'Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with
gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; 48. Therefore shalt
thou serve thine enemies ... in want of all things: and He shall put a
yoke of iron upon thy neck, until He have destroyed thee.'--DEUT.
xxviii. 47, 48
The history of Israel is a picture on the large scale of what befalls
every man.
A service--we are all born to obedience, to depend on and follow some
person or thing. There is only a choice of services; and he who boasts
himself free is but a more abject slave, as the choice for a nation is
either the rule of settled order and the sanctities of an established
law, or the usurpation of a mob and the intolerable tyranny of
unbridled and irresponsible force.