So far as doctrines and duties are concerned, not conscience, but the revealed Word of God, is our one, only sure and safe directory.--_Guthrie._ OPPRESSION OF THE POOR. iii. 15. _What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts._ That infidelity should progress among the labouring classes is one of the most surprising and unreasonable things imaginable. For there is no book so emphatically on the side of the poor as is the Bible. Were the Bible obeyed, the miseries of the poor would vanish. The truth, however, is, that the Bible has suffered from its professed friends. The upper classes who have patronised it have not put its precepts into practice, and the victims of their greed and oppression have foolishly accepted their conduct as an exposition of the teaching of the book which they have professed to venerate. Hence the wrongs which the poor have suffered have prepared them to listen to the blasphemies and to accept the sophisms of infidel lecturers. The employer of labour who oppresses his men during the six days of the week, and goes to church twice on the Sunday, is more dangerous to society than a score of Tom Paines or Bradlaughs. Hence also it is the duty of God's "prophets" in all ages to confront such men with the question of our text. +I. Oppression of the poor is one of the most common of all sins.+ It has been practised in all ages, in all countries, by all classes, in most varied forms. "Poor" is a relative term. Masters have oppressed their servants, debtors their creditors, officers their soldiers, kings their subjects, people their pastors. The oppression has often been so terrible that the oppressed have sought refuge in suicide. "Man's cruelty to man Makes countless thousands mourn." +II. Oppression of the poor is one of the most hateful of all sins.+ 1. _It is a misuse of strength._ Strength is given to men that they may be helpful to each other; but the oppressor uses his strength as if he were a tiger or a wolf; as if he were a wrecker who drowns the shipwrecked mariner whom he ought to rescue. 2. _It is a cowardly and shameful advantage that is taken of human weakness._ To lead a blind man into a quagmire or over a precipice would be thought a shameful act, even by the most degraded villains. But in what respect would it differ in principle from oppression of the poor? The weak and needy, by reason of their feebleness and poverty, have a claim upon our pity and help; to oppress them is to outrage the primary laws of conscience. Yet how often it is done!