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The meaning of this is that they had turned the best things into bad use. See the working of this perverting power in many departments of action.

I. IN PHYSICAL OPERATIONS. Everywhere you see man perverting nature, perverting the metals, the rivers, the fruits, and the chemical elements of the world to bad and mischievous uses.

II. IN CIVIC LIFE. The principle of human government is a Divine ordinance, intended to secure equal justice and protection. But how has man perverted it! He has turned it into an instrument to benefit the few at the expense of the many, an instrument of tyranny and oppression. Man's perversion of the law is proverbial as a hideous enormity. The principle of merchandise, intended to band man together by the exchange of commodities, in mutual obligation and fellowship, man has awfully perverted. He has made it the instrument of cupidity, monopoly, and nameless frauds.

III. IN THE RELIGIOUS SPHERE. Do not let man say he has no power. His moral power is something stupendous. He has power to turn the things of God to the use of Satan, heavenly blessings into hellish curses.

(Homilist.)

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KJV: Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock:

WEB: Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness;