So also did David the king come into tasting of the bliss of a
true repentance by the terrible gateways of shameful adultery and
blood-thirst."
"Oh, I agree with your author perfectly," said Mac, with inimitable
gravity, while I gazed at Clarian, wondering what would come next. "All the
greatest gifts man possesses have had evil sponsors or unrighteous
baptism. Even Prometheus _filched_ his fire from heaven, or t'other
place. Doing evil for the sake of a prospective good is an immemorial
custom, and well precedented. Revenue-farming, the _parc-aux-cerfs_, and Du
Barry only went down before _La Terreur_, Robespierre, and _Les Journees de
Septembre_."
"But seriously, Mac, is it not admissible, now and then, to employ
questionable means, ordinary ones failing?"
"Certainly. You may even sin, provided you believe in your cause. Faith is
the one save-all and cure-all. You smile? I can give you good
authority,--none other than Martin Luther, who, in one of his disputations,
says emphatically, '_Si in fide posset fieri adulterium, peccatum non
esset_'; and he wrote still more plainly upon this point in one of his
letters to Melancthon, saying, '_Ab hoc nos non avellet peccatum, etiamsi
millies millies uno die fornicamur aut occidamus._' [Footnote: _Vie de
Luther_, par AUDIN, Paris, 1839. An accurate book, but scathingly bitter.]
So follow your bent, younker, and they cannot say you are without
'precedent right reverend.'"
Clarian sprang to his feet, his pale face all ablaze with indignation.
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