The sun does not fail
to rise each morning, whether clouds obscure the sky or not,--the
moon appears at her stated seasons and performs her silver-footed
pilgrimage faithfully to time--the stars move with precision in
their courses,--and so true are they to their ordainment, that we
are able to predict the manner in which they will group themselves
and shine, years after we have passed away. In the world of Nature
the leaves bud, and the birds nest at the coming of Spring; the
roses bloom in Summer--the harvest is gathered in Autumn,--the whole
marvellous system moves like a grand timepiece whose hands are never
awry, whose chimes never fail to ring the exact hour,--and in all
the splendour of God's gifts to us there is no such thing as a
broken faith! Only we,--we, the creatures He has endowed with 'His
own image,'--Free-will,--break our faith with Him and with each
other. And so we come to mischief, inasmuch as broken faith is no
part of God's Intention. And when two persons, man and woman, swear
to be true to each other before God, so long as life shall last, and
afterwards break that vow, confusion and chaos result from their
perjury, and all the pestilential furies attending on a wrong deed
whip them to their graves! In these times of ours, when wars and
rumours of wars shake the lethargic souls of too-exultant
politicians and statesmen with anxiety for themselves if not for
their country, we hear every day of men and women breaking their
marriage vows as lightly as though God were not existent,--we read
of princes whose low amours are a disgrace to the world--of dukes
and earls who tolerate the unchastity of their wives in order that
they themselves may have the more freedom,--of men of title and
position who even sell their wives to their friends in order to
secure some much-needed cash or social advantage,--and while our law
is busy night and day covering up 'aristocratic' crimes from
publicity, and showing forth the far smaller sins of hard-working
poverty, God's law is at work in a totally different way.
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