We may change either the language or the manners of wickedness, or the times and seasons for doing wicked things, and we may decorate our wickedness with many beautiful colors, but so long as the heart itself is unchanged decoration is useless—yea, worse than useless; for it is a vain attempt to make that look true which is false—an endeavor even to deceive Omniscience itself.
“And Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool. But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.”
Enduring masteries are not of a physical kind. Ahab held Mesha simply by a strong arm, and the consequence was that, as soon as Ahab was dead, Mesha refused to render the tribute.
This historical circumstance, limited so far as the mere letter is concerned, is full of significance to the Christian Church and to all Christian countries.
Let us not call ourselves masters of positions or of men, simply because we happen to have the stronger arm. The dominion which is acquired by mere strength and held by superior force is an illusion wherever it is found.
The men whom we may so hold may be hypocrites enough to assume an acquiescent attitude, or even to display a complacent demeanor; they may even go so far as to appear to be grateful for the rule which they can not set aside. But all such appearances are of necessity without reason, and therefore without continuance. They are always to be suspected.
This would be so in the case of the Christian faith, had we the power of imposing even its nominal belief upon any nation. Suppose we say that any man not professing the Christian faith shall certainly be fined, imprisoned or otherwise punished. It is easy to see that such a threat might in many instances bring about an appearance of acquiescence. But it must be, by the very necessity of the case, appearance only.
Faith is a question of the individual judgment and of the individual heart, and can not be controlled in any degree by external authority.
Suppose we create a law making it penal to open places of business on the Sabbath day. Looking upon all commercial houses whose business was suspended for a particular time, we might say: “See how unanimously and happily the Sabbath day is observed in this country!”
But such would be an altogether superficial and mistaken judgment. The Sabbath day can not be kept by law. If the Sabbath is not kept by the reason, and is not hailed with thankful delight by the very heart, it can never be kept at all.