Past favors are not to be repaid by
proving traitors to the God of Israel. We are the temporal subjects of
the King of Babylon it is true, and in anything that interferes not with
the command of Jehovah, we are happy to render him willing obedience: but
with us obedience to the higher law is paramount to all other
considerations. The words of a loving mother are yet fresh in my mind.
The morning on which we left our beloved Jerusalem, she called me to her
apartment, and, among a multitude of other good things, she said, 'The
same integrity to the law of thy God will certainly secure thy prosperity
among strangers. Thy path may occasionally be obstructed; but trust in
God, my son, and all will be well. The land whither thou goest is a land
of universal idolatry, where the God of thy fathers is not known, and
where his worship may cause universal ridicule. Heed them not. With thy
face toward Jerusalem, let thy petitions daily ascend to the God of
Abraham, and he will direct thy paths.
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