XVII. THE HAND IS ALL.

A GENTLEWOMAN some sixty years since came to Winchester school, where she had a son, and where Dr. Love (one eminent 203in his profession) was then schoolmaster. This tender mother, seeing the terrible rods (the properties of that school), began with tears to bemoan the condition of her son, subject to so cruel correction. To whom the schoolmaster replied: Mistress, content yourself, it matters not how big the rod be, so it be in the hand of Love to manage it.

Alas! he was only Love in his surname; but what saith the Apostle, 1 John iv. 16: God is love, even in his own essence and nature.

What then, though the wicked be not only a rod in the hand of God, but what is worse, a sword, Psalm xvii. 13, the wicked which is thy sword, they shall do no hurt as long as God hath the ordering of them.

A pregnant experiment hereof we have in (the, call it, rod or sword of) our late civil war, which lasted so long in our land, yet left so little signs behind it. Such who consider how much was destroyed in the war may justly wonder that any provision was left, whilst such who behold the plenty we have left will more admire that any was ever destroyed.