indeed married by a priest, and in orders?’—‘Indeed, Sir, we were,’ replied she, ‘though we were both sworn to conceal his name.’—‘Why then, my child, come to my arms again, and now you are a thousand times more welcome than before; for you are now his wife to all intents and purposes; nor can all the laws of man, tho’ written upon tables of adamant, lessen the force of that sacred connexion.’
‘Alas, Papa,’ replied she, ‘you are but little acquainted with his villainies: he has been married already, by the same priest, to six or eight wives more, whom, like me, he has deceived and abandoned.’
‘Has he so?’ cried I, ‘then we must hang the priest, and you shall inform against him to-morrow.’—‘But Sir,’ returned she, ‘will that be right, when I am sworn to secrecy?’—‘My dear,’ I replied, ‘if you have made such a promise, I cannot, nor will I tempt you to break it. Even tho’ it may benefit the public, you must not inform against him. In all human institutions a smaller evil is allowed to procure a greater good; as in politics, a province may be given away to secure a kingdom; in medicine, a limb may be lopt off, to preserve the body. But in religion the law is written, and inflexible, never to do evil. And this law, my child, is right: for otherwise, if we commit a smaller evil, to procure a greater good, certain guilt would be thus incurred, in expectation of contingent advantage. And though the advantage should certainly follow, yet the interval between commission and advantage, which is allowed to be guilty, may be that in which we are called away to answer for the things we have done, and the volume of human actions is closed for ever.