asked the spirits "Am I not your Lord?"[1] and they called out in an answer "yes!" that loving answer has never waned or decayed within my soul. When I was only three years old, I used to spend all night in the worship of the Lord God, without giving any slumber to my eyes."
O thou who longest after the love of God! the second cause of love in man which we have mentioned, viz: beneficence, operates through the state of poverty and need in which man has been created. Both in the affairs of the world and in the concerns of religion, man is in want of an infinite variety of things, as God says in his word, "Verily, God is rich, but ye are poor.".[2] Hence a man always loves and honors whatever person enables him to obtain any object of which he stands in need, or who makes it probable that he will obtain it. This will be the case especially, if the same individual has at various times supplied his necessities. He will then be enslaved to him, heart and soul, and whenever his name is mentioned will chant his praise and invoke blessings upon him. The proverb says, "man is a slave to beneficence."
In matters of religion, man has need of helpers of two kinds. The first class are the great expounders of doctrine,[3] who instruct him in religious precepts, and preserve him from the darkness of ignorance and the dangers of doubt. They also make him acquainted with the restrictions of the law, and the regulations and ceremonies of worship. They explain to him what conduct corresponds with rectitude, and what is improper,—what is lawful and what unlawful. The second class of helpers to man are the venerable preachers.[4] It is their province to throw
