Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/128

108 not break the heavenly laws, will be permitted to ascend to Heaven and enjoy endless happiness and majesty everlasting. All who fail to repent of their sins before the Supreme God, who wittingly worship false gods, do evil deeds and break the heavenly laws shall be condemned to the punishment of Hell, there to suffer eternal woe and sorrow unrelieved forever. Please consider for yourself which of these you would gain and which lose.

There is such a thing as failure on the part of our brothers and sisters everywhere to wake up. If we do not awaken eventually, we deteriorate, the devil surely leads us astray, and we have at hand indeed a happiness which we know not how to enjoy. Endless majesty in high heaven together with intense joy like this we are unwilling to experience; but are prone through our inclinations to follow the sin of resisting Heaven. In that way we greatly provoke the righteous anger of the Supreme God, and for punishment sink through the eighteen great Hells to suffer everlasting woe. How pitiable!

Now, there are those whose natural affections have been turned away by the Devil, who emphatically say that the rulers alone may offer worship to the Supreme God.

The Supreme God is the father of all human beings everywhere. The rulers are His powerful sons, good men are His filial sons, the masses are His simple sons, and the oppressors His perverse sons. Since they say that rulers alone may offer worship to the Supreme God, let me therefore ask the parents in the home, is it possible that only the elder sons may be filial to their parents?

There are also those who recklessly say that the worship of the Supreme God comes from foreign [literally, 'barbarian'] lands. They do not know that in the ancient times everybody — rulers and people alike — revered the Supreme God. As a matter of fact this highway of worship to the Supreme God is the great road on which China and foreign lands have walked together since the beginning when, in six days, God created Heaven and earth, mountains and seas and all human beings. Only, the various nations of the west have constantly traveled on this highway, whereas China walked on it for a millennium or two until she wandered off to the Devil's road, until she was ensnared by