Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

72 THE FIRST AND THE SECOND MAN.covenant of his son ship with God, but not the tiebetween himselfand his race.And this sheds a light upon the darkest partof that terrible picture which collected heathenismpresents to us. Man, as a social animal, is incessantin his action on his fellow-man ; the parentand the family form the child ; the companion andthe neighbourhood lead forth the child into manhood.This work is perpetually going on in allits parts, and society is the joint result. When,therefore we see this societ once fallen into thepossession of a false worship, which perverts thevery foundations of morality, and instils deadlyerror into the child with the mother's milk, nothoughtful mind can gaze without horror uponbeings involved in such a maze,8 yet intended foran eternal duration. Man's nature, as a race,seems turned against him ; and in addition to theguilt under which each individual of the race isborn, and the nature which each inherits, whereinthe internal harmony of peace is broken, andneither the appetites obey the reason nor thereason is obedient to God, comes the force ofhabit, of education, of culture, of companionship,of man's business and leisure, his play and hisearnest, the force of his language, the expressionof his thoughts upon himself and others, the wholeforce, in fact, of man's social being when it is putunder possession of an evil power, man's adversary."8 Tills is called by S. Peter 1. i. IS ?ej furraux di/aarpo^ irarpoTrapdSoros.