effectual manner. When Truth lays the axe at the root of error, saying, cut it down, then comes the experiences and sufferings that cause one, even as a drowning man, to make vigorous efforts to save himself, and these efforts are what save him.
“Work out your own salvation,” is the demand of Life and Love; and to this end God worketh with you. “Occupy until I come,” i. e., wait for thy reward and grow not weary in well doing. Although your endeavors are against fearful odds, receiving no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the contest, and you will find your reward when the smoke of battle clears away, so that you discern the good you have done, and your gain from experience. Love often delays to deliver from temptation, that it may try, and prove you as by fire. If you understand the science of being sufficiently to have faith in the right, and no faith in wrong, you will work more earnestly, though more silently, perhaps, in persecution than amid applause, for your labor is more needed; and the reward of your self-sacrifice is great, though it be never here. Final deliverance from error, whereby we rejoice in immortality, boundless freedom, and sinless sense, is not won through smooth footsteps, nor through doctrines, or pinning one's faith to personality. Whoso believeth wrath is righteous or appeased by the unmerited death of a good man, cannot understand God. Justice requires no propitiation but from the sinner; mercy cancels without pay or sacrifice, and revenge is inadmissible in Love. The wrath that is appeased is not destroyed, but indulged, and may require another sacrifice, one being found insufficient; but these are
