Why shall it be always said that when a home of happiness is in an instant hurled from the summit of earthly felicity and buried in the dark gulf of adversity, that such is the work of God?  If that home is contaminated by grievous sins, there is justice in the claim, but where the transgressions are not heavier than those good men commit, it cannot be, for the God who reigns above seeks to build up, and not to destroy, unless there is no other way of punishing the sinner but by the infliction of the heaviest penalties.  We have painted a soldier’s wife, if not free from sin, at least innocent of crimes which are calculated to bear upon the conscience and cause remorse or fear; we have pictured her two children, pure and unsinful, for it cannot be said that mortal can sin in infancy.  We have shown them plunged in direst misfortunes, and is there not force in the question when we ask if their months of penury and suffering were the works of the God of Mercy and Righteousness?

It cannot be.  The innocent do not suffer by the hands of God, while the guilty revel in all the wealth and affluence that this earth bestows.  How many men are there who live in ease and comfort, while their souls are burdened with sins?  The hypocrite, the liar, the thief, the murderer; all, and by hundreds they can be counted, appear to the world

    “A combination and a form, indeed,
    Where every god did seem to set his seal,”

but in whose souls the fires of hell rage with remorseless fury.  But their afflictions are not known to man.  The eyes of the world gaze not on them, when the mind is racked by the conflict of sin.  We see not their sufferings; we know not the pangs they feel; we only recognize them by the outward appearance.  They live, surrounded with all that can make mortal happy, save the happiness of a clear conscience.  In this world they prosper, and many gain the applause and commendation of their fellow mortals.  What are their sufferings?  They are unknown to man, though remembered by God.  And if punishment comes at last, it is just and merited, nor do we regret that sin is scourged by the avenging hand of a Savior.

But while we witness the guilty revelling in wealth and affluence, how often are the innocent plunged in want?  Aye, myriads of times.  We know not of them, but over the land there are hundreds of our fellow mortals whose days are but a repetition of suffering.  Famine and sickness have stalked in the midst of hundreds who are innocent of crime, and reduced them to the last brink of despair.  Is this the work of God?  Forbid it, Heaven! that the charge should be made.  There is no ground on which to assert that the Ruler of the Universe—­the God of Righteousness—­the Lord of Mercy, would thrust the innocent into woe—­would blast their earthly prospects—­would dash the cup of happiness from their lips, and leave them to perish through Famine and Disease—­while men steeped in crime, whose consciences, if read, would show an appalling blackness of guilt—­while they, we say, escaped from earthly punishment and enjoyed all the good of this world!  On Earth, as in Heaven and Hell, man is divided into two bodies, Angels and Fiends.  Both are known to the Almighty, and it is only when His eyes are turned from the good that Fiends triumph.  Only then—­it is not His work—­it cannot and can never be.