The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.

Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.

By afflictions God is spoiling us of what otherwise might have spoiled us. When he makes the world too hot for us to hold, we let it go.

Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.

Now let us thank th' eternal power, convinc'd That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction: That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour, Serves but to brighten our future days!

With silence only as their benediction, God's angels come Where in the shadow of a great affliction, The soul sits dumb!