It is a comforting Christian...
It is a comforting Christian doctrine to realize that there is no automatic connection between our misfortune and our deserving. John Milton, the English writer, illustrated this truth while being visited by James II, then Duke of York, later king of England. James suggested that the poet's blindness was a divine punishment for his having written a defense of the execution of his father, King Charles I. Milton retorted, "If Your Highness thinks that misfortunes are indexes of the wrath of heaven, what must you think of your father's tragical end? I have only lost my eyes.