With infinite reluctance the divine love had to do what God Himself has called His strange work. Divine Justice travels slowly, but arrives at last. Her foot is leaden both in regard to its tardiness and its weight. There is no ground in the long postponement of retribution for the fond dream that it will never come, though men lull themselves to sleep with that lie. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is throughly set in them to do evil.' But the sentence will be executed. The pleading love, which has for many returning autumns spared the barren tree and sought to make it fit to bear fruit, does not prevent the owner saying at last to his servant with the axe in his hand, Now! thou shalt cut it down.'
