Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Here the familiar story of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England is in point. They arrived on the American coast in the most unseasonable time, at the setting in of winter. Their exposures and hardships consequently brought on a fatal sickness. Before their first corn was planted half of them had been buried. Seldom has a more pathetic tale been told than that of these poor, pious exiles — A screen of leafless branches Betwixt them and the blast.But had it better not have been so? Is heroism worth so little that there had better be no occasion made for it by the presence of great evils calling out all the strength of spirit that man is capable of? Who can tell how much that terrible suffering, met with such loftiness of spirit, has been worth to the world, in kindling the same unquenchable fire of heroism in multitudes of admiring beholders? (J. M. Whiton.) Parallel Verses KJV: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. |
    |