Yet hear, for my speech shall comfort thee: reverently, but with boldness, I would raise the sable curtain, that hideth the symmetry of Providence. Pain and sin are convicts, and toil in their fetters for good; The weapons of evil are turned against itself, fighting under better banners: The leech delighteth in stinging, and the wicked loveth to do harm, But the wise Physician of the Universe useth that ill tendency for health. Verily, from others' griefs are gendered sympathy and kindness; Patience, humility, and faith, spring not seldom from thine own: An enemy, humbled by his sorrows, cannot be far from thy forgiveness; A friend, who hath tasted of calamity, shall fan the dying incense of thy love: And for thyself, is it a small thing, so to learn thy frailty, That from an aching bone thou savest the whole body? The furnace of affliction may be fierce, but if it refineth thy soul, The good of one meek thought shall outweigh years of torment. Nevertheless, wretched man, if thy bad heart be hardened in the flame, Being earth-born, as of clay, and not of moulded wax, Judge not the hand that smiteth, as if thou wert visited in wrath: Reproach thyself, for He is Justice; repent thee, for He is Mercy. Cease, fond caviller at wisdom, to be satisfied that everything is wrong: Be sure there is good necessity, even for the flourishing of evil. Would the eye delight in perpetual noon? or the ear in unqualified harmonics? Hath winter's frost no welcome, contrasting sturdily with summer? Couldst thou discern benevolence, if there were no sorrows to be soothed? Or discover the resources of contrivance, if nothing stood opposed to the means? What were power without an enemy? or mercy without an object? Or truth, where the false were impossible? or love, where love were a debt? The characters of God were but idle, if all things around Him were perfection, And virtues might slumber on like death, if they lacked the opportunities of evil. There is One all-perfect, and but one; man dare not reason of His essence: But there must be deficiencies in heaven, to leave room for progression in bliss: A realm of unqualified BEST were a stagnant pool of being, And the circle of absolute perfection, the abstract cipher of indolence. Sin is an awful shadow, but it addeth new glories to the light; Sin is a black foil, but it setteth off the jewelry of heaven: Sin is the traitor that hath dragged the majesty of mercy into action; Sin is the whelming argument, to justify the attribute of vengeance. It is a deep dark thought, and needeth to be diligently studied, But perchance evil was essential, that God should be seen of His creatures: For where perfection is not, there lacketh possible good, And the absence of better that might be, taketh from the praise of it is well: And creatures must be finite, and finite cannot be perfect: