Now when God thus makes use of naturally beneficial agents to bring about destructive ends He does so for some particular purpose. Calamities are never brought upon any of God’s creatures from what we call caprice. God never _willingly_ afflicts or grieves; that is, He never does it simply to satisfy His own will, or to exhibit His own power. God’s thoughts and ways are not as our thoughts and ways. Man, if he knows himself to be possessed of a certain power, often exercises it without care or thought that he is thereby injuring others, or for the bare purpose of display. But not so God. If He afflicts, it is because there is some need of, some good in the affliction; most often, though by no means exclusively, it is to correct offenders, and to warn others (by their chastisement) not to follow their example. We have only to glance at the history of the Israelites and the circumstances in which God afflicted them, to be convinced that such visitations—whether of consuming fire, of overwhelming water, of destroying sword, of famishing dearth, or of noisome pestilence—are called forth by the conduct of those on whom they come. We, therefore, call these visitations _judgments_, judgments of punishment, of correction or of warning. They are chastisements which, after all gentler methods have failed, our Gracious Father, desirous of our reformation and eternal safety, employs, and employs most reluctantly, as among the last efforts to recall us into His paths. How sad it is to think that very many of the objects of these visitations allow them to come and go unheeded, and, therefore, of course, unimproved! How much sadder that men who heed them and feel them, in the deceitfulness and unbelief of their hearts, refuse themselves to learn and labour to unteach others the deep and salutary lessons which God, by His judgments, arrests us to hear, and through them utters to us, as it were, with an audible voice! Amid these heaven-sprung calamities, there are to be found, not only _careless_, _heedless_ men everywhere, but alas! close observers, full of care, so-called philosophers (one begins almost to hate the name from its constant mal-appropriation by the sophist and the infidel) who will observe these calamities, note the signs of the times, speculate about what ought to be done, and yet not dream of recognising, yea, refuse to recognise when it is pointed out to them, the interposition of their God! How marvellous this is! What utter folly is it! They acknowledge that there is a God. They believe that he has charge of all the elements; they know the general tendency of those elements to be for good; they see them working evil; yet they will not perceive that God has done it. Every cause is made mention of but the great first cause. Every influence is sooner believed in than His.