“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
(Psalm 30:5)

The gloom of midnight must be succeeded by the splendor of day, and the dreariness of Winter by the charms of Spring. What, though some who once stood paramount in our esteem, with whom we have taken the sweetest counsel, and to whom our names were once as precious ointment, have turned aside to their crooked ways, and the LORD is leading them forth with the workers of iniquity to severe correction, or final destruction, yet peace shall be upon Israel. If backsliders abound on the right hand and on the left, and the iniquities of multitudes, like the wind, have carried them away; still, “the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his.” Though Zion is afflicted, tossed with tempests and not comforted, yet her stones shall be laid with fair colours, and her foundations with sapphires, her windows shall he made of agates, and her borders of pleasant stones, and all her children shall be taught of the LORD, and great shall be the peace of her children. Though, in the midst of her confusion and anguish, she says, “the LORD has forsaken me, and my God has forgotten me,” she is still remembered of the LORD with peculiar regard. Her name stands engraved upon the palms of His hands, and her walls, the means of her security, are continually before Him. Her children shall make haste, her converts shall increase, and her destroyers and they that made her waste shall go forth of her…The Almighty has His way in the whirlwind and the storm. The operations of his providence are inscrutable, and the footsteps of His infinite sovereignty past finding out…Yet, He is ever the God of Israel, her Saviour!

Job Hupton (1762 – 1829)