"If the angel Gabriel were to come down from heaven, and head a successful rise against the most abominable and unrighteous vested interests which this poor old world groans under, he would most certainly lose his character for many years, probably for centuries, not only with upholders of the said vested interest, but with the respectable mass of the people he has delivered. They wouldn't ask him to dinner, or let their names appear with his in the papers; they would be careful how they spoke of him in the palaver, or at their clubs. What can we expect, then, when we have only poor gallant, blundering men like Garibaldi and Mazzini, and righteous causes which do not triumph in their hands; men who have holes enough in their armour, God knows, easy to be hit by respectabilities sitting in their lounge-chairs, and having large balances at their bankers. But you are brave, gallant boys, who have no balances or bankers, and hate easy-chairs. You only want to have your heads set straight to take the right side; so bear in mind that majorities, especially respectable ones, are nine times out of ten in the wrong, and that if you see a man or boy striving earnestly on the weaker side, however wrong-headed or blundering he may be, you are not to go and join the cry against him. If you cannot join him, and help him, and make him wiser, at any rate remember that he has found something in the world which he will fight and suffer for--which is just what you have got to do for yourselves--and so think and speak of him tenderly." Those manly words are worth quoting in full, and they will fitly set forth the service young Asa rendered to his kingdom, and to the world at large. I. It may be well to analyse a little more closely the reformation this right-hearted king attempted. He diminished opportunities for sin. The traffic in vice, by which many were making profit, he put down with a strong hand. And there are hotbeds of vice to be found in our own land, where strong appeal is made to the lusts of the flesh, and where intoxicating drink incites men to yield to passions which need restraint. Indeed, even in our streets moral perils assail the young and innocent, which no Christian nation ought to tolerate. We often meet the assertion that we cannot make people moral by Acts of Parliament; but if dens of infamy, which it is perilous to enter, are swept away, if gin-palaces and public-houses which flood the land with ruin are diminished in number, and in their hours of trade, it would certainly lessen the evils we deplore. Vested interests fight against such a change, and many on the side of sobriety and righteousness shrink from the contest, so that we need the inspiration which God gave to Asa, if we are to win the victory.