The covetous and luxurious find it very difficult to understand such a being.  Their usual notion of tenderness is a selfish dislike of seeing any one else uncomfortable, because it makes them uncomfortable likewise.  Their usual notion of indignation is a selfish desire of revenge against anyone who interferes with their comfort.  And therefore they have no wholesome indignation against wrong and wrong-doers, and a great deal of unwholesome tenderness for them.  They are afraid of any one’s being punished; probably from a fellow-feeling; a suspicion that they deserve to be punished themselves.  They hate and dread honest severity, and stern exercise of lawful power.  They are indulgent to the bad, severe upon the good; till, as has been bitterly but too truly said,—­“Public opinion will allow a man to do anything, except his duty.”

Now this is a humour which cannot last.  It breeds weakness, anarchy, and at last ruin to society.  And then the effeminate and luxurious, terrified for their money and their comfort, fly from an unwholesome tenderness to an unwholesome indignation; break out into a panic of selfish rage; and become, as cowards are apt to do, blindly and wantonly cruel; and those who fancied God too indulgent to punish His enemies, will be the very first to punish their own.

But there are those left, I thank God, in this land, who have a clear understanding of what they ought to be, and an honest desire to be it; who know that a manful indignation against wrong-doing, a hearty hatred of falsehood and meanness, a rigorous determination to do their duty at all risks, and to repress evil with all severity, may dwell in the same heart with gentleness, forgiveness, tenderness to women and children; active pity to the weak, the sick, the homeless; and courtesy to all mankind, even to their enemies.

God grant that that spirit may remain alive among us.  For without it we shall not long be a strong nation; not indeed long a nation at all.  And it is alive among us.  Not that we, any of us, have enough of it—­God forgive us for all our shortcomings.  And God grant it may remain alive among us; for it is, as far as it goes, the likeness of Christ, the Maker and Ruler of the world.

“Christian,” said a great genius and a great divine,

   “If thou wouldst learn to love,
   Thou first must learn to hate.”

And if any one answer—­“Hate?  Even God hateth nothing that He has made.”  The rejoinder is,—­And for that very reason God hates evil; because He has not made it, and it is ruinous to all that He has made.

Go you and do likewise.  Hate what is wrong with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength.  For so, and so only, you will shew that you love God with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, likewise.