"
I hope you do have that trust, for your own sakes, for the sake of your
own happiness, your own sound peace of mind; for then, and then only, you
can afford to be hopeful concerning yourselves, your families, your
country, and the whole human race. It must be so. If you believe that
He who hung upon the cross for all mankind is your refuge and strength,
and the refuge and strength of all mankind, then, amid all the changes
and chances of this mortal life, you can afford to be still calm in
sudden calamity, patient in long afflictions; for you know that He is
God, He is the Lord, He is the Redeemer, He is the King. He knows best.
He must be right, whosoever else is wrong. Let Him do what seemeth Him
good.
Now I cannot but feel (what wiser and better men than I am feel more
deeply), that this old-fashioned faith in the living Christ is dying out
among us. That men do not believe as they used to do in the living Lord
and in His government, in that perpetual divine providence which the
Scriptures call "the kingdom of God." They have lost faith in Christ's
immediate and personal government of the world and its nations; and,
therefore, they are tempted more and more, either to try to misgovern the
world themselves, or to fancy that Christ has entrusted His government,
as to a substitute and vicar, to an aged priest at Rome.
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