THE SOUTH AMERICAN EARTHQUAKES. 113 



scribe tu thcin i" Does it not ivvult iiiid lit'i iij) its in- 

 dignant protest? Had Ecuador and Peru a lar.i^er 

 share in the sin of Adam, that they Avere mulcted in so 

 vast a forfeit ? Had they tilled up the measure of their 

 debt by more multitudinous transgressions and iuovq 

 crying sins? And in these mourning countries, must 

 I point out to you, in each of these twenty thousand 

 sufferers, instead of the unfortunate victim of an acci- 

 dent, a criminal marked for vengeance ? 



^[ay God deliver me from such excess of fanaticism 

 and cruelty ! 



**' Think ye," said our divine Master, '' that those 

 eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew 

 them, were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusa- 

 lem? I tell ye, Xay; but, except ye repent, ye shall alf 

 likewise perish."* Guilt is universal : so, also, will 

 punishment be, at least in the future life, unless peni- 

 tence should avert it before the hour of justice comes. 

 But the thunderbolts which, in this life, from time to 

 time break through the sheltering clouds of loving- 

 kindness, do not always smite the guiltiest, do not 

 necessarily spare the most innocent. AVhy, then, do 

 they smite at all, since they do but obey His voice who 

 sendeth forth the lightnings that they may go upon his 

 errands, and, returning, answer. Here we are?f Why? 

 I don't know, brethren ; I don't know : and nobody else 

 knows any better than I do. 



An inscrutable Providence presides over the distribu- 

 tion of the judgments of God in the regions of space and 

 time. " His judgments," says the psalm, " are a great 

 deep ; "| and it was on the verge of this deep that one 

 gazed down from the third heaven, and, as if with swim- 

 ming brain, cried out, '* the dej)fh /"§ 



* Luke, xiii. i. 5. t Job, xsxviii. 35. t T^alm xxxvi. 6. § Romans, xi. 33. 



