I said--Most miserable, in that case, was the world and man. I did not say that they would consider themselves miserable. I did not say that they would think it a Gospel, and good news, that Christ was their King, and that His Kingdom was always at hand. They never thought that good news. When the prophets told them of it, they stoned them. When the Lord Himself told them, they crucified Him. Worldly men dislike the message now, probably, as much as they ever did. But they escape from it, either by treating it as a self-evident commonplace which no Christian denies, and therefore no Christian need think of; or by smiling at it as an exploded superstition, at least as a "Semitic" form of thought, with which we have nothing to do. They confound it, often I fear purposely, with those fancied miraculous interpositions, those paltry special providences, which fanatics in all ages have believed to be worked for their own special behoof. Altogether they dislike, and express very openly their dislike, of the least allusion to a Divine Providence "interfering," as they strangely term it, with them and their affairs. And they are wise, doubtless, in their generation. The news that Christ is the King of men and of the world must be unpleasant, even offensive, to too many, both of those who fancy that they are managing this world, and of those who fancy that they could manage the world still better, if they only had their rights. It must be unpleasant to be told that they are not managing the world, and cannot manage it: that it is being managed and ruled by an unseen King, whose ways are far above their ways, and His thoughts above their thoughts. For then: Prudence might demand of them, that they should find out what are that King's ways, thoughts and laws, and obey them--an enquiry so troublesome, that many very highly educated persons consider it, now-a- days, quite impossible; and tell us that, for practical purposes, God's laws can neither be discovered, nor obeyed. Moreover, their scheme of this world is one which would work--so they fancy--just as well if there was no God. Unpleasant therefore it must be for them to hear, not merely that there is a God, but that He has His own scheme of the world; and that it is working, whether they like or not; that God, and not they, is making history; God, and not they, appointing the bounds and the times of nations; God, and not they, or any man or men, distributing good and evil among mankind.