April 2005

Many are wondering what is going on in the world. Acts of senseless violence have left us numb. And people are asking the experts why.

On March 21, for example, a sixteen year old high school student in Minnesota brought a gun to his school and began to shoot those who were in the building. He then turned the weapon on himself leaving ten dead. It was the worst school shooting since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, which took fifteen lives.

While in New York State, a 25-year old man walked into a crowded shopping mall with an assault rifle. He then began spraying the mall with bullets. According to a local newspaper account, approximately sixty rounds were fired. Miraculously only two people were wounded, one of them seriously.

I saw a color photograph of the 25 year old as he was being led into court in handcuffs. The sleeves of his orange jail jumpsuit were rolled up to his elbows. So I was able to spy some odd tattoos on his forearms. Family members of his were in the courtroom too. His father, one of the newspaper articles said, was weeping.

Sadly these acts of sudden and intense violence have become a notable characteristic of modern day America.

In spite of our technological advancements and our high standards of living, we have come to accept random violence as part of our culture.

For scores of troubled teenagers and young adults, having a gun while at the same time holding on to feelings of anger, alienation, self-loathing, and bottled-up hostility make for a powerful but lethal explosive force that could burst into unchecked rage at the slightest provocation.

Equally tragic, I believe, is that many of these incidents of explosive violence could have been prevented. Therefore I plan to devote much of my April 2005 journal to the topic of youth violence.

While I am not an expert, as a Christian today, and as a man who once walked down the path of unchecked violence and aggression, I hope that what I have to say will be helpful and insightful.

There is an answer to the "spirit of violence" that's sweeping our nation. There is hope.

D.B.

Sources:
-Times Herald-Record, March 22, 2005, Middletown, NY.
-Times Herald-Record, February 17, 2005, Middletown, NY.
-March 21 school shooting from combined reports from different newspapers.

I vividly remember the Columbine High School shootings which left fifteen people dead, most of them students, including the two young gunmen and an heroic teacher. It was a brutal killing spree of pent-up anger and a desire for revenge over real or imagined hurts. It was unnecessary, and it made no sense. Columbine left our nation stunned and devastated, and asking lots of questions.

Now it has happened again. History seems to have repeated itself, this time in the little town of Red Lake, Minnesota.

On Monday, March 21, on an Indian reservation in a remote area of the United States, sixteen year old Jeff Weise brought a gun and ammunition to his school. He then began to shoot his fellow students. In the aftermath, five students, a teacher and a security guard were slain.

Later it was learned that this young man also killed his grandfather (whom he was living with) and his grandfather's live-in girlfriend. Jeff Weise also killed himself. A total of ten people died.

According to an article in the New York Times for Tuesday, March 22, 2005 (pages A-1 ,A-16) Jeff Weise walked through the corridors of the 300-student Red Lake High School at about 3 p.m. firing off rounds from a handgun. I would assume his rampage was over in less than ten minutes.

Some of the ensuing reports I hear over the radio said that, like the two Columbine gunmen, who were also teenagers, Jeff Weise was fascinated with Nazism and Adolf Hitler.

Several who knew him said that Jeff Weise seemed to be an angry and aloof kid who was into the dark Gothic scene. That he experienced several sad and traumatic events in his youth, to include the suicide of his father, and his mother's ending up in a nursing home after a serious auto accident.

Additional reports said he dressed and acted differently than his peers. That he was sometimes teased by the other kids. Also that he had been the victim of bullying at school.

All told, it was a bad mix. A string of grievous personal tragedies and having to live with his grandfather and his companion, Jeff was clearly a troubled man with probably no one to pour out his heart to, and perhaps no close friends.

And according to additional news reports, Jeff Weise made frequent visits to a pro-Hitler chatroom on the Internet where he frequently left postings of adoration for Adolf Hitler.

An article in the New York Daily News for Friday, March 25, 2005 (page 24) said that Jeff was on the controversial anti-depressant drug Prozac. Also that additional evidence had been uncovered by investigators that he had been planning the attack.

The Daily News article went on to say that Weise had apparently posted on his own website a 30-second animation titled "Target Practice" in which a person with an automatic rifle shoots several people and does some other acts of violence before putting the barrel of the gun in his mouth and killing himself.

I could see that Jeff Weise was ripe for the demons of hate, anger and revenge to do their dirty work on his mind.

D.B.

Everyone is asking "WHY?" Family members, neighbors, school officials and law enforcement personnel all want to know why this young man, Jeff Weise, who should have been dating girls and playing ball, instead became a lonely brooder who suffered from severe depression, made attempts at suicide, talked and wrote a lot about Hitler and death, and then shot to death nine people and also turned the gun on himself.

Each person who knew Jeff has his or her own theory. These theories range from his taking Prozac to having experienced crushing blows like the suicide of his father and the crippling accident which left his mother confined to a nursing home. My question, however, is "Could this tragedy have been prevented?"

We'll never know with a certainty. But this troubled young man had been crying out for help for a long time.

According to an article from the New York Times dated Saturday, March 26, 2005 (page A-7), "Family Wonders if Prozac Prompted School Shootings" by Monica Davey and Gardiner Harris, Jeff Weise had been taking medication because of his depression. He had also attempted suicide once by cutting his wrist.

The Times' story said that Jeff had been receiving mental health counseling, and that he had been hospitalized for at least 72 hours following the attempt at taking his life.

Clearly he made attempts to reach out and communicate his pain because Jeff had a website in which he posted his suicidal thoughts and feelings.

Also according to the New York Times' article, Jeff Weise had an Internet posting which read:

"I had went through a lot of things in my life
that had driven me to a darker path than most choose to take . . .
I split the flesh of my wrist with a box opener,
painting the floor of my bedroom with blood I shouldn't have spilt . . . After sitting there for what seemed like hours . . .
I had a revelation that this was not the path."

Jeff Weise


I have since read several more articles from various periodicals and they're all basically the same. Other than reporting on the victims and the impact of this tragedy on the local community, there were no answers.

Some of the news stories reported that Jeff Weise would often wear dark clothing and that he was "obsessed with death." No kidding!

Living on a Native American reservation with its poverty, and its higher than the national average rates of addictions to drugs and alcohol, its youth suicides and the high rate of "accidental" for Native Americans under the age of 20, for Jeff Weise death was a close presence.

In such a world as his where Jeff's dad took his own life leaving his son with the guilt, and having to fend for himself and live among in-laws, how could such a young man live the American dream of hope for a good future?

"Hope" was not in Jeff Weise's vocabulary. There was nothing in his life to give the word hope any meaning.

Furthermore, I do not believe that Jeff Weise could see past his own little world of despair and disappointment. And I would not be surprised to learn that he had a lot of anger towards God.

The kids who insensitively tormented and bullied Jeff, a boy who was already suffering from an overload of emotional pain, were only throwing dry logs on a long smoldering fire.

They were no doubt ignorant of Jeff's growing anger at life's seeming unfairness. And they were, in a sense, helping to make a human bomb that would one day explode in a burst of violence.

But until this day came, it appears that Jeff stayed on the faceless Internet posting his self-absorbed messages, while pleading for someone to take notice of him and show concern.

I read some of his postings which were published in various newspapers. Interestingly, I never saw any of the responses he received, if he got any.

For awhile, however, he managed to unleash some of his anger by writing his praises for Hitler on a pro-Nazi website. I think that the Fuhrer's idea about a "Final Solution" to get rid of the unwanted must have touched a common thread in Jeff's mind. There were a bunch of local teenagers whom he thought needed to be taught a lesson and eliminated. His tormentors, he apparently convinced himself, had to go. He would get a gun. He would let loose with his own version of the Final Solution.

Jeff Weise snapped. He knew where his grandfather, a "longtime Officer with the Red Lake Police Department," kept his guns and ammunition. A tragedy was about to unfold.

D.B.

It's been a couple of weeks since the Red Lake tragedy. Of no surprise, as the world and the media move on to the other things, this event will probably fade from the memories of most Americans.

The experts and professionals, however, will be quietly digging through the life of Jeff Weise for awhile longer. But I don't believe there will ever be clear-cut answers as to why this sixteen year old went on his shooting spree.

I certainly don't know all the reasons. Yet what I do know is that Jeff was a lonely, angry, depressed and troubled boy who probably thought the whole world was against him, and that fate had cursed him.

His father's suicide must have devastated him. But I could not find any articles that gave Jeff's age when his dad took his own life.

I am certain, however, that Jeff needed a close friend. He did have family living on the reservation. But having kin nearby doesn't mean there's a deep bond. Nowadays many family members are more like strangers to one another.

Jeff Weise needed someone to show him love and a healthy dose of attention. He needed affirmation that someone cared about him. Perhaps, too, that if he had one individual to tell him "I value you" and you are a "worthwhile" person, this disaster could have been averted.

He was on medication for his depression, and he was interviewed by a professional after his suicide attempt. Nevertheless, as is often the case, his cries of despair went unheeded; he didn't seem to know whom to ask for help or where to find it.

Obviously there were many factors which came into play for this to happen, and many negative events in Jeff Weise's life converged to produce an explosive mix. Choosing to murder someone, though, is always the wrong choice.

In our culture where young men are taught to act tough and hide their emotions, and where it is thought to be childish to ask for help, it's improbable to think that troubled adolescents will open up and talk freely about their difficulties, or about the seeming meaninglessness of their lives without lots of coaxing and encouragement.

Men are taught to keep a straight face and to be rugged. Guns, too, can sometimes be a part of this. Both in the movies and in books such weapons are seen as problem solvers. It's easier, young minds may reason, to dispatch a person with a firearm than to work hard at trying to have a good relationship with that individual.

Like Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution" to get rid of undesirables, a gun or knife seems to provide a quick remedy.

Unfortunately, Jeff Weise was ready for this. He was open to violence. He felt he had run out of options. His cries for help went unanswered. No one loved him, so he thought, and he saw no hope of things changing for the better. Thus he would take as many as he could with him to a dark grave.

What a waste! I am convinced that this did not have to happen. The Red Lake High School shootings were preventable. Jeff needed real friends.

D.B.

On February 13th a twenty-four year old man walked into a mall crowded with Sunday afternoon shoppers and began to open fire with his Hesse model AK-47 Soviet assault rifle. About sixty rounds were fired, said one report. Fortunately, and miraculously, no one was killed. But two men were shot. One of them, a 20-year old National Guard private was seriously wounded.

The Hudson Valley Mall where the shooting took place is in or near the city of Kingston, New York. This is not far from where I live. So the local newspapers were filled with stories about the rampage.

As expected, in the days following the shooting, the media began to look into the psyche of this troubled man. He was obese, socially awkward, lonely, and he dressed in black clothing when he went to the mall that day. Even his sneakers were black.

With his rifle in tow he must have looked like a Navy Seal on a mission. The report said he was also a high school dropout.

In one article, Ulster County District Attorney Don Williams was quoted as saying that Robert Bonelli, Jr., had a "lurid fascination" with the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. And the same article said that a "cache of news reports and other materials" about Columbine were found in Bonelli's home.

While another report said that Robert Bonelli Jr. had two friends, both in their early 20s, who had just been charged with making and setting off pipe bombs, although this had no apparent part in the mall shooting.

Nevertheless, in this case we have a troubled young man who vents with a gun, while his friends, although not participants in the shooting, were obviously antisocial. They more than likely reinforced Robert's violent behavior. After all, these three made pipe bombs together for fun.

From all the information that has been given this far, I could tell that this is clearly an unhappy man who probably believes that he has no future. Yet it appears that Robert has a loving father. His dad, heartbroken, was calling out to his son in the courtroom during the jury proceedings.

Expectedly, however, the newspaper article for February 17th ended with the standard oft used response. Ulster County Police Chief Paul Watzka said that various law enforcement agencies will be looking into this matter to see if there is anything else "we can learn" about what happened.

D.B.

Sources:
-"The Invisible Kid (front page headline)" from the Times Herald-Record,
Feb. 15, 2005, Middletown, NY, by Ben Montgomery and Paul Brooks.
-Times Herald-Record, Feb. 17, 2005, Middletown, NY, by Paul Brooks.

Learning of these senseless tragedies and the loss of lives touches a nerve inside me.

Jeff Weise and Robert Bonelli Jr. should hvae been living lives filled with hope and promise. Instead they ended up destroying themselves and harming others. Yet in the deepest part of my being I believe that somehow, if I had only known these young men, and if I could have befriended them, perhaps these tragedies would not have occurred.

I also believe that, hidden beneath their pent-up anger, frustration, and feelings of powerlessness, was a spark of hope that, somehow, life would finally make sense. That their plans for violence would not be necessary.

Unfortunately, however, if there were periods of time when Jeff and Robert felt this way, no one ever came to their rescue. They had no one to fan those sparks of hope. And their desperate cries for help went unanswered.

Eventually they would both drift down the wrong road, and each would make the terrible choice to use violence in order to battle the real or imagined wrongs that they felt were done to them.

Jeff Weise chose death. The community he tried to hurt will continue to exist, while he will be written off as an aberration.

Robert Bonelli Jr. is alive, but he's facing a lengthy prison sentence. Thankfully no one died during his rampage. Yet he will have many years, however, to think about what he did. And his father, meanwhile, will have to watch his son age in prison.

Finally, there will be the various law enforcement agencies, mental health professionals and social workers who will spend countless hours trying to figure out what went wrong with these two. But I do not believe there will be clearcut answers.

Without God in a person's life, anything can happen.

D.B.

Jesus said that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This was the second of the two greatest commandments He gave us, according to the Bible.

The late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it bluntly. If we as human beings cannot live together, we'll eventually destroy ourselves. So when it comes down to it, it's all about love. Love causes people to put others first. It causes us to look out for our neighbors.

It's the same old story when these rampages and killing sprees occur. Everyone in the affected community is shocked. People who knew the murderer all confess to having "missed all the signs." All this is because, I believe, we're too involved with ourselves and our family and immediate circle of friends that we don't really know our neighbors. We have never known our neighbors well enough to be able to look into their eyes and see the pain.

I'm sure that many people in the communities of Jeff Weise and Robert Bonelli Jr. saw these guys often. But perhaps beyond some superficial greetings there was no real contact with them, no neighborly bonding, and few if any outward expressions of concern.

We need to pray for our communities too. We should be bonding with those around us. And older adults need to be alert for adolescents who appear troubled, angry, or tormented.

Jeff Weise was clearly crying out for someone to notice him and recognize his pain. He cut his wrist with a box cutter. He kept an online journal of his struggles with depression and feelings of worthlessness. And on his website he openly wrote about his emotionally tortured life.

Yet no one cared enough, it seems. Even the mental health workers who were seeing Jeff after his suicide attempt simply shuttled him through a series of routine interviews and decided that the best treatment for Jeff would be to pump him up with Prozac.

As for Robert Bonelli Jr., he was living at home with his father. I don't even know if he had a job. Aside from making bombs with his two friends, he spent many hours watching Columbine type videos.

I know that what I am suggesting sounds simplistic. But the truth is that it's going to take time, work and effort to reach such outcasts and to break down their self-centered and even paranoid barriers in order to show them love, and that they're not worthless.

Let's face it, if we don't care enough to go up to someone and say, "How are you really doing?" or if we cannot say, "Listen, I want you to know that I care about you, and if you want to talk, I am here for you," and if we do not take the risks to extend ourselves and show compassion and concern, then we will be opening our newspapers to read about more teen killers and adolescent murderers. We will be reading about the victims, too.

And to think that maybe much of this could have been prevented!

But if, however, we choose to remain indifferent, then we'll never make a difference. As the late Dr. King said, "we will simply die together."

D.B.

Violence is an outward display of pent-up anger, rage, and frustration. And a lot of young persons are very angry these days; but so are many adults.

Teenagers, however, are often very impulsive and they're capable of doing things without thinking of the consequences. They're also not always good at problem solving and being able to successfully fix complex social situations. Thus acting out physically seems much easier than trying to resolve their problems and settle them peaceably.

Unfortunately, the consequences for doing an act of violence and committing a crime against someone may haunt a young man for years to come. He hurts his victim as well as himself.

Nevertheless, teenagers need to be held responsible when they act out violently. A person who hurts or destroys another's life must be held accountable. Damaging the lives and property of others cannot be allowed in a civilized society. This needs to be emphasized.

Yet adolescents also need to be taught to value life. Life is something to cherish and respect. I believe it is a gift from God, and it is sacred.

To unleash hurt upon another individual is terrible and abhorrent, and this applies even if the victim had done something to make the attacker angry.

There are no excuses for committing a crime against someone. Young persons need to learn how to solve their problems - and everyone has problems - without bloodshed.

D.B.

Violence is selfishness in action. It is an attitude which says, "You hurt me, so now I am going to hurt you." Other times it is random and the result of pent-up anger and aggression. Often violence becomes a lame excuse to scapegoat someone, to blame another person for your own problems and failures.

Being violent and hurting another person during the act of a crime are not signs of manhood and maturity. Rather they are acts of childishness and stupidity.

I've said this before, but I wish that young persons could see all the men who committed a violent crime and came to prison when they were adolescents. These guys were sixteen, seventeen or eighteen years old when they got busted.

Let me tell you - and I have heard the same stories again and again - they got no sympathy from the courts. Instead they got slammed with long sentences. They've thrown away their lives when each of them made the decision to do violence.

And perhaps one of the most horrible and unfortunate things about doing violence and committing crimes is, as far as you're concerned, after you got caught you realized that you didn't have to do what you did. You had a choice all along.

Now, however, you must live with the knowledge that you made the wrong choice. And you will spend many years being tormented by the reality of this fact. It is an awful feeling. I know this from experience.

D.B.

Because my heart has been heavy over the recent acts of senseless violence involving young persons, and because of my own experience and mistakes at a time in my life when I was younger, troubled and vulnerable, I have felt compelled to write these pages on youth violence.

Guns have of course been a part of the American culture, and we'd be deceiving ourselves if we said this was not so. I grew up watching dozens of different war and cowboy movies. But I do not believe the problem is with guns or any other weapons that adolescents may get their hands on.

Our main problem is with the human heart. The Bible says that the heart of man is "desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9)."

This is not a put-down on God's part. He is, however, simply revealing the truth. And it is not an easy truth for anyone to accept that our heart may be bad and filled with sin. But I believe what the Scripture says; I believe this to be correct.

Jesus Christ said that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4)." Therefore, man needs God, and our lives are somehow incomplete without Him.

Many young persons are, unfortunately, so caught up in the materialism of this world, or in having to impress their peers by trying to obtain a reputation for themselves, that they spend much of their lives on what will ultimately prove to be futile.

They long for respect and go to great lengths to get it, often to their own harm.

And in order to get a reputation and earn respect, sadly, many young men think they need a gun. They think it's cool to have one. That they're on better footing if that steel piece is in their pocket.

But this is foolishness and self-deception. Here are, I believe, some of the reasons why young men carry guns:

1) Curiosity
2) Protection
3) Self-respect
4) Power
5) Rebellion

Some youth are obviously curious about firearms. Others think that, since the "other dude" may be carrying a gun, he's going to need one too. Such thinking has led to many deaths as teenagers are quick to pull out their pistols in an attempt to shoot first.

Then there is the delusion of self-respect. An insecure youngster thinks that by carrying a gun his peers will fear and respect him, that they would stay off his path.

Next comes power. Multitudes of teens lack a sense of identity. They believe no one cares about them. Also, that they have no control over things or events which happen around them. Thus having a lethal weapon gives one a false and obviously foolish idea that by packing a pistol he now has power.

Finally there is old fashion rebellion. Many teenagers want to snub their noses at the laws of the land, and I suppose they think that carrying a gun is one way to do this.

No doubt there are plenty of hard headed adolescents who are willing to get down and dirty, and who think it's no big deal to destroy someone's life. But they have no idea, because they're so impulsive and don't think things through, what awaits them when they make that move to get violent.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is this: Kids don't need guns, they need God.

D.B.

Several days ago I received a letter from a young man by the name of Jake*. He was boasting to me about his big collection of serial killer cards and his fascination with such individuals.

Jake said that he reads a lot of books and loves to watch movies about serial killers, and that he has amassed many facts about them from the Internet.

My heart was heavy as I read his letter. He's obviously deluded by the media's portrayals of those who commit these kinds of crimes.

I seldom get letters like Jake's. But on occasion people like him do write to ask questions or to express their fascination with this subject. Usually I never reply. With this man, though, I did.

I tried to explain to Jake that hurting another person is a horrible thing. It's not exciting or fun. Rather it is sick and evil.

It's a nightmare with lots of grief and pain, I said to him, not only for the families of the victims, but for the ones doing the harm.

Jake needed to know, too, that I have a tremendous amount of sorrow for what I did at a time when my own life was out of control. That I had no right to take people's lives, and how I would do anything if I could undo it.

To me this man appears to be living in a Hollywood-type fantasy world in which killing someone is portrayed as being of no big deal, and that it's cool.

I believe that when someone watches certain crime shows on television or in the movies, it is easy to get a false impression. So I tried to bust through Jake's immature and absurd ideas by telling him that inmates basically lead broken and defeated lives. We struggle to survive, and we must endure the day-to-day monotony of prison life.

I explained to Jake that being locked up is hard. That I myself have nearly twenty-eight years of confinement, and I have to live in a cage like an animal.

He needed to be told to look beyond his fascination with mass murderers and face reality.

I was firm with Jake, but I was kind. I hope I was able to help him to see that his present views are foolish.

D.B.

*Jake is not his real name.

In spite of my own struggles and the difficult and disappointing situations I seem to be encountering these days, the Lord has been granting me precious opportunities to touch the lives of my peers.

The hardships a man faces while incarcerated are many. It's more than being confined to a cell for a certain number of hours per day. It's more than having to eat bad quality food, or being far from one's home.

Death, for example, is a special enemy for a prisoner. Everyone has to face death, of course. But I am referring to the passing away of a man's loved ones.

The pain of losing a family member is by far the worst of all things.

Just this month I've had opportunities to help two men who have suffered devastating losses. Their grief has been clearly etched on their faces, and I don't blame them for showing it.

One of these men has been in prison for almost thirty years. Then came the news that his wife died suddenly, and he was not prepared.

While another man lost his remaining family member. His uncle, whom he was very close to, died unexpectedly from a heart attack. Now he's alone, and he told me how frightened he is to now have no one beyond these walls.

Both of them have cried in my arms. The men from my chapel fellowship have also been helping them to cope. All we could do is pray for these guys and try to be there for them in their times of need and deep hurt.

D.B.

A few weeks ago my best friend Alan was summoned to court. He's doing time for a conviction under the harsh Rockefeller Drug Law. But while incarcerated he repented of his sins, and he's been faithfully serving the Lord.

And like many others who've been sentenced under this particular law, Alan has been challenging his conviction. Recently, however, he received some good news. So in a moment's notice he was ordered to pack his belongings and go to Riker's Island, which is part of the New York City jail system.

Even though Alan is an inmate under the care and custody of the New York State Department of Corrections, having been sentenced to a term in the state system, it is to New York City that he must return so that he's near the court where his trial was held, and where his appeal is now being reviewed.

I'm extremely glad for Alan. Nevertheless, his incarceration has not been without great suffering. He lost both his father and brother to untimely deaths. And if he is released from prison, he will have to begin his life all over again.

Alan is a few years older than me. A college graduate and extremely knowledgeable of the Scriptures, he was a regular Bible teacher in my congregation.

Alan has also been a constant companion in my struggles. Throughout the years I've known him, he was my confidant and my closest friend.

I cannot count the hours he and I spent together walking the recreation yard, talking about God, our families, and our lives.

Alan and I prayed together on many occasions and we encouraged each other when we encountered our individual hardships. And there were many times when we rejoiced in our spiritual victories and for the visible answers to our prayers.

Therefore with Alan having gone back to court my loss is tremendous. Yet I hope to receive word shortly that he has been freed and given "time served."

But the best part for Alan is that, Lord willing, he is soon to be married to a strikingly beautiful woman, Joann*, his girlfriend of many years who has stood with him while he was behind bars. So at least this is one prison story that has a happy ending.

D.B.

*Joann is not her real name.

When I think of the people who came into my life, told their lies, took what they wanted, and then moved on to write their articles and publish their books in the quest for fifteen minutes of fame, what vanity!

The Bible says that there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Times may have changed, but people have not.

Men scheme, they plot their courses as they seek to promote themselves, and many times their ambitious plans appear to succeed.

Yet nothing can thwart what the Lord has ordained. Ultimately His purpose will be accomplished.

Puny men may seek to establish their ways. But they will be forced to confess their follies to a God they have never known.

For a day of judgment is coming when every soul will have to bow to a power infinitely greater than his own.

D.B.