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Desolation of the Earth
317
The wicked are filled with regret, not because of their sinful
neglect of God and their fellow-men, but because God has conquered.
They lament that the result is what it is; but they do not repent of
their wickedness. They would leave no means untried to conquer if
they could.
The world see the very class whom they have mocked and de-
rided, and desired to exterminate, pass unharmed through tempest
and earthquake and pestilence. He who is to the transgressors of his
law a devouring fire, is to his people a safe pavilion.
The minister who has sacrificed truth to gain the favor of men,
now discerns the character and influence of his teachings. It is
apparent that an omniscient eye was following him as he stood in the
desk, as he walked the streets, as he mingled with men in the various
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scenes of life. Every emotion of the soul, every line written, every
word uttered, every act that led men to rest in a refuge of falsehood,
has been scattering seed; and now, in the wretched, lost souls around
him, he beholds the harvest.
Ministers and people see that they have not sustained the right
relation to God. They see that they have rebelled against the Author
of all just and righteous law. The setting aside of the divine precepts
gave rise to thousands of springs of evil, discord, hatred, iniquity,
until the earth became one vast field of strife, one sink of corrup-
tion. This is the view that now appears to those who rejected truth
and chose to cherish error. No language can express the longing
which the disobedient and disloyal feel for that which they have lost
forever,—eternal life. Men whom the world has worshiped for their
talents and eloquence now see these things in their true light. They
realize what they have forfeited by transgression, and they fall at
the feet of those whose fidelity they have despised and derided, and
confess that God has loved them.
The people see that they have been deluded. They eagerly accuse
one another of having led them to destruction; but all unite in heaping
their bitterest condemnation upon the ministers. Unfaithful pastors
have prophesied smooth things; they have led their hearers to make
void the law of God and to persecute those who would keep it holy.
Now, in their despair, these teachers confess before the world their
work of deception. The multitudes are filled with fury. “We are
lost!” they cry, “and you are the cause of our ruin;” and they turn
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