246 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



some things. " The wages of sin is death ; " physical 

 death for breaking physical law, and spiritual death 

 for breaking spiritual law. How can it be otherwise ? 

 The wages are fairly earned. The hardest doctrine 

 for a scientific man to believe is that there can be any 

 forgiveness of such sin as the heedless, ungrateful 

 breaking of such wise and beneficent laws of a loving 

 Father. And yet my earthly father has had to for- 

 give me a host of times during my boyhood. Per- 

 haps I can hope the same from God ; I take his 

 word for it. 



But if you or I think that it is safe to trifle with 

 God's laws, we are terribly mistaken. The Lord pro- 

 claimed himself to Moses as " The Lord, the Lord 

 God, merciful and gracious, long-sufi'ering, and abun- 

 dant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thou- 

 sands, forgiving iniqiiity and transgression and sin, 

 and that will by no means clear the guilty ; visitiag 

 the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and 

 upon the children's children, unto the third and to 

 the fourth generation." But someone will say. This 

 is terrible. It is terrible ; but the question is. Does 

 the Bible speak the truth about natui'e? Is nature 

 a " fairy godmother," or does she bring men up with 

 sternness and inflict suffering upon the innocent 

 children, if necessary, lest they copy after their sin- 

 ful parents ? Do the children of the defaulter and 

 drunkard and debauchee suffer because of the sins of 

 their father, or do they not ? If the blessings won by 

 parental virtue go down to the thousandth generation, 

 must not the evil consequences of sin go down to the 

 third or fourth ? 



That we are not under the law, but under grace. 



