Rev. S. M. Crothers, of Cambridge, preached last evening in Appleton Chapel, taking his text from the seventh verse of the nineteenth Psalm: "The law of the Lord is perfect."

As science shows that the laws of the universe are absolute, and all-powerful; that man must obey or suffer the consequences, so, too, in religion, no strong, manly morality can admit that God's love is wavering. His laws are irresistable, and apparent exceptions are, in reality, further illustrations of the great truth.

Too many people look upon religion as merely accidental or arbitrary.

The saints of the old church used to look, for manifestations of God, not to the complex laws of nature about them, but to apparent violations of these laws, to miracles. In our own times men, by false analysis, think they find contradictions in the universe and even in God. They think of His justice as opposed to His mercy and love. But mercy does not violate justice. True justice, making allowance for weaknesses, for temptations, includes mercy. There should be no terror in the thought of a just God.

Again we often make the mistake of separating religion from the rest of life, and setting it outside the realm of law. By treating religion as though it had no connection with fact and history, the whole question is often made shadowy and uninteresting.

Let us rather enter upon the absorbing study of religious growth in its relations with all other growth; bound by the same perfect law which rules all things. If faith, hope, love do exist, they exist not as accidents, but as natural products of definite forces.

Conscious law is King of kings-God.