n more danger of committing it in
England just now than ever we were; that learned men especially are
in danger of so doing, because they know so far more of the wonders
and the vastness of God's creation than the heathens of old knew.

But you are not learned, you will say: you are plain people, who
know nothing about these wonderful discoveries which men make by
telescopes and magnifying-glasses, but use your own eyes in a plain
way to get your daily bread, and you feel no such temptations. You
believe, of course, that the kingdom and power and glory of all we
see is God's.

Yes; but do you believe too that He whom people are too apt to call
God, just because they have no other name to call Him, is your
Father? That it is your Father's will which governs the weather,
which makes the earth bear fruit and gladden the heart of man with
good and fruitful seasons?

Alas, my friends, if we will open our eyes, see things in their true
light, and call things by their true name, we shall see many a man
in England now honouring the creature more than the Creator;
trusting in the seasons and the soil more than he does in God, and
so sinning in just the same way as the heathen of old.

When people say to themselves, 'I must get land, I must get money,
by any means; honestly if I can, if not, dishonestly; for have it I
must;' what are they doing then but denying that the kingdom, the
power, and the glory of this earth belong to the Righteous God, and
that He, and not the lying Devil, gives them to whomsoever He will?

When people say to themselves (as who does not at moments?) 'To be
rich is to be safe; a man's life does consist in the abundance of
what he possesses;' what are they doing but saying that man does
_not_ live by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God, but
by what he can get for himself and keep for himself? When they are
fretful and anxious about their crops, when they even repine and
complain of Providence, as I have known men do because they do not
prosper as they wish, what are they doing but saying in their
hearts, 'The weather and the seasons are the lords and masters of my
good fortune, or bad fortune. I depend on them, and not on God, for
comfort and for wealth, and my Heavenly Father does _not_ know what
I have need of?' When parents send their girls out to field-work,
without any care about whom they talk with, to have their minds
corrupted by hearing filthiness and seeing immodest beh