—from Ethics For Schools: Being a Treatise on The Virtues and Their Reasons by Austin Bierbower (1844–1913). Bierbower was a lawyer and prolific writer whose books attempted to reconcile the differences between politics, evolutionary science and the Christian religion.
The Worst of Acts
Truth is, to fight a duel is a thing that all kingdoms are bound to restrain with the highest severity; it is a consociation of many the worst acts that a person ordinarily can be guilty of; it is want of charity, of justice, of humility, of trust in God’s providence; it is therefore pride, and murder, and injustice, and infinite unreasonableness, and nothing of a Christian, nothing of excuse, nothing of honour is in it, if God and wise men be admitted judges of the lists. And it would be considered, that every one that fights a duel must reckon himself as dead or dying (for however any man flatters himself by saying he will not kill, if he could avoid it; yet rather than be killed he will, and to the danger of being killed his own act exposes him): now, is in it a good posture for a man to die with a sword in his hand, thrust at his brother’s breast, with a purpose, either explicit or implicit, to have killed him? Can a man die twice, that, in case he miscarries and is damned for the first ill dying, he may mend his fault, and die better the next time? Can his vain, imaginary, and fantastic shadow of reputation, make him recompense for the disgrace and confusion of face, and pains and horrors of eternity? Is there no such thing as forgiving injuries, nothing of the discipline of Jesus in our spirits? Are we called by the name of Christ, and have nothing in us but the spirit of Cain, and Nimrod, and Joab? If neither reason nor religion can rule us, neither interest nor safety can determine us, neither life nor eternity can move us, neither God nor wise men be sufficient judges of honour to us; then our damnation is just, but it is heavy; our fall is certain, but it is cheap, base, and inglorious. And let not the vanities, or the gallants of the world, slight this friendly monition, rejecting it with a scorn, because it is talking like a divine: it were no disparagement if they would do so too, and believe accordingly; and they would find a better return of honour in the crowns of eternity by talking like a divine, than by dying like a fool; by living in imitation and obedience to the laws of the holy Jesus, than by perishing or committing murder, or by attempting it, or by venturing it, like a weak, impotent, passionate, and brutish person. Upon this chapter it is sometimes asked, whether a virgin may not kill her ravisher to defend her chastity? Concerning which, as we have no special and distinct warrant, so there is, in reason and analogy of the gospel, much for the negative. For since his act alone cannot make her criminal, and is no more than a wound in my body, or a civil or a natural inconvenience, it is unequal to take a life in exchange for a lesser injury, and it is worse that I take it myself. Some great examples we find in story, and their names are remembered in honour; but we can make no judgments of them, but that their zeal was reprovable for its intemperance, though it had excellency in the matter of the passion.
—from The Whole Works of The Right Reverend Jeremy Taylor, D.D. The Reverend Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) was an English clergyman and important prose stylist during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Taylor’s vehemence against duels was in part born of the loss of his eldest son to a duel. Taylor is considered a Saint of the Church of England and was nicknamed the “Shakespeare of Divines” for his poetic and innovative writings on social and liturgical matters.
Reading I
Prepare to Meet Your Maker
Examine all the dictionaries of ancient and modern languages, search even the huge folio lexicons of the copious Arabick, and I am persuaded you will find no word which conveys a just idea of that monster whom, for want of a proper term, we call a DUELLIST.
When anyone has made us a present, tho’ ever so trifling, we keep and cherish it, for the sake of the donor. The Almighty has given us a body; into that body he has infused a living soul, a spark of his spirit; he has commanded us to keep them pure and undefiled, until, by his almighty fiat, he is pleased to reduce the former to dust and ashes, and dispose of the latter as be, in his wisdom and justice, shall think fit; for we are in his hands like clay in a potter’s vessel. It is he who gives, and it is he who takes away. But the Duellist arrogates to himself the right of disposing of his soul and body, how and when he chooses. He ungratefully disposes of the most previous gifts, which are granted him conditionally.
We all know that the soul, which presumptuously sins against its Maker, shall die, die the death eternal. Can anyone then, who is previously acquainted with his Maker’s will and decree, in open contempt of his declarations, temerariously rush into the Divine presence, loaded with guilt, horror and revenge? Dreadful, beyond conception, must be the situation of such a man! Was anyone unaware that for some capital offence, he was, during the tediously rolling years of a long life, to be confined in a dark dungeon, accompanied by those ghastly fiends, pinching hunger, gloomy reflection, and tormenting despair, with what emotion of horror and dread would he hear the awful sentence pronounced? Yet this, shocking as it is, deserves the appellation of a most exquisite felicity, compared to the severest punishment an omnipotent and angry GOD can inflict. It is like a bed of down compared to a heap of thorns.
Yet this is exactly what the Duellist has to expect, who comes to the field of slaughter, to murder, or be murdered. His soul, harassed with the passions of anger, revenge, and despair, he, with na impious temerity, defies that Being who has expressly said, “Thou shalt not kill,” and perhaps at a time when the burden of his sins is greater than he can bear, sinks with them into the lowest pit of destruction. And what do you think is his motive? To save his honor! A mere aerial bubble, a creature of the imagination, a term not understood by those who sacrifice their lives, and every chance of future happiness to this vain phantom!
Is it not astonishing, nay incredible, that there should be men, who, under pretence of preserving their reputation, should hazard all which they have dear in the world? But admitting this plea, is it the part of a man who is COMPOS MENTIS, to run the risk of forfeiting forever the love, favour, and protection of a Being to whom he is indebted for his existence, and everything he enjoys, in order to preserve the esteem of the ridiculous part of the world? No certainly.
But, the truth is, it is that abominable vice, pride, which is the root of this evil. If a man treats us with some coarse epithets, we must either send him unprepared before the awful tribunal of his GOD, or go there ourselves. Can a man seriously profess and call himself a Christian, who can forgive no injruies, bear with no insults, and receive no affronts with impunity? Does his Maker deal thus with him as he did, a myriad of lives (if he could be so frequently renovated in one person) would not atone for the common transgressions of a tolerably well spent life. But it is no less true than astonishing that it is now the highest fashion to value our own ideal honor, more than the honor of GOD. It, by inducing your men of HONOR to reflect a moment on the dreadful consequences of DUELLING, I should save but one nearly lost sheep. I shall esteem myself exceedingly happy, and bless that merciful and long suffering GOD, who suggested these thoughts to me.