Therefore we need not suppose that these sufferers themselves were the objects of God's wrath. We may believe that of them, too, stands true the great Law, "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." We may believe that of them, too, stands true St Paul's great parable in 1 Cor. xii., which, though a parable, is the expression of a perpetually active law. They have built, it may be, on the true foundation: but they have built on it wood, hay, stubble, instead of gold and precious stone. And the fire of God, which burns for ever against the falsehoods and follies of the world, has tried their work, and it is burned and lost. But they themselves are saved; yet as through fire. Looking at history in this light, we may justify God for many a heavy blow, and fearful judgment, which seems to the unbeliever a wanton cruelty of chance or fate; while at the same time we may feel deep sympathy with--often deep admiration for--many a noble spirit, who has been defeated, and justly defeated, by those irreversible laws of God's kingdom, of which it is written--"On whomsoever that stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder." We may look with reverence, as well as pity, on many figures in history, such as Sir Thomas More's; on persons who, placed by no fault of their own in some unnatural and unrighteous position; involved in some decaying and unworkable system; conscious more or less of their false position; conscious, too, of coming danger, have done their best, according to their light, to work like men, before the night came in which no man could work; to do what of their duty seemed still plain and possible; and to set right that which would never come right more: forgetting that, alas, the crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered; till the flood came and swept them away, standing bravely to the last at a post long since untenable, but still--all honour to them--standing at their post. When we consider such sad figures on the page of history, we may have, I say, all respect for their private virtues. We may accept every excuse for their public mistakes. And yet we may feel a solemn satisfaction at their downfall, when we see it to have been necessary for the progress of mankind, and according to those laws and that will of God and of Christ, by which alone the human race is ruled. We may look back on old orders of things with admiration; even with a touch of pardonable, though sentimental, regret. But we shall not forget that the old order changes, giving place to the new; And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.