"If it be said that this disposition is unattainable, I answer, so is all perfection; ought therefore a moralist to recommend imperfections? One excellency; ought therefore a moralist to recommend imperfections? never mistaken, or never so mistaken as to do harm. I could feign a hundred cases in which the literal application of the rule, 'of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us,' might mislead us; but I never yet met with the man who was actually misled by it. Not withstanding that our Lord bade his followers not to resist evil, and 'to forgive the enemy who should trespass against them, not till seven times, but till seventy times seven,' the Christian world has hitherto suffered little by too much placability or forbearance. I would repeat once more, what has already been twice remarked, that these rules were designed to regulate personal conduct from personal motives, and for this purpose alone. "I think that these observations will assist us greatly in placing our Saviour's conduct, as a moral teacher, in a proper point of view; especially when it is considered, that to deliver moral disquisitions was no part of his design,--to teach morality at all was only a subordinate part of it; his great business being to supply, what was much more wanting than lessons of morality, stronger moral sanctions, and clearer assurances of a future judgment." (Paley's View of the Evidences of Christianity, pp. 151, 2, 3.) For further reflections upon the excellence of the manner of the Messiah's teaching, and especially for the consideration of added strength and beauties to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, in the Book of Mormon, see Lecture on the Fifth Gospel (III Nephi) Defense of the Faith and the Saints, pp. 383-389. LESSON XXII. (Scripture Reading Exercise.) THE STATE OF THE WORLD AT MESSIAH'S ADVENT. (A Discourse[A]) [Footnote A: This is a subject usually treated at great length in nearly all Ecclesiastical Histories; so that information is abundant. See "Mosheim, Ecclesiastical Institutes": also the same author's "History of Christianity in the First Three Centuries;" Schaff's "History of the Apostolic Church"; Neander's "History of the Christian Religion" Vol. I; Milman "History of Christianity" Vol. 1; Edersheisn's "Life and Times of the Messiah"; Vol. I, Introduction and Book I, Dr. Smith's "New Testament History," Book I, especially Appendix to Book I. Robert's "Outlines of Ecclesiastical History," Sec. II and notes.] NOTES. _1. Suggestions to the Teacher:_ This subject could to advantage be divided and assigned to two or even three speakers. Say I, The Political state of the World: II, The Political Status of the Jews at Messiah's Birth: III, The Religious state of heathen nations and of the Jews at Messiah's Birth. Members should be urged to give something of completeness to their treatis upon these and all subjects assigned to them as lectures, or discourses.