Page:Orange Grove.djvu/359

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whole catalogue of evils, if a person be allowed to speak his own honest thought and call a sin a sin, whether committed in high places or low. Does he think we shall avoid them by continuing in our wickedness? Is that the kingdom of God he was sent to preach? Dare he stand in the sacred desk and ask the blessing of God on his efforts to christianize the heathen of foreign lands, when defending a system which denies the Bible to the heathen on our own shores? Nay, more, who charges Him with giving it his divine sanction?

"There is a certain recognized moral standard which requires no logic for its interpretation, nor scholastic display of forensic ability to decide its claims on the conscience, being as clear and indisputable to the simplest child as to the most learned professor. Once admit that we may legislate crime into a law, and what becomes of our obligations to God? What anchor have we to prevent us from drifting on the dark and dismal shores of Atheism the moment we set up injustice as the bulwark of a nation's safety,—the God whom we are commanded to worship and obey? In vain may you plead laws and precedents; inferiority of race, or christianizing influences if that were possible; you cannot abate one iota of the crime you commit when you take from a single human being, however degraded or debased, one of the absolute rights that are the birthright of humanity.

"Injustice may flourish for a while, and the nation grow rich on its spoils, but so sure as He sits on the throne of the universe, there will not be wanting at