on and property. Most miserable, if the human race have no
guide, save its own instincts and tendencies; no history, save that of
its own greed, ignorance and crime, varied only by fruitless struggles
after a happiness to which it never attains. Most miserable world, and
miserable man, if that be true after all which to the old Hebrew prophet
seemed incredible and horrible--if God does look on while men deal
treacherously, and does hold His peace when the wicked devours the man
who is more righteous than he; and has made men as the fishes of the sea,
as the creeping things that have no ruler over them.

I said--Most miserable, in that case, was the world and man. I did not
say that they would consider themselves miserable. I did not say that
they would think it a Gospel, and good news, that Christ was their King,
and that His Kingdom was always at hand. They never thought that good
news. When the prophets told them of it, they stoned them. When the
Lord Himself told them, they crucified Him. Worldly men dislike the
message now, probably, as much as they ever did. But they escape from
it, either by treating it as a self-evident commonplace which no
Christian denies, and therefore no Christian need think of; or by smiling
at it as an exploded superstition, at least as a "Semitic" form of
thought, with which we have nothing to do. They confound it, often I
fear purposely, with those fancied miraculous interpositions, those
paltry special providences, which fanatics in all ages have believed to
be worked for their own special behoof. Altogether they dislike, and
express very openly their dislike, of the least allusion to a Divine
Providence "interfering," as they strangely term it, with them and their
affairs.

And they are wise, doubtless, in their generation. The news that Christ
is the King of men and of the world must be unpleasant, even offensive,
to too many, both of those who fancy that they are managing this world,
and of those who fancy that they could manage the world still better, if
they only had their rights. It must be unpleasant to be told that they
are not managing the world, and cannot manage it: that it is being
managed and ruled by an unseen King, whose ways are far above their ways,
and His thoughts above their thoughts.

For then: Prudence might demand of them, that they should find out what
are that King's ways, thoughts and laws, and obey them--an enquiry so
troublesome, that many very