It is not
enough to read the parable of the lost sheep, and of the ninety and nine
that went not astray, and then say, "Even so, it is not the will of your
Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish,"
while the means of salvation, as regards the life of this world merely,
are very generally neglected. Such neglect is followed by error and
crime; and error and crime are followed by judgment not always tempered
with mercy.
While human governments debate questions of war and peace, of trade and
revenue, of annexations with ceremony, and appropriations of territory
without ceremony, who shall answer to the Governor and Judge of all for
the neglect, indifference, and oppression, which beget and foster the
delinquencies of childhood, and harden the criminals of adult life?
And who shall answer for those distinctions of caste and systems of
labor which so degrade and famish masses of human beings, that the
divine miracle of the feeding of the five thousand must be multiplied
many times over before the truths of nature or revelation can be
received into teachable minds or susceptible hearts? And who shall
answer for the hereditary poverty, ignorance and crime, which
constitute a marked feature of English life, and are distinctly visible
upon the face of American civilization? These questions may point with
sufficient distinctness to the sources of the evils enumerated; but we
are not to assume that mere human governments can furnish an adequate
and complete remedy.
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