as a national day of humiliation and prayer; our places of worship
were crowded. The people were alarmed, but they were not permanently
impressed. God heard prayer; yes, he delights to hear prayer. God
answered it; he delights to answer it. The evil passed away; the concern
passed with it; and I shall never forget the contrast between the
congregations on the day of humiliation, and when they were summoned to
thank God for the removal of the scourge. "Were there not ten cleansed?
but where are the nine?"

It is only four years ago that another check came upon the nation--that
one of our great branches of national industry became suddenly paralysed;
and what mercy was there in that! There was the good hand of God in the
administration of that chastisement, in the conduct of the people under
such calamities, and in the absence of mischievous, designing men from
among them. I have known the time when that population would have been
inflamed by a calamity of far less consequence to acts of the greatest
violence. God's hand was there. He chastised the nation; but He guided
the chastisement. And now again, another evil has come upon us--a
greater evil, perhaps, than people imagined at first--this plague among
our herds. There will be great loss to individuals, and no doubt there
will be great loss to all; for it is impossible for so much wealth or
money's worth to be destroyed in any nation without all the people in the
nation feeling it more or less. I think it right, therefore, that we
have been called to recognise the hand of God therein--to look through
all external causes to his hand. It is a very dangerous thing, a thing I
have never done in my life, and never would do, to talk about the
providence of God in its punitive power, to talk about retribution in the
application of God's providence in individual cases. It is very unwise
to do that, and sometimes it may be most uncharitable. It is different,
however, in God's dealings with a nation. We are admonished, or
punished, by a great national calamity that has stirred all classes of
men each in their own way, and has raised all their activities in order
to see if evils of this kind may not be checked in their operation. This
evil is present with us. And then, as to other evils that may arise. If
you look abroad into the world, to the relations of this country to other
nations, you have peace just now; but he would be a bold man who should
predict the c