And now, you think these things trifles, or at least exaggerated. But
what you "think" or what I "think" matters little. Let us see what God
thinks of them. God always justifies His ways. While we are thinking, He
has been teaching. I have known cases of hospital pyæmia quite as severe
in handsome private houses as in any of the worst hospitals, and from
the same cause, viz., foul air. Yet nobody learnt the lesson. Nobody
learnt _anything_ at all from it. They went on _thinking_--thinking that
the sufferer had scratched his thumb, or that it was singular that "all
the servants" had "whitlows," or that something was "much about this
year; there is always sickness in our house." This is a favourite mode
of thought--leading _not_ to inquire what is the uniform cause of these
general "whitlows," but to stifle all inquiry. In what sense is
"sickness" being "always there," a justification of its being "there" at
all?

[Sidenote: How does He carry out His laws?]

[Sidenote: How does He teach His laws?]

I will tell you what was the cause of this hospital pyæmia being in that
large private house. It was that the sewer air from an ill-placed sink
was carefully conducted into all the rooms by sedulously opening all the
doors, and closing all the passage windows. It was that the slops were
emptied into the foot pans;--it was that the utensils were never
properly rinsed;--it was that the chamber crockery was rinsed with
dirty water;--it was that the beds were never properly shaken, aired,
picked to pieces, or changed. It was that the carpets and curtains were
always musty;--it was that the furniture was always dusty; it was that
the papered walls were saturated with dirt;--it was that the floors were
never cleaned;--it was that the uninhabited rooms were never sunned, or