The oath of office in Texas is the same it is in Illinois; and yet it seems to have little power to save the country from the curses of the dueling spirit. It would seem that the "code of honor," so called, is a good deal demoralized in Texas, in comparison with its status in the older Southern States—if such a thing can be demoralized. It assumes more the form of open and secret assassination—shooting a man down behind his back, or in the dark, or on sight, with the simple warning, "Take care of yourself."

A duelist can not hold office in Texas, but he can defeat a good law by turning assassin, and committing a crime that eclipses the one forbidden by the oath of office.

It may be that the criminal reports of Texas can show that a man has been hung there for killing a man, but it is doubtful. But many a man has been hung for stealing a horse by "Judge Lynch." The horse thief is generally disposed of in this summary way without judge or jury; and even when tried and sentenced by the courts to the penitentiary the officer having charge of the prisoner for safe delivery there, by collusion or otherwise, reports him "escaped," by which the knowing ones understand he is rescued from the officer by a mob and hung to the nearest tree. Shame on such law and order, even among barbarians. But such are the issues of life and death in Texas, and a man is a little nearer death there all the while than in any other country we wot of.

As an example of the jeopardy of human life, and how crime against society maybe committed with impunity in that country, we will give the case of a leading business man in one of the cities of Texas, and a prominent member of a leading religious body (whose name we withhold), who, some years before the war, had a personal difficulty with a citizen, who had threatened him with personal violence. He had him placed under arrest, to be bound over to keep the peace; but when so arrested, and in the hands of the officer of the law, and at a moment when he was most harmless, the meek follower of Him who "resisted not evil," drew a pistol and shot him dead! And would you think it, to the disgrace and outrage of religious decency, and law and order, no notice was ever taken of it by either the courts or the church. He has been an acceptable member of the same religious sect ever since, worshiped at her altars, taken her sacraments, said her prayers, and mingled in her fellowships. We have frequently seen him taking part in religious service, but could never set eyes on his reticent cast-iron face without seeing the mark of Cain upon him. In the murderous act he gave the clearest evidence of both physical and moral cowardice, and hellish revenge.

But after all, why should such a state of things be thought so very strange, when laymen have the example of the priest. "Like people, like priest," is true in more senses than one. There is a certain Doctor of Divinity in Texas who is said to be a man of profound learning and intellectual refinement, President, before the war, of —— University, located at C., and named for a celebrated ecclesiastic. This divine was considered and admired by many as the leading orator of the State. He had been imported from the State called the "Mother of Presidents," a few years prior to the war, to push forward and build up the educational interests of the State, and especially of the religious denomination in which he was a shining light.

But when secession was sprung upon the people he switched off on that, and became the most violent advocate, perhaps, in all the State, of the right and of the duty of Secession. He canvassed the State in that interest. The war opened, he raised a regiment, was made its colonel, and went to the front. It was not long before reports came back that the Doctor was drinking, and had been seen intoxicated more than once. Meanwhile his ambition was struggling for a brigadier-generalship, which he never reached. Two years passed, and the Confederacy was meeting heavy reverses in the field; and now the time had come to give a few more turns to the thumb-screws of conscription, even to the extent, as General Grant said, of "robbing the cradle and the grave."

The Doctor was just the man to send home from the army to canvass the State by way of bolstering up a sinking cause, and preparing the people—what were left of them, the old men and women and babies—for the new movements of military despotism. We heard the Doctor in a labored speech of two or three hours' length, in which he attempted to show that the Confederacy had never been more promising of final success. That though some appearances were unfavorable, such as the loss of New Orleans, Vicksburg and the command of the Mississippi River, and some other unimportant points, yet the spirit of the Confederacy was unbroken, the armies were withdrawing from all unimportant places, except Richmond, and concentrating on important ones, located off the principal thoroughfares of the country, little towns among the by-ways and hedges, out of harm's way, where the enemy could not reach them, and where strategic movements could be planned without molestation from the enemy, and from whence dashing surprises could be executed upon him without fear of a return of the compliment with interest. A policy which, the speaker said, was quite the reverse of that of the Union armies, as they were obliged to scatter in proportion as the Confederates concentrated, in order to garrison the points and occupy the country thus vacated. The argument looked plausible to the green ones, didn't it, reader? It is always easy to make people believe what they want to believe.