ABSTRACT
Every phase of personal duty is enforced by this solemn affirmation—deference to parents and the aged; tenderness for the infirm, and the stricken, and the helpless; ceremonial conformity; the sanctification of God’s days; the avoidance of superstition; love for the stranger and for the enemy. God, the Just and the All-powerful, calls sinners strictly to account; His promise of blessing for the righteous is sure. Duty, then, is Divine—that is the thought which the text chiefly inculcates. Whoso sins rebels against the Sovereign Will opposes himself to all the forces of the universe; whoso keeps the Commandment puts himself into harmony with that Will and with the universe which is its expression—ranges himself on the side of Omnipotence. Conscience, it may be said, is the product of education, of environment, of chance. It may be warped, drugged, slain.
