halting, and unhelpful to our tottering feebleness. He compasses us with
His love and its gifts, He draws us to Himself, and desires that we
should stand. He offers all the help of His angels to hold us up. 'He
will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not
slumber.' The judgment sleeps; the loving forbearance, the gracious aid
wake. Shall we not yield to His perpetual pleadings, and, moved by the
mercies of God, let His conquering love thaw our cold hearts into
streams of thankfulness and self-devotion?

But remember, that that predominantly merciful and long-suffering
character of God's present dealing affords no guarantee that there will
not come a time when His slumbering judgment will stir to waking. The
same chapter which tells us that 'He is long-suffering to us-ward, not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,'
goes on immediately to repel the inference that therefore a period of
which retribution shall be the characteristic is impossible, by the
solemn declaration, '_But_ the day of the Lord shall come as a thief in
the night.' His character remains ever the same, the principles of His
government are unalterable, but there may be variations in the
prominence given in His acts, to the several principles of the one, and
the various though harmonious phases of the other. The method may be
changed, the purpose may remain unchanged. And the Bible, which is our
only source of knowledge on the subject, tells us that the method _is_
changed, in so far as to intensify the vigour of the operation of
retributive justice after death, so that men who have been compassed
with 'the loving-kindness of the Lord,' and who die leaving worldly
things, and keeping worldly hearts, will have to confront 'the terror of
the Lord.'

The alternation of epochs of tolerance and destruction is in accordance