tage from him. Thus it comes to pass that the rest of the children grow up without the education that they need, like a forest which no one plants, waters, cuts, or keeps in order. Hence it is that we find unruly manners and customs in the world, in towns and in market-places, in houses and in men, for these both in body and soul are full of confusion. If Diogenes, Socrates, Seneca, or Solomon were to come to life again this day and visit us, they would find the world in the same state as formerly. Were God to address us from heaven He could only say as He said before: “They are all gone astray, they are all together become filthy there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psalm xiv. 3). If, therefore, any man exist who can devise some plan, or who with tears, sighs, and entreaties can obtain from heaven a method by which some improvement may be made in the youth who are growing up, let him not hold his tongue, but rather let him advise, think, and speak.“Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way,” says God (Deuteronomy xxvii. 18). And cursed, therefore, is he who can free the blind from their error and does not do so. “Woe unto him who shall offend one of these little ones,” says Christ (Matthew xviii. 6, 7). Woe also unto him who can prevent injury and does not. God wills not that the ass or the ox that strays through field and forest and sinks under its burden be deserted, but that it eceive help, even if the helper do not know to whom it belongs, or if he know that it is his enemy’s (Deuteronomy xxii. 1). Can it then please Him that we pass by without thought, and stretch out no helping hand, when we see the errors, not of beasts, but of intelligent beings, not of one or two, but of the whole world? Let this be far from us!
Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood (Jeremiah xlviii. 10). And yet we hope to remain guiltless while we thoughtlessly suffer the terrible Babylon of error that is ours! Up, let him seize his sword who is girt with one, or who knows where one lies buried in its
