case somewhat perverted. They are really only to be pitied for knowing
no better; but I trust, by careful education, to bring them to a clearer
sense of their own interests. I shall therefore send them to a
reformatory, where, in consideration of the depressing circumstances of
their imprisonment, they will be better looked after, and have lighter
work, than the average of my honest and peaceable subjects." If the king
had spoken thus, he would have won high applause in these days; at least
till the farms and the merchandise, the property and the profits of the
rest of his subjects, were endangered by these favoured objects of his
philanthropy; who, having found that rebellion and even murder was
pardonable in one case, would naturally try whether it was not pardonable
in other cases likewise. But what we read of the king--and we must
really remember, in fear and trembling, who spoke this parable, even our
Lord Himself,--is this--He sent forth his armies, soldiers, men
disciplined to do their duty at all risks, and sworn to carry out the
law, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

Yes, the king was very angry, as he had a right to be. Yes, let us lay
that to heart, and tremble, from the very worst of us all to the very
best of us all. There is an anger in God. There is indignation in God.
Our highest reason ought to tell us that there must be anger in God, as
long as sin and wrong exist in any corner of the universe. For all that
is good in man is of the likeness of God. And is it not a good feeling,
a noble feeling, in man, to be indignant, or to cry for vengeance on the
offender, whenever we hear of cruelty, injustice, or violence? Is that
not noble? I say it is. I say that the man whose heart does not burn
within him at the sight of tyranny and cruelty, of baseness and deceit,
who is not ready to say, Take him, and do to him as he has done to
others; that man's heart is not right with God, or with man either. His
moral sense is stunted. He is on the way to become, first, if he can, a
tyrant, and then a slave.

And shall there be no noble indignation in God when He beholds all the
wrong which is done on earth? Shall the just and holy God look on
carelessly and satisfied at injustice and unholiness which vexes even
poor sinful man? God forbid! To think that, would, to my mind, be to
fancy God less just, less merciful, than man. And if any one says,