human
How strange and inconsistent are the prejudices of man, resumed Matilda, half mournfully, half in sarcasm;
gpt
Murder! Matilda; call you it murder to overcome the enemies of one's country in fair and honorable combat, and in the field of glory?
human
Call YOU it what you will--disguise it under whatever cloak you may--it is no less murder. Nay, the worst of murders, for you but do the duty of the hireling slayer. In cold blood, and for a stipend, do you put an end to the fair existence of him who never injured you in thought or deed, and whom, under other circumstances, you would perhaps have taken to your heart in friendship.
gpt
This is true, but the difference of the motive, Matilda? The one approved of heaven and of man, the other alike condemned of both.
human
Approved of man, if you will; but that they have the sanction of heaven, I deny. Worldly policy and social interests alone have drawn the distinction, making the one a crime, the other a virtue; but tell me not that an all wise and just God sanctions or approves the slaying of his creatures because they perish, not singly at the will of one men, but in thousands and tens of thousands at the will of another. What is there more sacred in the brawls of Kings and Potentates, that the blood they cause to be shed in torrents for some paltry breach of etiquette, should sit more lightly on their souls than the few solitary drops, spilt by the hand of revenge, on that of him whose existence is writhing under a sense of acutest injury?