42 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



" Who am I, that I should speak to the cliildren of Is- 

 rael ?'-* And from the depth of my heart I heard the 

 answer of God, with that spiritual ear with which every 

 diligent soul, even on earth, may hear it, " Thus 

 shalt thou say unto them, I AM hath sent me unto 

 you.'*t Thereupon I came to you, in my weakness and 

 in my might, to speak to you of the God of Abraham 

 and Isaac and Jacob — the personal and living God. 

 Before making appeal to revelation I questioned rea- 

 son, both yours and mine, and from the depth of hu- 

 man thought there came the answer, " I Am that I 

 Am." It was the sovereignty of God in the domain of 

 ideas. The next year we came down together into the 

 lights and shadows of the human conscience, and we 

 sought there the secret of the moral system. The voice 

 of conscience was in unison with the voice of reason. 

 It affirmed tlic necessary existence of a religious mo- 

 rality and the sovereignty of the God of virtues. Con- 

 stantly advancing, we entered tlie first circle of the so- 

 cial system — the family. Here, *too, in the authority of 

 the father, in the tenderness and solicitude of the mother, 

 in all the strong and beautiful structure of the house- 

 hold, we recognized the presence of the kingdom of God. 

 And now, standing face to face with the problems of 

 political philosophy, I have no other answer to give. I 

 speak for myself and for you, and I say, it is God; and 

 again, and always, it is God ! The true King as well as 

 the first Father, the supreme Lord of civil as well as 

 of domestic society, is God. He alone is the real Majesty, 

 wlio covers all tlieir borrowed majesties with the reflec- 

 tion of his glory. '' Tlie Lord is our King'' .... "yea, 

 the Lord sitieth King forever.'-| From tlie first page 



* Exodup, iii. 11. t Ibia.,11. 



t Ipaial), xxxiii. 2'2. Psalms Ixxii. 11 ; xxix. lU. 



