elpful
view of the matter. I may be the meanest citizen of my native state,
and my father may leave me heir of only a few acres of rocky land.
But, if my title is good, every power in the state is pledged to put
me in possession of my inheritance. They who would rob me may be
strong; but the state will call out every able-bodied man, and pour
out every dollar in its treasury before it will allow me to be
defrauded of my legal rights. And it must do this for me, its
meanest citizen, else there is no government, but anarchy, and
oppression, and the rule of the strongest. And we all recognize that
this is but right and necessary, and would be ashamed of our state
and government were it not literally true.

If I travel in distant lands, my passport is the sign that all the
power of these United States is pledged to protect me from
injustice. Think of the sensitiveness of governments to any wrong
done to their private citizens. England went to war with Abyssinia
to protect and deliver two Englishmen. And shall God do less? Can he
do less? If it is only just and right and necessary for earthly
governments to thus care for their citizens, shall not the ruler and
"judge of all the earth do right?"

Now you and I are commanded to be heirs of God, to attain to
likeness to him. This is therefore our legal right, guaranteed by
him, for every command of God is really a promise. And he will
exhaust every power in the universe before he allows anything to
prevent us from gaining our legal rights, provided only that we are
earnest in claiming them.

But if I alienate my rights to my inheritance, the commonwealth
cannot help me. If I renounce my citizenship, the government of the
United States can no longer protect me. And so I can alienate my
"right to the tree of life," and to entrance into the city, and I
can forfeit my heirship to all that God would give me. "For I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord." But I can alienate and make void every promise and title, if
I will or if I do not care. This is the unique glory, and awfulness
of the human will. And we know that to them that love God all things
work together for good. "If God is for us who is against us?" It
must be so if God's laws are his modes of aiding