to be dogmatic or satirical, to snub and crush with a word, is as near to
him as to a slave-driver is the fourteen-feet thong in his hand, with a
line of bare black backs before him.

These things are written of ourselves. In his great book on 'Democracy in
America,' De Tocqueville pointed out, more than fifty years ago, the
dangers into which the religious middle classes fall by the spread of
wealth and comfort. That danger has increased, till for the _rich_ on whom
Christ called woe, we might well substitute the _comfortable._ At a time
when a very moderate income brings within our reach nearly all the
resources of civilisation, which of us does not find day by day a dozen
distractions that drown for him the voice of conscience: a crowd of men to
lose himself in from God and his best friends: half a dozen base comforts,
in the lap of which he forgets duty and dreams only of self? Comfort makes
us all thoughtless, and thoughtlessness is the parent of every cruelty.

The Psalm makes no attempt to turn this tyrant whom it challenges; it
invokes the mercy of God, not to change him, but to show how vain his
boasts are, and to give heart to those whom he oppresses. God's mercy
endureth for ever; but he must pass away. The righteous shall see his end,
and fear and laugh: their satire will have religion in it. But though the
Psalm does not design this sinner's conversion, its very challenge contains
an indication of the means by which he and all selfish people who are like
him may be changed to nobler lives. In this respect it has a gospel for us
all, which may be thus stated.

There are poor invalids who ought to get their health again by seeking the
open air and sunshine, but who keep between their bed and their hearthrug,
cowering over their fire with the blinds pulled down;--to whom comes the
wise doctor, pulls up the blinds, shows them that it is day outside, with