Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Day One of the Trial.

Here is a report from The Living Church and here is a sketch from BabyBlue.

My thoughts? This is what is going through my mind:
Neither party expected for . . . the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." . . . He gives to both . . . this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge . . . may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue . . . as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."