crime of unusual atrocity, even though no member of the community has been directly affected thereby. "Lynch Law." So all sin, as sin, arouses the Divine disgust and indignation. "My _soul_ hateth." 4. _It is a degradation of those whom God loves._ We all condemn and loathe drunkenness; but who of us loathes it as does that mother who is being hurried by it to an untimely and dishonoured grave? God loves us more than any mother ever loved her son, and His hatred of sin is proportioned by His love for us whom it degrades and destroys.[3] 5. _It is often a wrong inflicted on those whom He loves._ Few men sin without wronging others as well as themselves. Now with what anger do we burn when we detect our children defrauding and oppressing each other! But between the sputtering of a lucifer-match and the glowing fires of a volcano, there is not so much disparity as between the anger which the spectacle of sins against brotherhood kindles in us and that which it rouses in God (Jer. ix. 9). To form any adequate conception of the offensiveness of sin to God, we must remember that these considerations do not operate singly, but operate in combination to make it hateful to Him. How marvellous, then, is His endurance of it! Consider, then-- +II. God's patience with human sin.+ He speaks here of being "troubled" by the worship of ungodly men; it is a burden of which He is "weary." Why, then, does He bear it for a moment? Why, then, does He not give quick vent to the indignation that burns within Him, and consume His troubles with swift destruction? He bears with us--1. _That by His patience He may appeal to our better feelings._ He does us good, and not evil (Matt. v. 45), that we may be made ashamed to sin against such generosity. When men are not altogether hardened in iniquity, there is nothing so likely to overcome them as a requital of wrongs by blessing,[4] especially where he who so requites it has full power to avenge himself. By His long-suffering, God has led countless thousands to repentance. 2. _That He may set us an example of self-restraint._ It is because He is Himself so slow to anger, that He is able to warn us against vindictiveness. God does not only lay upon us precepts of excellence: He Himself embodies them. 3. _That He may place the righteousness of his judgments beyond dispute._ A space of grace and forbearance seems necessary to enable onlookers to perceive that the awful doom which at length will come upon sinners is fully deserved, and is perfectly consistent with His own mercifulness. If "Wisdom" had not "called," reproved, counselled, "stretched out her hands" in entreaty, the stern words in which she announces the awful and irrevocable doom of her despisers would shock us (Prov. i. 20, 32). 4. _That a moral probation may be rendered possible._ If punishment always instantly and obviously followed transgression, the world would be ruled by terror so overwhelming