An awful thought and yet a blessed thought. Think of it, my friends-- think of it day and night. Under God's anger, or under God's love, we must be, whether we will or not. We cannot flee from His presence. We cannot go from His spirit. If we are loving, and so rise up to heaven, God is there--in love. If we are cruel, and wrathful, and so go down to hell, God is there also--in wrath: with the clean He will be clean, with the froward man He will be froward. In God we live and move, and have our being. On us, and on us alone, it depends, what sort of a life we shall live, and whether our being shall be happy or miserable. On us, and on us alone, it depends, whether we shall live under God's anger, or live under God's love. On us, and on us alone, it depends whether the eternal and unchangeable God shall be to us a consuming fire, or light, and life, and bliss for evermore. We never had more need to think of this than now; for there has spread over the greater part of the civilised world a strong spirit of disbelief in the living God. Men do not believe that God punishes sin and wrong- doing, either in this world or in the world to come. And it is not confined to those who are called infidels, who disbelieve in the incarnation and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Would to God it were so! Everywhere we find Christians of all creeds and denominations alike, holding the very same ruinous notion, and saying to themselves, God does not govern this present world. God does not punish or reward in this present life. This world is all wrong, and the devil's world, and therefore I cannot prosper in the world unless I am a little wrong likewise, and do a little of the devil's work. So one lies, another cheats, another oppresses, another neglects his plainest social duties, another defiles himself with base political or religious intrigues, another breaks the seventh commandment, or, indeed, any and every one of the commandments which he finds troublesome. And when one asks in astonishment--You call yourselves Christians? You believe in God, and the Bible, and Christianity? Do you not think that God will punish YOU for all this? Do you not hear from the psalmists, and prophets, and apostles, of a God who judges and punishes such generations as this? Of a wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men, who, like you, hold down the truth in unrighteousness, knowing what is right and yet doing what is wrong? Then they answer, at least in their hearts, Oh dear no! God does not govern men now, or judge men now. He only did so, our preachers tell us, under the old Jewish dispensation; and such words as you quote from our Lord, or St Paul, have only to do with the day of judgment, and the next life, and we have made it all right for the next life. I, says one, regularly perform my religious duties; and I, says another, build churches and chapels, and give large