Yes, the king was very angry, as he had a right to be. Yes, let us lay that to heart, and tremble, from the very worst of us all to the very best of us all. There is an anger in God. There is indignation in God. Our highest reason ought to tell us that there must be anger in God, as long as sin and wrong exist in any corner of the universe. For all that is good in man is of the likeness of God. And is it not a good feeling, a noble feeling, in man, to be indignant, or to cry for vengeance on the offender, whenever we hear of cruelty, injustice, or violence? Is that not noble? I say it is. I say that the man whose heart does not burn within him at the sight of tyranny and cruelty, of baseness and deceit, who is not ready to say, Take him, and do to him as he has done to others; that man's heart is not right with God, or with man either. His moral sense is stunted. He is on the way to become, first, if he can, a tyrant, and then a slave. And shall there be no noble indignation in God when He beholds all the wrong which is done on earth? Shall the just and holy God look on carelessly and satisfied at injustice and unholiness which vexes even poor sinful man? God forbid! To think that, would, to my mind, be to fancy God less just, less merciful, than man. And if any one says, Anger is a passion, a suffering from something outside oneself, and God can have no passions; God cannot be moved by the sins and follies of such paltry atoms as we human beings are: the answer is, Man's anger--even just anger--is, too often, a passion; weak-minded persons, ill-educated persons, especially when they get together in mobs, and excite each other, are carried away when they hear even a false report of cruelty or injustice, by their really wholesome indignation, and say and do foolish, and cruel, and unjust things, the victims of their own passion. But even among men, the wiser a man is, the purer, the stronger-minded, so much the more can he control his indignation, and not let it rise into passion, but punish the offender calmly, though sternly, according to law. Even so, our reason bids us believe, does God, who does all things by law. His eternal laws punish of themselves, just as they reward of themselves. The same law of God may be the messenger of His anger to the bad, while it is the messenger of His love to the good. For God has not only no passions, but no parts; and therefore His anger and His love are not different, but the same. And His love is His anger, and His anger is His love.