140 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



in the presence of God, in the presence of his transient 

 severity and his everlasting loving-kindness ; and that 

 we may the better be prepared to shed onr tears over so 

 many graves, our balm over so many wounds, let us 

 fortify ourselves, both in reason and in heart, with holy 

 thoughts of the Christian faith. Others have busied 

 themselves — and rightly, for it was their special mission 

 — in seeking the reason of the calamity in the combina- 

 tion of physical causes. It is for us, Avithout ignoring 

 the laws of nature, to go deeper, even to the law^s of 

 God. " I will enter into the strength of the Lord God : 

 I will remember nothing, save thy righteousness."* But 

 the righteousness of God is big with mercy, like those 

 threatening clouds which carry beneath their thunder- 

 bolts the treasures of the rain and the fruitfulness of all 

 the land.f 



" I have heard thy voice, and was afraid. In wrath 

 remember mercy." 



Eighteousness in the chastisement of sin, mercy in 

 the trial of virtue, these are the true aspects under 

 which I would consider with you the earthquake which 

 in the month of August, 18G8, desolated two great 

 countries of South America, Ecuador and Peru. 



I. T]ie chastisement of sin. 



Chastisement, sin, justice ! What have these Avords to 

 do in presence of a grief which they insult, but cannot 

 explain ? Is it worth while for the priest to go back to 

 the superstition of former ages, now condemned beyond 

 appeal by the reason of the scholar and the conscience 



* Psalm Ixxi. ](J. See the Vul;;ate vcrsiou. 

 t See a familiar hymu ol'Cowper: 



" Tlie clouds ye so much dread 

 Are 1)1;^ with mercy, and shall hreak 

 In blcssiiii^e on your head."— Tr. 



