and who for infringement of his law could exact inhuman punishment; when the lords for whom he labored, the hem of whose garments he kissed with trepidation, had power of life and death over their body; when the generals under whom they drilled, made terror the weapon of their discipline, so that their glances were spears and their mere presence overwhelming to the men whom they led. Under such governance, men could not with readiness conceive of God as good and merciful, long- suffering and full of loving-kindness. God's power, the mind would argue, extends far beyond that of an earthly king, for he is the King of kings; and if the heart sinks with trepidation before the terrestrial king, and even before his high servants, who are mortals of the same flesh and blood, how much more, then, is one to be imbued with the fear of God!

Man is now freeing himself from the chains into which he once placed himself. Kings have lost their might, lords are such but in name, warriors have lost their piercing looks. Man is almost free. He is beginning to see that the fear which has bound him for centuries was, after all, but an arbitrary force generated by the indifference of man and now destroyed by the will of man. The world, in man's mind, is beginning to lose its medieval aspect of a prison house, and is becoming more spacious and rainbow-hued. God has lost the traits that made man cower. He is no longer a tyrant and a merciless judge; He has not brought us into existence to make us suffer, or to punish us for our misdeeds. No; He is the author of peace and happiness; He has instilled softness and tenderness in the human heart, calmness and serenity and order in the heart of nature. He is the fountain of mercy and loving- kindness. He is a Father and not a king. To fear Him is to misunderstand His relation to the universe and to man.