Just as in a family, if parents, brothers, and sisters will not do their duty to each other lovingly and of their free will, the law interferes, and the custom of the country interferes, and the opinion of neighbours interferes, and says: “You may not love your parents: but you have no right to leave them to starve.” “You may not love your brothers: but if you try to injure and slander them, you are doing an unnatural and hateful thing, abhorred by God and man, and you must expect us to treat you accordingly, as a wild beast who does not feel the common laws of nature and right and wrong.” So with the law of the land. The law is meant to remind us more or less that we are brothers, members of one body; that we owe a duty to each other; that we are all equal in God’s sight, who is no respecter of persons, or of rank, or of riches, any more than the law is when it punishes the greatest nobleman as severely as the poorest labourer. The law is meant to remind us that God is just; that when we injure each other, we sin against God; that God’s rule and law is, that each transgression should receive its just reward, and that, therefore, because man is made in the likeness of God, man is bound, as far as he can, to visit every offence with due and proportionate punishment. And the law punishes, as St. Paul says, in God’s name, and for God’s sake. The magistrate is a witness for God’s righteous government of the world, the minister of God’s vengeance against evil-doers, to remind all continually that evil-doing has no place, and cannot prosper, and must not be allowed, upon this God’s earth whereon we live. But what if the laws are unfair, and punish only some sorts of evil-doers and not others? What if they are like spiders’ webs, which catch the little flies, and let the great wasps break through? What if they punish poor and weak offenders, and let the rich and powerful sinners escape? “Obey them still,” says St. Paul. In his time and country the laws were as unfair in that way as laws ever were, and yet he tells Christians to obey them for conscience’s sake. Thank God that they do punish weak offenders. Pray God that the time may come when they may be strong enough to punish great offenders also. But, in the meantime, see that they have not to punish you. As far as the laws go, they are right and good. As far as they keep down any sort of wrong-doing whatsoever, they are God’s ordinances, and you must obey them for God’s sake.