Hans Lassen Martensen.

[Footnote 1: See Martensen's Christian Ethics, p. 216.

A close friend of Dorner was Hans Lassen Martensen, "the greatest theologian of Denmark," and a thinker of the first class, "with high speculative endowments, and a considerable tincture of theosophical mysticism."

Martensen's "Christian Ethics" do not ignore God and the Bible as factors in any question of practical morals under discussion.

Martensen's treatment of the duty of veracity is a remarkable exhibit of the workings of a logical mind in full view of eternal principles, yet measurably hindered and retarded by the heart-drawings of an amiable sentiment.

"Martensen."] [Footnote 2: Martensen's Christian Ethics (Individual), (Eng. trans.,)

"Martensen."] [Footnote 2: Martensen's Christian Ethics (Individual), (Eng. trans.,)

Martensen gives as large prominence as Rothe to love for one's fellow-man; but he bases that love entirely, as Rothe does not, on love for Christ.

"Yet it does not follow from this," says Martensen, "that our duty to communicate the truth to others is unlimited....

" Having made these concessions, in the realm of feeling, to the defenders of the "lie of exigency," which may be "either uttered from love to men, or as defense against mena defense in which either a justifiable self-love or sympathy with others is operative," Martensen proceeds to show that every such falsehood is abnormal and immoral.

" Martensen protests against the claim of Rothe that a falsehood spoken in love "is not at all to be called a lie, but can be absolutely defended as morally normal, and so in no respect needs pardon.

" "But the best thing in this tale," adds Martensen, "is that it is no mere fiction.

" "Who will not readily obey this request," adds Martensen, "and hold such a memory in honor?...

Who does not feel himself penetrated with involuntary, most hearty admiration?" In conclusion, in view of all that can be said on either side of the question, Martensen is sure that "the lie of exigency itself, which we call inevitable, leaves in us the feeling of something unworthy, and this unworthiness should, simply in following Christ, more and more disappear from our life.

So it is evident that if one would seek excuse for the lie of exigency, in the concessions made by Martensen, he must do so only on the score of the hardness of his heart, and the softness of his head, as one lacking a proper measure of wisdom, of courage, and of faith, to enable him to conform to the proper ideal standard of human conduct.

[Footnote 2: See Martensen's Christian Ethics (Individual), § 97.]

[Footnote 2: See, for instance, Martensen's Christian Ethics (Individual), §97.]

MARTENSEN, HANS LASSEN, bishop of Copenhagen, a distinguished theologian; author of "Meister Eckhart," a study of mediæval mysticism, "Christliche Dogmatic" and "Christliche Ethic"; was a Hegelian of a conservative type (1808-1884).