"And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) shall know that there hath been a prophet among them."--Ezekiel 2:5. He thought it would not be questioned by thinking persons that we are living in a time of political peril. He did not mean that revolution was at our door; he did not mean that we are threatened with a reign of terror; he did not mean that there was any prospect of immediate bloodshed. -------- I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation; I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great congregation.--Psalm 40:9, 10. -------- Our perils spring from our state--the state of our own souls. They are lacking in moral sensibility--we are in danger. We are told on every hand our country was never more prosperous--that is unquestionably so. The same might be said of Rome when that colossal empire was tottering to its fall. There were persons then who paid from $200,000 to $400,000 for a single feast. It is recorded of one man that, after spending several millions of dollars in luxurious living, he committed suicide because he had only $400,000 between him and starvation. National bankruptcy does not stare us in the face. Fortunes grow up in a generation--the dollar smiles upon us as a beneficent sun. Yet our moral condition is such as to call forth from thinking men serious and earnest fear. We are as a man living in a luxuriously appointed house, and yet, on account of invalidism, unable to appreciate his splendid home and environments. -------- Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. --------