Believe that man requires another
bread than the bread of the body; that sometimes the want of the
bodily bread will awaken the hunger for that bread of the soul.
Bear in mind that the period during which the middle and lower
classes of England were most brutalized, was that of their greatest
material prosperity, the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Remember that with the distress which came upon them, at the end of
the French war, their spiritual hunger awakened--often in forms
diseased enough: but growing healthier, as well as keener, year by
year; and that if they are not brutalized once more by their present
unexampled prosperity, it will be mainly owing to the spiritual life
which was awakened in those sad and terrible years. Remember that
the present carelessness of the masses about either religious or
political agitation, though it may be a very comfortable sign to
those who believe that a man's life consists in the abundance of the
things which he possesses, is a very ominous sign to some who study
history, and to some also who study their Bibles: and ask
yourselves earnestly the question, 'From where shall a man find food
for these men in this wilderness, not of want, but of wealth?' For,
believe me, that spiritual hunger, though stopped awhile by physical
comfort, will surely reawaken.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91