Now I say my friends that this is a lie, and comes from the father of
lies, who tempts every man, as he tempted our Lord, to believe that
the power and glory of this world are his, that man's flesh and body,
if not his soul, belongs to him. I say, it is no such thing. The
world is God's world. Man is God's creature, made in God's image,
and not in that of a beast or a devil. The kingdom, the power, and
the glory, ARE God's now. You say so every day in the Lord's Prayer--
believe it. St. James tells you not to curse men, because they are
made in the likeness of God now--not WILL be made in God's likeness
after they die. Believe that; do not be afraid of it, strange as it
may seem to understand. It is in the Bible, and you profess to
believe that what is in the Bible is true. And I say that this
suffering of the innocent for the guilty is a proof of that. If man
was not made so that the innocent could suffer for the guilty, he
could not have been redeemed at all, for there would have been no use
or meaning in Christ's dying for us, the just for the unjust. And
more, if the innocent could not suffer for the guilty we should be
like the beasts that perish.
Now, why? Because just in proportion as any creature is low--I mean
in the scale of life--just in that proportion it does without its
fellow-creatures, it lives by itself and cares for no other of its
kind.
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