It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother thus taught me, that which cost me most to learn, and which was, to my child’s mind, chiefly repulsive—the 119th Psalm—has now become of all the most precious to me, in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the Law of God: “Oh, how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day; I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Thy word”;—as opposed to the ever-echoing words of the modern money-loving fool: “Oh, how hate I thy law! it is my abomination all the day; my feet are swift in running to mischief, and I have done all the things I ought not to have done, and left undone all I ought to have done; have mercy upon me, miserable sinner,—and grant that I, worthily lamenting my sins and acknowledging my wretchedness, may obtain of Thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness,—and give me my long purse here and my eternal Paradise there, all together, for Christ’s sake, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory,” etc. And the letter of my liberal correspondent, pointing out, in the defence of usury (of which he imagines himself acquainted with the history!) how the Son of David hit his father in the exactly weak place, puts it in my mind at once to state some principles respecting the use of the Bible as a code of law, which are vital to the action of the St. George’s Company in obedience to it. All the teaching of God, and of the nature He formed round Man, is not only mysterious, but, if received with any warp of mind, deceptive, and intentionally deceptive. The distinct and repeated assertions of this in the conduct and words of Christ are the most wonderful things, it seems to me, and the most terrible, in all the recorded action of the wisdom of Heaven. “To you” (His disciples) “it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom,—but to others, in parables, that, hearing, they might not understand.” Now this is written not for the twelve only, but for all disciples of Christ in all ages,—of whom the sign is one and unmistakable: “They have forsaken all that they have”; while those who “say they are Jews and are not, but do lie,” or who say they are Christians and are not, but do lie, try to compromise with Christ,—to give Him a part, and keep back a part;—this being the Lie of lies, the Ananias lie, visited always with spiritual death. [28]