“Suppose I take an illustration from nature. We go into your garden, and as we pass along, you with your pruning knife in your hand make a cut in one of the trees. Ten years from now we meet again, and as we pass the tree you remark: ‘Why, Mr. Jasper, here is the very tree I cut ten years ago, and there is not a sign or scar of the knife. It is as if it never had been hurt!’ ‘Hold! I cry. Let us cut the tree down and open it.’ There is the inevitable wound made by your knife. It could not be otherwise. Nature always retains its scars and why not men? So the immortal soul never forgets or loses anything of good or evil. It is fearful, awful, I know, and makes one dread to live. Everybody has to carry through life the scars they received in their youth. It is nonsense to say that a life tainted with sin may come out all right in the end. “The acts of men when once performed are indestructible and eternal, whether they are good or evil. Could they be annihilated, then the good might go as well as the evil, and nothing would be settled, all would be chaos. “‘According to law,’ is an expression of the justice of an action among men, so we can say that God does everything according to law. Neither will He, or can He, by miracles or any special providence, change or interfere with the execution of His established laws. Why should He? In answer to prayer? What a mess this world would be in, if God answered everybody’s prayers! Two Christian people are at war. Both claim to be right, and each prays to God for help to conquer the other. The one is conquered, but does it acknowledge that its defeat was because God was not with it? “A farmer went to his minister and asked him to pray for rain, as his corn was drying up. Another farmer objected as he had just cut his grass and rain would ruin it. What would be for the benefit of one might be loss or death to many. Who can interfere with the government of the Almighty? “Who knows the laws so well as He that made them? Nine-tenths of the suggestions and directions to God, as to how He should manage the affairs of the world, would be insults and sins, were it not for the incapacity and ignorance of those who make them. It is no crime or sin for a donkey to bray at the moon. “Suppose that one who has spent years in study and experiment produces a large and intricate machine. He knows the purposes for which it was built and all the details and manner of using it. Is such a man to receive directions how to manage his machine from any passer-by, from persons who know nothing of mechanical laws, and of but little else, and never gave an hour’s thought to the simplest mechanical appliance? If any one knows more about the machine than its maker, it might be well for him to give suggestions. So if any one knows more about the world and knows how to take care of it better than its Creator, let him step up, and give his advice and orders.”