Christ, then they will have a supreme authority, a secure guide in their personal, their family, and their social life; and He adds to the assurance of Moses the promise of His Holy Spirit to interpret His will to them and to assist them in their struggles. That is the one and the sufficient condition for realizing here on earth the blessing of the peace which God designs for us. Life animated by that love would secure it--and that alone. Now the one question it would be well for us to put to ourselves on this day of confession and self amendment is whether it has not been the chief wickedness, and the growing wickedness, of Europe at large, and of ourselves in particular, to fail to make this love of God, this submission to God and to Christ, the one supreme principle and inspiration of our whole life, private, social, and public. I would ask whether religion, as people generally understand it, has not been allowed to become of late years, in an increasing degree, too much of a private and personal matter--a matter of individual preference, a part of a man’s character which could hardly be treated as an absolute duty, so that a man who did not live a religious life was, as it were, within his rights, and that he could not be treated as neglecting a supreme obligation? Has it not been our temptation, as a nation, to legislate without a supreme regard to this first duty, so as even to allow our children and the children of the nation to be educated without supreme regard to it? Has not attendance at Divine Worship been grievously neglected of late years as a consequence of this growing decay of the love of God? Have not the words of our Lord and His Apostles been losing the authority which they used to possess among us, and which they must possess with all who believe them to be a revelation of the supreme Will of Almighty God? As a consequence of all this, has there not been a grievous loss among us of the sense that we are all under the judgment of God, that we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to give account of all that we have done in the body, good or bad? And has not the most momentous of all controlling influences been thus grievously weakened in our own lives? It is enough for one like myself to suggest the question. It needs a prophet with a Divine Mission to drive it home.