persons getting outside the influence of the intolerable temptations which their discordant life renders them constantly subject to; supposing that the law of the nation has provided no reasonable outlet or escape for them, what are they to do? Brethren, we all have to suffer from imperfect laws, more or less, and let us hope that misery is the exception and not the rule of married life. 'But then,' you will say, 'it is poor comfort to be the exception if the minority is not to be represented.' There are many subjects, however my brethren, upon which it is very difficult to come to any sound judgment or conclusion. We had better admit that. In the case I have just been suggesting, it may very often be found that the parties have only themselves to blame for their condition. They have not, in fact, begun to look into the law of sacrifice early enough. In how many cases of matrimonial dissatisfaction may we not say to the parties, 'If you had driven more carefully over the stones during the first six months of your married life, do you not think you would have had far fewer upsets afterwards? If you had had sufficient self-restraint and common sense to have borne and forborne with each other, you would never have found yourselves in the evil case of having a quarrel with the laws of society as at present constituted.' But I judge no man. If a man so situated comes to me and says, 'I find my condition intolerable,' I can only reply, that he is his own master, and that by his own conduct he must stand or fall. If any man choose to set up his individual conscience against the conscience of the nation and the laws of society, if he says to moral laws as applied to him, 'My burden is greater than I can bear,' he does so upon his own responsibility. It may be that he has a full justification in the eyes of God, though not in the eyes of men. If he be wrong, it will go against him in the great day when God makes up the number of His jewels. 154. In conclusion, dear friends, the motive power to do right must come upon you like the mightier one upon the strong man armed. Your hearts must be taken captive, your lusts and evil appetites slain, and the heavenly passions must enter in and subdue the weaker ones that are of the earth, earthy. You see constantly the bad motive expels the good motive, because the bad is the strongest. Try if the good motive may not be made strong enough to expel the bad one. You ask how? and I can but answer, The Spirit of God comes upon the man who prays, comes upon the man who seeks to do his Father's will, and be about his Father's business. It comes, brethren, as the wind comes, and as the light of the morning. It comes as the fire of patriotism, comes to make a man sacrifice even the nearest and the dearest, it comes as love comes, to make us insensible to our own private feelings, and willing to suffer for those whom we love. So are we inspired by God in our daily lives with a motive power which the world has not given and which the world cannot take away-an enthusiasm to do the right for Christ and His brethren, and to sanctify the Lord God in our bodies and in our spirits which are you the desire of your eyes? the one who is more to you than father, mother, brother, or sister, or friend. Do you not compel that beloved one to pass into the boat which is taking the others to deliverance; and when there is no room found for you, do you not stand quietly upon the deck of your sinking vessel, and see the raging elements around you, and face death calmly, because you know one is safe who is dearer than life? Ah! at that moment is not the thought of going down into that great, angry, cruel, deep sea, is it not transfigured by the act of love and sacrifice by which another has been saved? But that is vicarious suffering, vicarious death ! And now take all these ideals of sacrifice, weld them into one harmonious whole, and raise them to the plane of the Divine, and we have none other than the character of God Himself as He stands related to man; as the God of sacrifice and the God of love! 149. Is this incredible? Is this extravagant or impossible to conceive? We have traced and tested the highest influence in the life of man, in the life of humanity, and we tell you that it has its seat in the bosom of God Himself; that such an influence has come forth and been incarnate in a Person; that such a one, called Jesus Christ, has presented God to man as love, man to God as sacrifice, being Himself love, and giving Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. Yes; I believe that in some inscrutable way this power of going forth and giving Himself for mankind, entering into their sorrows and trials, becoming as one |