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Unable to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God, I am more than ever thankful that my life has been prolonged till I could in some small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man who does not at some time render himself amenable to the one, quum vix Justus sit securus, so there is none that does not feel himself in daily need of the other.
To make our idea of morality centre on forbidden acts is to defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men a secret element of gusto. If a thing is wrong for us, we should not dwell upon the thought of it; or we shall soon dwell upon it with inverted pleasure.
IF no one were allowed to pass an opinion on the events of War, except at a moment when he is benumbed by frost, sinking from heat and thirst, or dying with hunger and fatigue, we should certainly have fewer judgments correct *objectively; but they would be so, SUBJECTIVELY, at least; that is, they would contain in themselves the exact relation between the person giving the judgment and the object.
By judgments of this kind they show an esteem for the matter itself unworthy of humanity, which ought only to value the matter inasmuch as it can receive a form and enlarge the empire of ideas. Accordingly, the taste of the age need not much fear these criticisms if it can clear itself before better judges.
"Oh!" said the lawyer, "the judges of the commercial courts and the judges of the civil courts are different sorts of judges. You dash through things. At the Palais de Justice we have stricter forms. Forms are the bulwarks of law. How would you like slap-dash judgments, which can't be appealed, and which would make you lose forty thousand francs?
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. Wherefore also, astonied at the infinite riches of his wisdom and knowledge, he cried for all to understand, 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
'Therefore, thus saith the Lord ye have not harkened unto me in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother, and every one to his neighbour behold I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine. Are we not virtually as a nation adopting the same impious language, and are we not exposed to the same tremendous judgments?
And so, as you look into these cases of supposed divine judgments, which people are so ready to see in regard to their neighbors, you will find that it has some serious defect of this sort almost always that makes you question whether a wise man would be guilty of that method of conducting his affairs.
In her hour of ease and satiety, she pretends to scorn the threats and judgments of the Most High, and, like Satan in his pandemonium, to make war on Heaven; but no sooner does the roaring of the thunderbolt shake the earth, or the vast abyss open its devouring throat to swallow her unhappy victims, than she hides her head in the caves of the earth, or, flying to some secure place, abandons her votaries to the forlorn hope of trusting to the weakness of their own minds for resources to extricate themselves from the evils that threaten them.
And seeing, as I say, the inside of this life and what it required, and how triumphs and notoriety were gained, was it a wonder that she gradually became in her gayety cynical, in her judgments bitter? I am not criticising her. What are we, who have had no opportunities, to sit in judgment on her!
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