voice of her murdered babes before the tribunal of God’s infinite justice.  Their blood calls for vengeance.

CHAPTER LXXIV.  ENMITY.

Killing is not the only thing forbidden by the Fifth Commandment:  thereby are prescribed all forms of enmity, of which killing is one, that attack either directly or indirectly, in thought or desire, as well as in deed, the life, limbs or health of the neighbor.  The fifth precept protects the physical man; everything therefore that partakes of the nature of a design on the body of another is an offense against this commandment.  All such offenses are not equally grievous, but each contains a malice of its own, which is prescribed under the head of killing.

Enmity that takes the form of fighting, assault and battery, is clearly a breach of the law of God.  It is lawful to wound, maim and otherwise disable an assailant, on the principle of self-defense, when there is no other means of protecting oneself against attack.  But outside this contingency, such conduct is ruffianism before man, and sin before God.  The State alone has the right to inflict penalties and avenge wrongs; to turn this right over to every individual would be destructive of society.  If this sort of a thing is unlawful and criminal when there might be some kind of an excuse for it on the ground of injury received, the malice thereof is aggravated considerably by the fact of there being no excuse at all, or only imaginary ones.

There is another form of enmity or hatred that runs not to blows but to words.  Herein is evil, not because of any bodily injury wrought, of which there is none, but because of the diabolical spirit that manifests itself, a spirit reproved by God and which, in given circumstances, is ready to resort to physical injury and even to the letting of blood.  There can be no doubt that hatred in itself is forbidden by this commandment, for “whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer,” according to St. John.  It matters little, therefore, whether such hatred be in deeds or in words; the malice is there and the sin is consummated.  A person, too weak to do an enemy bodily harm, may often use his or her tongue to better effect than another could his fists, and the verbal outrage thus committed may be worse than a physical one.