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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



MISSION OF SORROW. 



BY EEV. GAEDINEE SPBTNG, D. D. 

NEW YOEK. 



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PUBLISHED BY THE 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STKEET, NEW YOEK. 

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by the 
American Tract Society, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court 
of the Southern District of the State of New York. 



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CONTENTS. 

I. Sorrow God's Witness 5 

II. Sorrow Deserved -.-- 21 

III. Submission under Sorrow - 37 

IV. Sorrow disturbs Idolatrous Attachments 49 

V. Sorrow the Friend of the Christian Graces 65 

VI. Sorrow taking Lessons from the Bible 81 

VII. Sorrow at the Throne of Grace 103 

VIII. Meetness for Heaven through Sorrow 116 

IX. No Sorrow there 134 



THE MISSION OF SORROW. 



L SORROW GOD'S WITNESS. 

It must be a hard heart that is not 
touched with the sorrows of the bereaved. 
Our sympathy may give courage to the 
mourner, and relieve his solitude, even 
where it cannot alleviate his woes. Ca- 
lamity in every form makes an appeal to 
every Christian mind for correspondent 
feeling, for fellowship, for counsel. The 
sorrows which for months past have inun- 
dated this land, and which now sweep 
over it like the waves of the sea, have 
been vividly present to the writer of 
these pages; and he would fain give 
utterance to a few thoughts in which his 
own heart beats in unison with the afflict- 



6 THE MISSION OF SOREOW. 

ed. We weep with those who weep. 
"A friend loveth at all times, and a 
brother is born for adversity. 77 We "re- 
member them which are in adversity, as 
being ourselves also in the body. 77 We 
have all much to be thankful for, and 
much to mourn over. Sorrow has its 
approved mission. If the^Father of mer- 
cies "doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve 
the children of men, 77 there must be 
some reason for these inflictions — a 
" needs be " that is absolute and imper- 
ative. We should "hear the rod, and 
Him that hath appointed it. 77 

Atheism is the great vice of the hu- 
man mind. It is the nature of sin to be 
blindfold, especially to the existence and 
attributes and presence of the great Un- 
seen. It is the element of sin to live at 
a distance from God. It is the refuge 
and triumph of sin, w T hen "the fool hath 
said in his heart, There is no God." 



SORROW GOD'S WITNESS. T 

" The owlet Atheism, 
Sailing on obscene wings across the noon, 
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and shuts them close, 
And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven, 
Cries out, Where is it V 

There is no more emphatic or terse 
description of wicked men than that they 
are u without God in the world. " This is 
their character, and leads to all their 
negligence, all their unbelief, and all 
the varied forms of their ungodliness. 
When once a man loses sight of the God 
of heaven, and has no abiding impres- 
sions of Him "in whose hand is the soul 
of every living thing/ 7 who can measure 
or limit his roving, or tell where he will 
stop ? Yet to this practical atheism men 
are everywhere exposed. The tendency 
to it is strong and seductive, and im- 
pelled by all the subtlety of him "who 
goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking 
whom he may devour.' 7 Men live and 
go forth into the world, and look on its 



8 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

beauty and its bloom, every planet and 
star reflecting the image of the Deity, 
every stream and summer cloud and 
breathing fragrance all with one voice 
vocal with his praise ; yet are they igno- 
rant of God, estranged from God, alien- 
ated from God. What they are taught 
concerning him, they do not understand ; 
what they understand, they misinterpret ; 
what they do not misinterpret, they for- 
get, and choose to forget, because they 
11 do not like to retain God in their know- 
ledge. 77 The language of their hearts is, 
"Depart from us; for we desire not the 
knowledge of thy ways. 77 They have no 
notion of being controlled by "a Power 
above them, 77 but rather shake off all 
impressions of religious obligation, that 
they may sin without restraint and with- 
out remorse. 

It is a great thought to enter the mind 
that there is a God. The knowledge 



SORROW GOD'S WITNESS. 9 

of God lies at the foundation of all know- 
ledge, of all truth, all morality, all re- 
ligion, all real and permanent happiness. 
" This is life eternal, that they might 
know thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom thou hast sent." Just as 
the whole frame of the universe would 
totter to its foundation if there were no 
God, so all sense of moral obligation and 
all true religion have nothing to rest 
upon where God is not known. Men 
must be made to think of God, to see 
him in some measure as he is, guiding, 
directing, and governing all things after 
the counsel of his own will. They may 
not stop their ears when he speaks, nor 
flee from his presence when he comes 
near ; rather must they acquaint them- 
selves with him as a God at hand, and 
not a God afar off, and as a very present 
help in the time of trouble. And this is 

THE MISSION OF SORROW. It is God's 



10 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

witness. It speaks for God to this 
thoughtless and suffering world. 

Among the methods pursued in order 
to set this great and good Being before 
the minds of men, the Scriptures often 
advert to the afflictive dispensations of 
his providence. "The Lord is known 

BY THE JUDGMENTS WHICH HE EXECUT- 

eth." This is one of the laws of his 
kingdom. Severe judgments indicate 
his being, his presence, his displeasure. 
They testify to his agency in all the 
affairs of men, and trace them to the 
great First Cause. A truly devout mind, 
one would judge, finds some repose here. 
It is cold comfort to be told that "man 
is born to trouble as the sparks fly up- 
ward,' 7 and that it is the law of his being 
that he must be a sufferer. Yet so it is. 
It is not more a law of nature that bodies 
lighter than the atmosphere ascend, and 
those that are heavier descend towards 



S0RE0W GOD'S WITNESS. 11 

the earth, than it is the law of his being 
that he must be a sufferer. Every man 
knows this; but he would know more. 
And he may know more. The laws of 
nature are not fortuitous arrangements, 
but form the principles on which the 
God of nature conducts his wise and 
benevolent procedures throughout the 
physical creation. It is our joy to know 
that there is no such thing as chance in 
the kingdom of nature. Every thing is 
the result of design, and indicates the 
all-wise Designer. And is it less so in 
the moral world, and in the kingdom of 
grace? It would be a revolting thought 
that the sorrows, either of good or bad 
men, are uncaused, undirected, and that 
no all-seeing eye watches over them, and 
no unwearied arm restrains and controls 
them; and that while there is a wise 
and sovereign Arbiter, who balances the 
clouds and prepare th rain for the earth, 



12 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

and maketh the grass to grow upon the 
mountains, who silences the storm, and 
says to the invader, " Hitherto shalt 
thou come, and no further/ 7 there is no 
such wise and benevolent supremacy 
over the thousand ills that flesh is heir 
to. Human life would be scarcely worth 
enjoying if blind fate were the arbiter. 
The more thoughtful and virtuous would 
reason as some of the wiser heathen rea- 
soned, when, in their attempts to strike 
the balance between the good and the ill 
of man's existence, they were driven to 
the conclusion that it is a doubtful ques- 
tion whether existence is a blessing or a 
curse. 

It is well that the Scriptures put this 
whole subject at rest, and explicitly in- 
struct us, that whatever the form or de- 
gree of suffering in our world, it is the 
visitation of God. Sickness and poverty, 
drought and pestilence, embarrassment 






S0KK0W GOD'S WITNESS. 13 

and perplexity, bereavement and death — 
no matter what the trial, "affliction Com- 
eth not forth of the dust, neither doth 
trouble spring out of the ground.' 7 "Shall 
there be evil in the city, and the Lord 
hath not done it V } Be the means what 
they may, and the subordinate agents 
what they may: be they the sword of 
the enemy, or the sirocco of the desert; 
be they flood or fire; be they man's 
malignity or his envenomed tongue, the 
hand of Glod is in all. 

It is not always that we realize this 
great truth. We stop at second causes ; 
yet second causes are but his messen- 
gers and do his bidding. And though 
there are sufferings so fearful that we 
almost hesitate at attributing them to his 
providence, yet is the responsibility of 
directing them one which he everywhere 
assumes, and which he well knows how 
to sustain and defend. We may never 



14 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

know all the reasons of these dark dis- 
pensations, until the curtain is drawn 
aside and lets in upon them the stronger 
light of eternity. It is enough to know 
that, though they are the darker ex- 
pressions of his nature we here behold, 
and behold with mingled awe and rev- 
erence, behind the cloud is the pure 
Spirit of the full-orbed Deity. 

The bereaved may indeed, under se- 
vere bereavements, lose sight of the 
Sovereign Dispenser. They may grieve 
the Holy Spirit, and take refuge in some 
comfortless error, and be submerged in 
darkness and doubt, and sink in de- 
spondency and gloom. But this is not 
the fitting tendency of their afflictions. 
When the Lord of heaven and earth thus 
comes out of his place to judge his ene- 
mies or chastise his friends, he sets him- 
self directly before their minds. When 
he poured his wrath on Egypt, and over- 



SORROW GOD'S WITNESS. 15 

threw Pharaoh and his host in the Red 
sea, it was that "his name might be de- 
clared throughout all the earth. 77 When 
the Destroyer cut off one hundred and 
eighty-five thousand of the enemies of 
Israel in a single night, it was to teach 
Israel and their enemies, that God him- 
self was in the midst of them. When 
the angel of the Lord smote Herod 
Agrippa, and he was eaten of worms ; 
when the proud Roman boasted that 
there was no other God but his sword, 
and he and his were consumed by light- 
ning from heaven ; when the atheist 
monarch of Assyria affected divine hon- 
ors, and in despair set fire to his palace 
and buried himself in its ruins; when 
Nebuchadnezzar, for his presumptuous 
contempt of the Most High, was driven 
from among men to herd with the beasts 
of the field and eat grass like oxen ; 
and when Judas went and hanged him- 



16 THE MISSION OF SOEEOW. 

self — these and events like these an- 
nounce the judicial, the executive Deity. 
Any one who reads the prophecy of Eze- 
kiel with care, cannot but notice the rea- 
son there given for the desolating judg- 
ments spoken of in that prophecy. And 
what is it? More than seventy times, if 
I mistake not, it is given in the follow- 
ing words: "That men may know that 
I am the Lord in the midst of the 
earth.' 7 It has been well said that 
"God is in history; 77 and what lesson 
does the history of the world and the 
church inculcate, if not this, that "ver- 
ily there is a God that judgeth in the 
earth V Men are not apt to stop at 
second causes, and overlook the great 
First Cause, when a resistless providence 
throws them into the furnace. The foun- 
dations of their scepticism then give way. 
Atheism itself is constrained to confess 
that there is a God in heaven. It is no 



SORROW GOD'S WITNESS. H 

earthly voice that speaks then. And it 
falls in the admonitory tones, "See now, 
that I, even I am he, and there is no 
strange God with me. I kill, and I 
make alive ; I wound, and I heal : nei- 
ther is there any that can deliver out of 
my hand." 

This is a lesson the mourner needs to 
learn. It is God himself that has smit- 
ten you, my afflicted friend. It becomes 
you to say with one of old, "I was dumb ; 
I opened not my mouth, because Thou 
didst it." I repeat it, it was G-od him- 
self, and not another, that struck the 
blow. And he meant to do it. " Behold, 
he taketh away. Who can hinder him ; 
who shall say unto him, What doest 
thou r 

" >T is God who lifts our comforts high, 
Or sinks them in the grave : 
He gives, and blessed be his name, 
He takes but what he gave." 

Mil. of Sorrow. 2 



18 THE MISSION OF SOEEOW. 

He had a higher claim upon the departed 
than your fond affection can urge. The 
beloved one was not yours, but his — his 
creature, his property, created by him, 
cared for by him. And has he not a 
right to do what he will with his own ? 
He has not taken away more than be- 
longs to him, nor any thing which he 
encouraged you to believe you should 
long enjoy. Your rights are limited and 
overruled by his. It is not willingly 
that he afflicts, yet wisely. The season 
of affliction is one he employs for high 
and holy purposes, and for nothing more 
high and holy than that men may know 
that he exists and governs, and is the 
Rewarder. When he "bows his heav- 
ens and comes down, and darkness is 
under his feet, ;? it is that men may know 
that "there is the hiding of his power. " 
And not unfrequently, at such seasons, 
there are thoughts and views which so 



SOEEOW GOD'S WITNESS. 19 

fill and absorb the mind, that God the 
Infinite One shuts out every other ob- 
ject. He has access to the mourners, 
and of set purpose places them in cir- 
cumstances well fitted to lead them to 
see and acknowledge his hand. They 
are seasonable and well-timed instruc- 
tions, and not unfrequently more effec- 
tive and profitable than all other teach- 
ing, and constrain them to exclaim, 
" Who teacheth like him !" From blank 
atheism I know the mind starts back 
with horror; yet what multitudes are 
satisfied with a cold and speculative be- 
lief of the Divine existence, until they 
feel the weight of his resistless and in- 
visible hand. It is not the name of God 
merely that constitutes the Deity, but 
those attributes and prerogatives which 
are inseparable from his existence, and 
of which men have such faint impres- 
sions until he speaks from the thick dark- 



20 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

ness. God governs everywhere, but 
there are those who see him nowhere. 
His providence is concerned in every 
thing, but they see it in nothing. They 
exclude God from his own creation. 
They have a God in name, but not in 
reality. They are "without God in the 
world. w It is to this undutiful, ungrate- 
ful, presumptuous, and hopeless state of 
mind that sorrow comes to speak on 
God's behalf, and to remind men how 
much he has to do with them, and they 
with him. As our views of God are, so 
is our religion. The mere thought of 
God, to a mind that feels it, has more 
weight than all other thoughts. It is with 
every man either every thing or nothing. 
It is every thing to the children of sor- 
row 



SORROW DESERVED. 21 



II. SORROW DESERVED. 



One design of afflictions is to teach us 
that we deserve all that we suffer. No 
man who has a conscience will question 
that he is thus ill-deserving. So far 
from murmuring and cherishing the heart 
of a rebel, one would think that with the 
afflicted prophet he would say, "I will 
bear the indignation of the Lord until he 
plead my cause, because I have sinned 
against him." 

Afflictions have a moral as well as an 
efficient cause. God never afflicts sim- 
ply because he chooses to do so. Arbi- 
trary choice and power have no place 
in his government. Suffering is the 
sentence of justice, and not an act of 
sovereignty. "The curse causeless can- 
not come." There is no suffering where 
there is no sin. The reason for all the 



22 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

suffering in this sinful and sinning world, 
is the mournful fact that it is a sinful and 
sinning world, ' ; TTho ever perished, 
being innocent ; or where were the right- 
eous cut off?" The unfallen angels are not 
sufferers. So long as the fallen remained 
sinless, they were not sufferers. When 
this planet on which we dwell came from 
the hands of its Maker, it was a happy, 
because it was a holy world. The Tempt- 
er's foot had not trodden it, nor had it 
been poisoned by the venom nor pollut- 
ed by the slime of the old Serpent. Our 
first parents were created capable of sen- 
sation, thought, and volition ; their every 
sense and facultv was but the inlet and 
avenue of joy. The image of Him that 
created them had not been effaced from 
their pure minds, nor was it obscured or 
discolored. God himself was their su- 
preme good, and they were happy. The 
heavens and the earth, every creature, 



SORROW DESERVED. 23 

and every object and event around them 
ministered to their enjoyment. The 
ground was not then cursed, nor was it 
smitten with barrenness. They were not 
thorns and thistles which it brought forth, 
nor did savage beasts roam its mountains 
or its plains. There was no poisonous 
atmosphere, nor burning sun, nor stormy 
wind, nor creeping pestilence, nor bloody 
sword. Men did not sicken and die upon 
it, nor had it yet entered upon its sad 
career of mourning and tears. Every 
thing was fair, because it was unblem- 
ished — every thing beautiful, tranquil, 
and joyous, until its beauty was marred, 
its tranquillity disturbed, and its joys 
infected by sin. 

Then all was changed. The ground 
was cursed. The air was cursed. The 
streams were cursed. The very flowers 
and plants of Eden were cursed for man's 
sake. Man himself was cursed. The 



24 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

woman was cursed. And all their de- 
scendants are born under the, curse. 
They inherit a fallen nature, are embryo 
sinners, and "go astray from the womb." 
The varied and complicated sorrows 
which now attend them from the cradle 
to the grave, whether thgy be individual, 
domestic, social, or public, are God's vis- 
itation for their iniquity. From that 
hour to the present, every pang that 
shoots through the bosom, every tear 
that falls upon the pallid face of sorrow, 
is a token of God's displeasure against 
sin and against man the sinner. Sorrow 
reads the lesson of unworthiness and ill- 
desert, and conveys to the proud and 
haughty mind the resistless, indelible im- 
pression of personal guilt and vileness. 

Such is the light in which the divine 
oracles represent human suffering. "By 
one man sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin; and so death hath passed 



SORROW DESERVED. 25 

upon all men, for that all have sinned." 
The terror by night and the arrow that 
flieth by day, the restless bed of sickness 
and of pain, and the pestilence that walk- 
eth in darkness, are faithful monitors. 
"When thou, Lord, dost rebuke man 
for his iniquity, thou makest his beauty 
to consume away as the moth.' 7 The 
empire of suffering stands abreast with 
the empire of sin. There never was a 
sufferer who was not a sinner. 

It is no cause of self-gratulation, when 
we are sufferers, that we have brought 
the suffering upon ourselves. Yet we 
cannot plead that we are guiltless. ' ■ Thy 
way and thy doings have procured these 
things unto thee. 77 See now that "it is 
an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast 
forsaken the Lord thy God. 77 If pain in- 
vades these senses, which were formed 
to be the avenues of pleasure, it is be- 
cause we have sinned with our eyes and 



26 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

ears and hands, and these senses have 
been our tempters. If lover and friend 
are put far from us, and our acquaint- 
ance into darkness, it maybe because they 
have seduced our hearts from God. If 
riches take to themselves wings and fly 
away as an eagle towards heaven, it may 
be because we have made our wealth our 
strong city, and "said to the gold, Thou 
art my trust, and to the fine gold, Thou 
art my confidence.' 7 If our fair name has 
been tainted by the breath of slander, or 
exposed to obloquy by indiscretions of 
our own, it is that we may be reminded 
how inordinately we have been " lov- 
ers of ourselves. " These are humbling 
thoughts, we know; yet is it no small 
satisfaction to know that G-od does not 
afflict us unjustly. It would be a fearful 
impression to struggle with, if we had the 
consciousness of not deserving rebuke, 
or if we were so deluded as to persuade 






S0EE0W DESEEVED.. 27 

ourselves that these painful dispensations 
are uncalled for. I have met with more 
instances than one of this sort in the 
course of my ministry, and have ever 
felt that while they called for faithful 
instruction and reproof, they also de- 
manded compassion and sympathy. It 
is a perilous position which a creature 
thus assumes of contending with his Ma- 
ker, and has no tendency to diminish or 
assuage his grief. Our very dreams 
might cure us of this presumption. " In 
thoughts from the visions of the night," 
says the old patriarch, " when deep sleep 
falleth on men, fear came upon me, and 
trembling, which made all my bones to 
shake. Then a spirit passed before my 
face ; the hair of my flesh stood up." 
It was a messenger from the spirit land. 
''It stood still, but I could not discern 
the form thereof: an image was before 
mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard 



28 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

a voice, saying, Shall mortal man be more 
just than God? shall a man be more pure 
than his Maker ? Behold, he putteth no 
trust in his servants ; and his angels he 
charged with folly: how much less in 
them that dwell in houses of clay, whose 
foundation is in the dust, .which are 
crushed before the moth ?" We all con- 
fess that these are just sentiments. And 
they soothe the troubled heart. They 
charm away his grief when the sufferer 
thus bows before the throne, accepts the 
punishment of his iniquity, and ascribes 
righteousness to his Maker. 

" Almighty power, to thee we bow ; 

How frail are we, how glorious Thou : 
No more the sons of earth shall dare 
With an Eternal God compare." 

Man is the creature of appetite and 
passion ; and though the creature of re- 
flection and conscience, he often com- 
plains of the severity of God's judg- 



• 



SORROW DESERVED. 29 

ments. He says within himself, Where- 
fore is the heat of this great anger ; what 
have I done to deserve a blow like this ? 
Come now, and let us reason together. 
Let such a one honestly attend to his 
own convictions, and inquire whether he 
is truly awake to a just sense of his ob- 
ligations as Grod's creature. Hfe con- 
science may not be so enlightened and 
sensitive as to lead him to feel the bur- 
den of his sins and the full weight of a 
self-condemning spirit. He may never 
have honestly made the divine law the 
rule of his duty, nor seen how broad it 
is. He may have congratulated himself 
on a decent exterior, not thinking that 
" man looketh on the outward appear- 
ance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." 
He may have thought of his fellow-men 
more than he has thought of God ; hon- 
ored them more than he has honored 
him, and sought their approbation and 



30 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

favor more than his. What though you 
do not condemn yourself for your immo- 
rality, have you no reason to reproach 
yourself for your ungodliness ? You 
may have overlooked your high privi- 
leges, and lost sight of those ends of di- 
vine love in the many and discriminating 
favors t)f a kind and gracious Providence 
towards you from your youth up. When 
you contrast God's treatment of you with 
your treatment of him, you may not feel 
so guiltless. You have been the child of 
his providence, the object of his care and 
bounty, and what return have you made 
to him who has thus loaded you with his 
benefits ? Have yon valued communion 
with him, and sought to enjoy his pres- 
ence, or found in him and from him that 
peace and those joys which the world 
cannot give ? Have you ever taken an 
honest retrospect of your own moral his- 
tory ? Whence is it, if you are not mar- 






S0KR0W DESEEVED. 31 

vellously ignorant of your own charac- 
ter, that you thus flatter yourself that 
your own unworthiness and ill-desert 
are not so great as those whose suffer- 
ings are less than your own ? 

With such a state of mind as is often 
cherished by persons in affliction, it is 
no marvel they complain of the rod. 
They do not feel that they deserve it. 
Oh it is a dark state of mind — a dead, 
torpid, unfeeling state • -sensitive to be- 
reavement and sorrow, but insensitive 
to unworthiness and ill-desert. The bur- 
den of sin is of all burdens the heaviest ; 
but there is a state of mind that makes 
light of sin, even when the heart stoops 
and bleeds under the burden of sorrow. 
Thou son, thou daughter of sorrow, look 
into thine own heart, look into thy closet 
anc^into thy Bible, and then ask con- 
science whether thy afflictions are not 
deserved. 



32 THE MISSION JOF SOEKOW. 

Good men are not always faultless in 
this matter, but are sometimes like a 
bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. 
"Oh," says the venerable patriarch, 
"Oh that it were with me as in months 
past, when the Almighty was with me, 
and my children were about me ; when 
his candle shone upon my head, and by 
his light I walked through darkness. But 
now thou art become cruel unto me ; with 
thy strong hand thou opposest thyself 
against me." This was a bitter and un- 
justifiable complaint; yet was it from lips 
that had but a little before said, "Shall 
we receive good at the hand of the Lord, 
and shall we not receive evil ?" Com- 
plaints like this were not the true index 
of Job's character ; for not long after this, 
and in the issue of his trials, he makes that 
memorable confession, " I have heansl of 
thee by the hearing of the ear, but now 
mine eye seeth thee : wherefore I abhor 



SORROW DESERVED. 33 

myself, and repent in dust and ashes. 77 
The children of Grod are not rebels. 
Even under the severest afflictions they 
have the consciousness of their sinful 
character, and of their indebtedness to 
his forbearing mercy; and the thought 
cools the febrile agitation of their heart, 
and bids it be still. "I am the man, 77 
says the weeping prophet in his mourn- 
ful Lamentations, "that hath seen afflic- 
tions by the rod of his wrath. He hath 
led me, and brought me into darkness, 
and not into light. He turneth his hand 
against me all the day; he hath made 
my chain heavy. He hath bent his bow, 
and set me as a mark for the arrow. He 
hath filled me with bitterness, and made me 
drunken with wormwood. He hath broken 
my teeth with gravel stones; he hath cov- 
ered- me with ashes. 77 Language is not 
easily found more vividly expressive of 
grief and despondency. He quailed be- 



Mis. of Sorrow. 



34 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 

neath the rod. But did his pensive 
harp echo no cheering strain? Listen 
while God his Maker gave him ''songs 
in the night." He had time for reflec- 
tion, for self-inspection and prayer ; and 
in these retrospective and introverted 
thoughts, mourning and gratitude, the 
pensiveness and confidence of piety are 
sweetly combined. " Remembering mine 
affliction and mv miserv, the wormwood 
and the gall, my soul hath them still in 
remembrance, and is humbled in me. 
This I recall to my mind, therefore have 
I hope:' Nor does the triumph end 
here. There is the song of joy from the 
midst of the furnace. "'It is of the 
Lord's mercies that we are not consumed; 
because his compassions fail not. They 
are new every morning. Great is thy 
faithfulness." It was the light of heaven 
illuminating his darkness. And when he 
subjoins, "It is good for a man that he 



SORROW DESERVED. 35 

bear the yoke in his youth ; he putteth 
his mouth in the dust, if so be there may 
be hope f and then adds, " For the Lord 
will not cast off for ever, for though he 
cause grief, yet will he have compassion, 
according to the multitude of his mer- 
cies ;" and at last affirms the great and 
precious truth, "for he doth not afflict 
willingly, nor grieve the children of men" — 
it is the strength of heaven, making him 
strong in weakness; it is the smile of 
heaven, chasing all gloom from his soli- 
tude and depression; it is the faithful- 
ness of heaven, leaving upon the reced- 
ing cloud "a rainbow round about the 
throne." 

Few thoughts have a more salutary 
influence upon the afflicted than a sense 
of their own unworthiness and ill-desert, 
especially when they contrast their afflic- 
tions with the abounding mercies of a 
munificent Providence. Think of your 



36 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

ill-desert ; count your trials, and set them 
side by side with your enjoyments ; and 
then ask yourself if you have nothing 
left to be thankful for. 

"If smiling mercy crown our lives, 
Its praises shall be spread ; 
And we ? 11 adore the justice too 
That strikes our comforts dead." 



SUBMISSION UNDER SORROW. 3*1 



III. SUBMISSION UNDER SORROW. 

"At the funeral of President Davies, 
just as the people were about to take up 
the coffin, his mother, an aged widow, 
came to take the last look of her son. 
She gazed intently upon him ; the tears 
fell upon the face of the corpse as she 
bent over it ; and then, retiring a single 
step as she still gazed upon him, she ex- 
claimed, ' There lies my only son, my only 
earthly comfort and earthly support. But 
there lies the will of God, and I am satis- 
fiedJ " This was Christian submission. 

Afflictions are sent as a test of this 
great trait of the Christian character. 
Kightly employed, they serve not only 
to bring out that character, but to pro- 
duce and cultivate a satisfied state of 
mind. It does not consist in a stoical 
insensibility to trials ; far from it. Nat- 



38 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 

ural affections were given us that we 
might weep ourselves, and weep with 
them that weep. Jesus wept at the grave 
of Lazarus. It does not consist in hav- 
ing no will of our own ; but in that chas- 
tened and subdued spirit which consents 
that the will of God should be done 
rather than our own will. There is no 
greater conquest over a supremely self- 
ish heart than this. Many a man sub- 
mits to God's will because he cannot help 
it ; but forced submission is a contradic- 
tion. There is no acquiescence when he 
rebels as long as he can, and yields only 
because he must yield, and because God 
is stronger than he. There are those also 
who flatter themselves that they have a 
submissive spirit, when they have noth- 
ing to submit to. They are satisfied with 
the dispensations of Providence, because 
every thing smiles about them, and all 
their wishes are gratified. There is no 



SUBMISSION UNDER SORROW. 39 

submission in this, and no subjugation of 
our will to the will of God, but rather a 
self-complacency, and a proud gratifica- 
tion of our own desires. Who ever 
thought of submitting to a good ? There 
may be thankfulness for it ; there ought 
to be ; but there is no place for submis- 
sion. It is only when the procedure of 
divine Providence countervails our own 
desires, arrangements, and hopes, and 
the bitter cup is put into our hands, that 
we can say, "Not my will, but Thine be 
done." This was the spirit of our ador- 
able and ever blessed Master, in view of 
such an aggregate and combination of 
suffering as the world never before saw, 
and will never see again; and it fur- 
nishes the highest exemplification of a 
submissive spirit. 

The only difficulty in exercising a sub- 
missive spirit is, that men naturally love 
themselves more than God. When the 



40 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

carnal mind that is enmity against God 
is subdued, and they love God more 
than themselves and more than all oth- 
ers, this very love to him, if in due exer- 
cise, will give the preference to his will 
above their own. If our wishes and our 
will are not so dear to us as God's, we 
shall have no desire to oppose his will 
in any thing. ' ' What pleases him pleases 
us" If, on the other hand, we love our- 
selves better than God ; if we love our 
treasures, our fame, our power, our 
children, our friends more than God, we 
cannot say, when he smites our idols, 
4 'It is well," because we have no such 
attachment to the divine will as leads us 
to subject our will to his. 

Where there is no submission to God's 
will, afflictions give rise to morbid insen- 
sibility, discontent, murmuring, rebel- 
lion. Where it does exist, they prove 
its reality and its value. When the rod 



SUBMISSION UNDER SORROW. 41 

of G-od is upon our habitation, and we 
can say, "It is the Lord; let him do 
what seemeth him good ;" when the bit- 
ter cup passes round, and we can say, 
M The cup which my Father giveth me, 
shall I not drink it?" when the burdened 
and afflicted soul "delights more in the 
will of G-od than in any thing that will 
can take away," who will say that afflic- 
tions are appointed in vain ? One such 
thought, one such holy emotion, one such 
act of sweet submission to the divine 
will, called into exercise and cultivated 
by trials, is worth all the bereavements 
it costs. It will live and grow and be 
perpetuated when this world and its idols 
and idolatrous attachments have passed 
away. When Shimei cursed David, he 
could say, "Let him curse, for the Lord 
hath bidden him." When the enemy 
fell upon the family of Job, and slew his 
children and servants; when the fire 



42 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 

burnt up bis possessions, and a great 
wind from the wilderness smote the four 
corners of the house, and it fell upon the 
young men, " Job arose and rent his man- 
tle, and shaved his head, and fell down 
upon the ground and worshipped, and 
said, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
taken away ; blessed be the name of the 
Lord.' 7 When the two sons of Aaron 
were suddenly made the victims of God's 
displeasure, "Aaron held his peace. 77 
Amid all the bitterness of their bereave- 
ments, they were happy men. They had 
no distrust of God. Unlike the troubled 
sea, their minds were tranquil. It was 
enough to be able to say, "The Lord 
reigneth; let the earth rejoice. 77 The 
Holy One of Israel delights in such a 
state of mind as this. It is of itself 
bright evidence of the reality of spiritual 
character. It is a prelibation of the riv- 
er of life which flows from under the 



SUBMISSION UNDER SORROW. 43 

throne of God and the Lamb. It is a 
blessed state of mind, and tinges with 
"its silver lining''* the dark cloud of 
adversity. 

Why then should the children of sor- 
row inwardly murmur or outwardly 
complain ? God has taken your belov- 
ed one. And will you quarrel with 
God ? Do you well to be angry ? Oh 
bid this tumultuous heart be still. 

"Peace all our angry passions then ; 
Let each rebellious sigh 
Be silent at his sovereign will, 
And every murmur die." 

Has the God only wise a#ted hastily in 
this matter? Is it difficult for you to 
believe that perfect rectitude cannot do 
wrong, that infinite wisdom cannot err, 
and that infinite goodness never acts un- 
kindly ? If the Sovereign Dispenser were 
ignorant and unwise, if he were unrea- 
sonable and unjust, or if he were merely 



44 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

indifferent to the sufferer's well-being, 
there might be ground for complaint. 
But there is no such God in the uni- 
verse. A being of such attributes is no 
God. 

We all feel our bereavements, and 
sometimes so keenly that our confidence 
in God is shaken, and breaks away from 
its strong foundations. This is all wrong. 
True piety is confiding, and gives its 
voice for God even when he " dwells in 
the thick darkness." Could we perceive 
the reasons and motives of his conduct 
as they lie in his own mind, unless we 
are rebels, w^should be satisfied. God 
is a Rock; his work is perfect. These 
painful dispensations, as we have already 
seen, are designed to unfold his true 
character. In view of them, we may 
well say with the apostle, "0 the depth 
of the riches, both of the wisdom and 
the knowledge of God. How unsearch- 



SUBMISSION UNDER SOEROW. 45 

able are his judgments, and his ways 
past finding out !" We shall know more 
hereafter, and see more clearly how bright 
his wisdom and goodness shine in these 
dark dispensations. We cannot grasp 
infinity. It is asking too much of infi- 
nite Wisdom, that he should condescend 
to our littleness and abjectness, and see 
every thing as we see it. 

" Lord, we are blind, poor mortals blind ; 
We can't behold thy bright abode : 
Oh, ? t is beyond a creature mind 

To glance a thought half way to God." 

Poor blind creatures of a day, to desire 
that we and ours should be in our own 
hands rather than in his ! His hand reach- 
es through all these checkered scenes of 
our earthly existence. It reaches to the 
chambers of sickness and the bed of 
death ; it reaches down to the grave, and 
up from the grave through all the suc- 
cessive generations of men, and all the 



46 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

relations they bear to him and to one 
another, and to the eternity where he 
dwells. Such knowledge is too wonder- 
ful for us. "It is high: we cannot 
attain unto it." Let us not then sit in 
judgment on what he does, but "be still, 
and know that he is God." 

TThat if he had not sent these trials 
upon you and yours ? "What if he had 
let you alone ? Are you sure your trials 
would have been fewer or lighter, and 
your condition every way better than it 
now is ? I say. are you sure of this ? 
Are you sure the time will never come 
when vou will see that it was better for 
you that you have been visited with the 
verv trials at which vou mourn so bit- 
terly ? Are you sure the departed one 
vould have been as well cared for as it 
now is. and that you could have done as 
well by that beloved child as God has 
done ? It was rightly the object of your 



SUBMISSION UNDER SORROW. 47 

tenderest love and most cheering hopes. 
Are you sure that love would not have 
been grieved, and those hopes disap- 
pointed? Do you know that, foreseeing 
the dark shadows upon its pathway, love 
greater than yours, and purer, has not 
taken it from the evil to come, and 
housed it from the storm ? Could you 
say, if it had lived, that "the days of its 
mourning are ended ; 77 that it shall sin 
no more and weep no more ? Could you 
have introduced it into "the general 
assembly and church of the first-born, " 
where the spirits of just men are made 
perfect, where angels are its guardians 
and teachers, where "the glory of Grod 
enlightens it, and the Lamb is the light 
thereof? 77 Why, why look so intently 
into the grave, and never beyond it? 
The departed are not there. It is but 
the mouldering clay tenement that slum- 
bers. The intelligent, moral, and im- 



48 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

mortal one is numbered among the mill- 
ions of those ransomed ones, out of whose 
mouth Grod has perfected praise. A 
voice from that holy world repeats the 
injunction, " Be still, and know that I 
am Gtod.' ? His arrangements in these 
bereavements may excite an idolatrous 
heart to complaint, and an unyielding 
heart to rebellion ; but none but a selfish 
heart will complain, none but idolatrous 
attachments will rebel. 



IDOLATROUS ATTACHMENTS. 49 



IV. SORROW DISTURBS IDOLATROUS 
ATTACHMENTS. 

In one form or another, all sin is idol- 
atry. It is a violation of the command, 
"Thou shalt have no other gods before 
me. 77 It sets the creature above the 
Creator. It ignores the Supreme Good, 
and sets up some created good in his 
place ; forsaking the Fountain of living 
waters, and hewing out to itself cisterns, 
broken cisterns that hold no water. 

Apostate man all the w r orld over does 
this. Though formed with capacities 
which nothing but God can fill, he has 
lost his relish for the Unseen and Eter- 
nal, and seeks his highest good in the 
seen and temporal. This love of the 
creature, no longer kept in its proper 
place by the predominating love of the 
Creator, becomes an idolatrous attach- 

Mifl. of Sorrow. 4 



50 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

merit. And it is a ruinous attachment. 
It is the ruin of nations, the ruin of 
worldly men, and but for interposing 
grace, it would be the ruin of Christians. 
Nor is there any thing that has a stron- 
ger tendency to weaken and break off 
this idolatrous attachment than afflictive 
dispensations. 

It is altogether too favorable an opin- 
ion of human nature to suppose that 
men are apt to grow better under the 
smiles of prosperity. History teaches 
nothing more emphatically than that un- 
mingled prosperity is one of the chief 
sources of national and individual degen- 
eracy. "Pride and fulness of bread" 
embolden wickedness, inflate insolence, 
become the aliment of angry dissension, 
collisions of interest, and pervading cor- 
ruption. The Most High once said to 
the nation of Israel, "I spake unto thee 
in thy prosperity, and thou saidst, I will 



IDOLATKOUS ATTACHMENTS. 51 

not hear ; this has been thy manner from 
th}^ youth. 77 It was the reproach of the 
Jew, that the apostle Paul was constrain- 
ed to say to him, u Not knowing that the 
goodness of God leadeth thee to repent- 
ance. 77 God gave this people their re- 
quest, but sent leanness into their souls. 
It is an instructive and affecting record, 
that " when he slew them, then they sought 
him; and they returned and inquired 
early after God ; and they remembered 
that God was their Rock, and the high 
God their Redeemer. 77 The nations that 
once figured so prominently on the page 
of history, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, 
Greece, Rome, and their far-famed cit- 
ies, where emperors and statesmen and 
philosophers and bards and merchants 
and bankers filled the world with fame 
and folly, were swept away from the pin- 
nacle of their wealth, and from the pomp 
of their power. We could not live in a 



52 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

world so morally corrupt as this, were it 
not restrained and held in awe by the 
divine judgments. The church of God 
would not be safe. There would be no 
protection to liberty and law, no domes- 
tic and no public security, no Sabbath 
and no sanctuary, were it not for those 
"terrible things in righteousness 77 by 
which the God of our salvation has so 
often arisen to plead and maintain his 
own cause. The overthrow of Sodom 
and the cities of the plain, the plagues 
of Egypt, the destruction of the ancient 
and idolatrous Canaanites, the breaking 
up of the Hebrew state and monarchy, 
and the dispersion of the Jews, stand 
forth before the world not more certainly 
as judgments upon the enemies of truth 
and righteousness, than as blessings to 
the people of God. It is right that he 
should execute judgments. The world 
needs them. Public and punitive dis- 




IDOLATKOUS ATTACHMENTS. 53 

pensations consult high interests, and 
terminate in the glory of his great name. 
As with nations, so it is with individ- 
uals. They need to be taught, that in 
seeking their highest good on earth, they 
are seeking it where it is not to be found. 
The supreme love of the creature is the 
ruin of the soul. Not many years since, 
a military officer in our land exclaimed 
on his bed of death, "The world — the 
world has ruined me!" The experience 
of millions attests the truth and impor- 
tance of those teachings of the divine ora- 
cles which instruct us that "the friend- 
ship of the world is enmity with Grod," 
and that "no man can serve God and 
mammon.' ; From the heavens and the 
earth, from the chambers of the dying 
and the graves of the dead, from the 
unsatisfying nature of all things beneath 
the sun, from the sin and pollution of a 
world that lieth in wickedness, from hard- 



54 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 

hearted hate and hard-handed oppres- 
sion, from tribulation and distress in all 
their forms, the admonition reaches us, 
"Arise ye, and depart; for this is not 
your rest, because it is polluted/ 7 One 
of the most distinguished and successful 
preachers of the gospel in this land once 
said, "Until men have taken an ever- 
lasting leave of the world, and shut 
themselves up in a convent, or in hell, 
the love of the world is the principal 
way in which they stray from G-od — the 
principal affection which takes the place 
of love to him. It is the great road to 
perdition; or if the gate of hell is shut 
by the grace of God, it is the great road 
to darkness, temptation, and distress. 77 

The psalmist understood the gracious 
design of affliction when he wrote the 
one hundred and nineteenth psalm. "It 
is good for me that I have been afflicted. 
Before I was afflicted, I went astray ; 






IDOLATROUS ATTACHMENTS. 55 

but now have I kept thy word." Else- 
where he says, "I know, Lord, that 
thy judgments are right, and that in 
faithfulness thou hast afflicted me." It 
was when "he was in affliction" that the 
vile and bloody Manasseh "besought the 
Lord his God, and humbled himself 
greatly before the God of his fathers." 
The afflicted patriarch had comfort in 
the thought when he said, "He knoweth 
the way that I take ; when he hath tried 
me, I shall come forth as gold." "In 
their affliction," says another prophet, 
" they will seek me early." 

A principal element of this day of 
grace is, that it is a state of trial. Under 
this gracious arrangement every thing is 
bringing the character of men to the test. 
Instruction tries it; prosperity tries it; 
adversity tries it. And for the most 
part, the great question to be decided is, 
whether God's creatures love the world 



56 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

more than him. This probationary pro- 
cess goes on with different and opposite 
results. Some there are who become 
worse under affliction. God said of a 
portion of his revolting people, "Ephra- 
im is joined to idols; let him alone. 77 
He instructed the prophet Amos to say 
to backsliding Israel, "I have given you 
cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and 
want of bread in all your palaces ; yet 
have ye not returned unto me, saith the 
Lord. And I have withholden the rain 
from you, when there were yet three 
months to the harvest ; yet have ye not 
returned unto me, saith the Lord. I 
have smitten you with blasting and mil- 
dew; I have sent among you the pesti- 
lence, after the manner of Egypt ; your 
young men have I slain with the sword ; 
yet have ye not returned unto me, saith 
the Lord. I have overthrown some of 
you as God overthrew Sodom and Go- 



IDOLATKOUS ATTACHMENTS. 5T 

morrah, and ye were as a brand plucked 
out of the burning ; yet have ye not re- 
turned unto me, saith the Lord.' 7 This 
was fearful and stiff-nicked obduracy; 
and where God means to subdue it, he 
sends other and greater judgments ; and 
where these fail of breaking the hard 
heart, his patience becomes wearied, and 
his language is, "Why should they be 
stricken any more? they will revolt more 
and more. 77 It is a fearful procedure 
when God does this, and leaves the 
worldling to his own heart 7 s lusts. 

But while some become worse under 
afflictions, some become better. Afflic- 
tions awaken the conscience of the most 
obdurate, restrain the wicked in their 
sinful courses, and in defiance of their 
own purposes and arrangements, arrest 
and detain and stop them in their down- 
ward career. Many is the man who has 
been kept from falling, who, without 



58 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

them, had sunk deep into the eternal pit. 
Afflictions not only often reclaim men 
from courses of wickedness in which 
they have long indulged, but not unfre- 
quently produce the physical incapacity 
for pursuing them. Many a man has 
been laid upon a bed of sickness, or has 
lost a limb, or become blind or deaf or 
palsied, that he might be kept from wick- 
edness which it was in his heart to per- 
petrate. 

Could the religious history of the peo- 
ple of God be narrated in detail, how 
many of them, think you, would attrib- 
ute their first religious impressions to 
some sad and solemn call of divine Prov- 
idence? The arrow that first pierced 
many an adamantine heart would be 
traced to disappointments they little 
thought of — to the poverty they dread- 
ed, to reproach and shame, or to the 
grave of those they loved. God accom- 



IDOLATEOUS ATTACHMENTS. 59 

plishes his purposes of mercy in his own 
way. The purpose comprises the means 
as well as the end ; severed from the 
means, there is no purpose. Affliction 
is often essential to the accomplishment 
of his gracious design. Multitudes never 
would have become Christians but for 
pain and bereavement and losses; and 
after they became Christians, never 
would their backsliding have been heal- 
ed but for the severity of their trials. 
But for these paternal chastisements, 
they would have wandered beyond the 
hope of recovery. God thought of them 
when they did not think of him, and 
restored their souls and led them in 
paths of righteousness for his name's 
sake. 

I have seen the benefit of afflictions, 
and have many a time wondered at the 
wisdom and the benevolent and gracious 
design which ordered and directed them. 



60 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

The giddy have become thoughtful, be- 
cause God smote their idols. The world- 
ling has lost his interest in the things of 
time, because the hand of God has touch- 
ed him. The man of genial temperament, 
and social habits, and instructive and 
pleasant converse, loses his relish for 
society, and is shrouded in gloom and 
dumb with silence, because his heart and 
his hopes lie buried in the grave. Nor 
is this all. His conscience has been dis- 
turbed with inward pangs ; and while 
the arrows of the Almighty stuck fast in 
him and were drinking up his spirit, God 
has turned his mourning into joy and his 
sad lamentations into praise. 

Such is the history of many a thought- 
less sinner. That young widow's heart 
had never found its rest in God, unless 
it had first been buried in her husband's 
grave. That daughter of mirth turned 
from her idols to the living God, not 



IDOLATROUS ATTACHMENTS. 61 

until she called to mind the last coun- 
sels and the parting kiss of a sainted 
mother, and learned that God "had 
chosen her in the furnace of affliction. 77 
Many a heart thus broken has thus been 
healed. Disciplined and discouraged by 
tribulation, it has found the God of heav- 
en its refuge and strength, and reposed 
in him without whom the whole circle 
of human joys is vanity. Sorrow has 
driven them from the world to God. It 
has shown them the imbittered streams, 
and led them to the pure Fountain. It 
has shown them their weakness, and 
taught them to take hold of Him "who 
giveth power to the faint, and to them 
that have no might he increaseth 
strength. 77 And now, instead of sitting 
alone and keeping silence, their language 
is, "Come, and let us return unto the 
Lord : for he hath torn, and he will heal 
us ; he hath smitten, and he will bind us 



62 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 

up. 77 The mourner is then blessed, 
though he walk in the midst of trouble. 
The agitated and trembling heart has 
found a refuge from the storm, a strength 
to the needy in his distress, "a shadow 
from the heat when the blast of the ter- 
rible ones is as the storm against the 
wall." When sorrow comes on such an 
errand, the house of mourning reads the 
lesson that there is something to rest 
upon besides this perishing world, and 
something more sacred than the attach- 
ments which terminate on earth. The 
soul then forgets its misery, and remem- 
bers it as the waters that pass away. 
She takes her harp from the willows, and 
sings, " Be joyful, earth; and break 
forth into singing, mountains : for the 
Lord hath comforted his people, and will 
have mercy upon his afflicted." It is a 
new song when the child of sorrow is 
thus enabled to say with the apostle^, 




IDOLATROUS ATTACHMENTS. 63 

" Blessed be God, even the Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 
mercies and the God of all comfort ; who 
comforteth us in all our tribulation, that 
we may be able to comfort them which 
are in any trouble, by the comfort where- 
with we are comforted of God. 77 

Sorrow preaches as no pulpit ever 
preached. If " he that converteth a sin- 
ner from the error of his way shall save 
a soul from death and cover a multitude 
of sins, 77 this forbidding messenger of 
mercy will have crowns of rejoicing not 
a few in the day of the Lord Jesus. If 
in taking away all the mourner has loved 
on earth, it has given him all that is 
more loved in heaven ; if it has robbed 
him of time, to give him eternity ; if it 
falsifies the expectations of the world, 
and verifies purer and brighter hopes; 
if when the soul had lost its way, and 
knew not how to return to its great ob- 



64 THE MISSION OF SOKBOW. 

ject and end and chief good, sorrow 
comes commissioned from a world of joy 
11 to seek and save that which is lost," it 
has a salutary and deserves a welcome 
mission. 



THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 65 



V. SORROW THE FRIEND OF THE 
CHRISTIAN GRACES. 

The children of God have much to 
struggle with. Their vocation, high and 
holy as it is, has a martial aspect. It is 
a protracted conflict, in which they find 
it necessary not only to act on the de- 
fensive, but to be the aggressors. "We 
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, 
against the rulers of the darkness of 
this world, against spiritual wickedness 
in high places/ 7 To the peculiarity of 
the conflict in the first ages of the Chris- 
tian church, there ever has been and -is 
now superadded the ordinary and never 
ceasing conflict with that spirit of the 
world which is enmity with God. 

It is* not only true, as has been al- 
ready intimated, that the love of the 

Mis. of Sorrow. 5 



66 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 

world is the ruin of worldly men, it is the 
besetting sin of Christians. "The lust 
of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
pride of life," in some of their insinuat- 
ing and protean forms, are evermore en- 
snaring them. The best of men love the 
world far more than they ought. Nor 
are they always sensible of its depress- 
ing and secularizing power. It eclipses 
their faith, and limits and obscures their 
spiritual vision. It allures their affec- 
tions from God, embarrasses their con- 
templations of the realities of eternity, 
and is not unfrequently so entwined 
about their heartstrings, that they have 
lost the life and soul of religion, and for 
a time appear in no way different from 
other men. 

In miserable and criminal concurrence 
with these outward exposures, there are 
strong tendencies, from " the sin that 
dwelleth in them," not only to insensi- 



THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 67 

ble aberrations from the straight and 
narrow way, but to conscious and obvi- 
ous backsliding. The enemy is subtle, 
and the conflict severe. "The flesh lust- 
etk against the Spirit, and the Spirit 
against the flesh ; and these are contrary 
the one to the other. v The under-cur- 
rent of inbred apostasy is strong, and so 
resists and inmingles itself with the pure 
river of life, that the purer waters are 
like the troubled sea. 

God does not mean that his own chil- 
dren should always remain thus undis- 
tinguished from the world that lieth in 
wickedness. We know that a all are not 
Israel who are of Israel. 7 ' There are 
tares among the wheat. And though it 
belongs not to men to sever the just from 
the unjust, and although they may grow 
together till the harvest, the difference 
between them is often disclosed before 
the harvest sets in. If any of those who 



68 THE MISSION OF SOEEOW. 

profess to be the friends of Grod and fol- 
lowers of his Son are false to their pro- 
fession, he is very apt to make their un- 
faithfulness and hypocrisy appear, and 
to place them in circumstances in which 
their deception shall vanish like shadows 
before the sun, and their deceitful pro- 
fession shall stand out before the church 
and the world. Nor is it less true that 
the same dispensations of his providence 
which detect and bring out the hypoc- 
risy of those who have a name that they 
live and are dead, disclose and dis- 
cover the sincerity and truthfulness of 
those who have more than the form of 
godliness. 

An intimate acquaintance with the bi- 
ography of good men, among other won- 
ders of his grace, shows that the Father 
of mercies is wont to place his true friends 
in circumstances which prove their Chris- 
tian integrity, and invigorate and bur- 



THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 69 

nish their graces. By early covenant 
he gave them to his Son, and not one of 
them shall be lost, nor suffered to remain 
undistinguished from his recognized foes. 
The promise is explicit: "If his children 
forsake my law, and walk not in my judg- 
ments; if they break my statutes, and 
keep not my commandments ; then will 
I visit their transgression with the rod, 
and .their iniquity with stripes. 77 He 
loves his Son too well to violate his cov- 
enant with him, and he loves his people 
too well to violate his covenant with them, 
and allow them to rest undisturbed in 
their idolatrous attachments. 

He has a cure for their spiritual de- 
clension and their outward backsliding. 
He casts them into the furnace : he tries 
them as silver is tried. If the dross is 
massive and unyielding, he heats the fur- 
nace seven times more than it is wont to 
be heated, until the mass melts away and 



TO THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

is consumed. This he himself declares 
to be his object in these afflictive dispen- 
sations. "Behold," says he, "I will 
melt them and try them ; for how shall 
I do for the daughter of my people ?" 
When he does this, and they endure the 
trial, they come forth like gold seven 
times purified. They return to him from 
whom they have revolted; their graces are 
stronger and brighter, and shine in all 
the beauties of holiness. There is a mean- 
ing in their afflictions, and the more em- 
phatic as there is a reality and depth in 
them when they thus give brightness to 
their spiritual armor, and crown their 
conflicts with progressive victories. 

The burning arrows of temptation are 
ordinarily showered upon the soul of the 
believer during the seasons of thought- 
less prosperity. These fiery darts do 
not often fly in the valley of Baca ; des- 
olation and sorrow quench them. Such 



THE CHKISTIAN GKACES. U 

is sorrow's mission, and such is the voice 
of experience, and it is but an echo from 
the divine oracles. " Blessed is the 
man," say they, " that endureth trials; 
for when he is tried, he shall receive the 
crown of life. Count it all joy when 
ye fall into divers trials ; knowing this, 
that the trial of your faith worketh pa- 
tience ; but let patience have her perfect 
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, 
wanting nothing. Now no chastening 
for the present seemeth to be joyous, 
but grievous ; nevertheless, afterward it 
yieldeth the peaceable fruits of right- 
eousness to them that are exercised 
thereby." Afterward: the ploughshare 
struck deep; the seed requires time to 
ripen. 

"The bud may have a bitter taste, 
But sweet will be the flower." 

It is not often that a truly Christian 
mind long languishes under the gloom of 



72 THE MISSION OF SOEKOW. 

sorrow. Dejected it may be ; but there 
is an exhilarating power in the truths on 
which God has caused him to hope. Lan- 
guish it may ; but there are graces with- 
in, which, like plants of .righteousness 
shrouded in darkness, are perpetually 
tending towards the light, and eventu- 
ally emerge into the sunlight of spiritual 

joy. 

Not only do these spiritual emotions 
break up the settled gloom, but bring 
with them a deeper and stronger con- 
sciousness of adoption into the family of 
God. The mourner feels that the chas- 
tening is from the faithful hand of pater- 
nal love. Under the cheerful sunshine 
of prosperity, many a good man has been 
so absorbed and gratified in the objects 
of time and sense, that he had little or 
no religious enjoyment. His joys were 
elsewhere. He could not say with the 
rejoicing thousands of Israel, " Let them 



THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 13 

that love thy name be joyful in thee; 
shout for joy, all ye that are upright in 
heart. Let Israel rejoice in him that made 
him ; let the children of Zion be joyful 
in their King, and glory in the Holy One 
of Israel. " Far from this. They sought 
him, but they could not find him. They 
"went forward, but he was not there; 
backward, but they could not see him ; 
on the right hand where he doth work, 
but he hid himself from them ; on the 
left hand, but they did not behold him. 77 
Now, since the waves of sorrow began to 
roll over them, they find that G-od alone 
is their refuge and strength, a very pres- 
ent help in trouble. He is now their 
satisfying portion ; and though every 
thing else is fading and dying around 
them, they can say with the psalmist, 
" The Lord liveth ; and blessed be my 
Rock ; and let the God of my salvation 
be exalted." 



74 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

God may be seen and enjoyed every- 
where; but it is in the dark passages of 
our pilgrimage, in the depths of disap- 
pointed and fond expectations, on the 
bed of languishing, and in the death- 
chambers of those we love, that the light 
of his countenance most cheers us. They 
were days of fearful solemnity and san- 
guinary persecution when the apostle 
Paul wrote his rich epistle to the Chris- 
tians in Rome. Nothing but the sharp- 
est trials gave rise to such thoughts as 
these: "Therefore, being justified by 
faith, we have peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ ; by whom also 
we have access by faith into this grace 
wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of 
the glory of God. And not only so, but 
w r e glory in tribulation also; knowing that 
tribulation worketh patience ; and pa- 
tience, experience ; and experience, hope; 
and hope maketh not ashamed, because 






THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 75 

the love of God is shed abroad in our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given 
unto us." Who does not see the hallow- 
ed influence of abounding trials upon his 
abounding faith and heaven -imparted 
love? Who can read the eighth chapter 
of this epistle without perceiving that 
such noble thoughts and unwavering con- 
fidence were not the offspring of a tran- 
quil age ? What writer, except one from 
the cliffs of the beetling storm, or the 
submerged cavern, or the lions 7 den, or 
the "mountain of the leopards, 77 ever ut- 
tered the triumphant language, " Who 
shall separate us from the love of Christ? 
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecu- 
tion, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, 
or sword? As it is written, For thy 
sake we are killed all the day long ; we 
are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 
Nay, in all these things we are more than 
conquerors through him that loved us. 



76 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

For I am persuaded that neither death, 
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 
nor powers, nor things present, nor things 
to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any- 
other creature shall be able to separate 
us from the love of God which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord. 77 Noble man! 
Sufferer signally favored ! Thoughts and 
emotions cheaply purchased by his par- 
ticipation with the sufferings of his suf- 
fering Lord. How far above the sor- 
rows of nature are the consolations of 
grace. How far superior to the depres- 
sions of nature is the triumph of faith. 
Afflictions are not useless when grace 
becomes victorious. It is a beautiful 
remark of Pascal's, in a letter occasioned 
by the death of his father, " There is no 
consolation but in truth. All trial is 
sweet in Jesus Christ. He suffered and 
died to sanctify death and suffering. See 
in the magnitude of our woes the great- 



THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 17 

ness of our blessings, and let the excess 
of our grief be the measure of our joy. 77 
We love to have the providence of God 
smile upon us, and we often murmur 
when it frowns, even though we have so 
often found that it is safer for us that it 
should not always smile. It is recorded 
of ancient Israel, that " God gave them 
their request, but sent leanness into their 
souls. 77 This is not what the Christian 
desires. When God frowns upon us, we 
should be less anxious for exemption 
from the suffering, than for grace to en- 
dure it. " Grace for grace, 77 faithful 
grace, abundant grace — this is what the 
Christian needs, what he prays for, and 
that which follows in the footsteps of the 
Destroyer. Better, unspeakably better 
is it to enjoy the Divine presence and 
the light of his countenance, without our 
idols, than to have our idols without his 
favor. Oh, what wanderers should we 



78 THE MISSION OF SORKOW. 

be, if God did not sometimes hedge up 
our way with thorns. Surely it is not 
for want of love to his people that he 
sorely chastises them. David could say, 
"My soul cleaveth unto the dust; quick- 
en thou me, according to thy word. 77 
God heard his prayer, and sent him pen- 
itent and sorrowing to his knees. That 
sweet Christian poet William Cowper 
could "sing of mercies and of judg- 
ments, 77 and in strains such as angels 
use, and rarely in sweeter tones than 
when he indited the hymn, "0 for a 
closer walk with God. 77 Sanctified trials 
had taught him to say, 

" The dearest idol I have known, 
Whatever that idol be, 
Help ine to tear it from thy throne, 
And worship only Thee. 

So shall my walk be close with God, 

Calm and serene my frame ; 
So purer light shall mark the road 

That leads me to the Lamb." 






THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 19 

I have seen, I have felt the Christian 
graces wither under the burning sun of 
prosperity; and I have seen them "re- 
vive as the corn, and grow as the vine/ 7 
when these scorching rays were inter- 
cepted by clouds. The love that pre- 
fers God to creatures ; the penitence and 
humility that have learned to "go soft- 
ly/ 7 because they have "heard the rod 
and Him who hath appointed it; 77 the 
peace that tranquillizes ; the fear that 
fills the soul with holy reverence; the 
hope that looks for brighter days ; the 
joy that "glories in tribulation, 77 looms 
up under the darkest skies. From the 
deepest vale of humiliation the eye of 
faith discovers streaks of light from the 
mountain of God 7 s holiness ; and though 
dark clouds hang over it, streams of mer- 
cy flow down through their selected and 
grief- worn channels, filling the soul from 
all the fulness of God. Well does the 



80 THE MISSION OF SOKROW. 

Father of mercies say to each of his 
mourners, "My son, despise not thou the 
chastening of the Lord, neither be weary 
of his correction. For whom the Lord 
loveth he correcteth, even as a father 
the son in whom he delighteth." His 
own Son, his only Son, his well-beloved 
Son, was "made perfect through suffer- 
ing." God's ways are not as our ways, 
nor his thoughts as our thoughts. Blind 
unbelief naturally errs in its interpreta- 
tions of his providence. " What son is 
he whom the Father chasteneth not ?" 

" Those we call wretched are a chosen band. 
Amidst my list of blessings infinite, 
Stands this the foremost, that my heart has bled. 
For all I bless thee ; most for the severe." 



LESSONS FROM THE BIBLE. 81 



VI. SORROW TAKING LESSONS FROM 
THE BIBLE. 

Sorrow finds no relief from the mere 
teachings of human reason. The lessons 
of pagan philosophy, even from some of 
the most accomplished minds the world 
has known, do but make it the more bit- 
ter. A celebrated orator and statesman, 
who flourished more than a century be- 
fore the Christian era, furnishes us an 
instructive illustration of this thought. 
Marcus Tullius Cicero was from an an- 
cient and equestrian family in Italy, of 
superior talents and culture, of military 
as well as academic training, scarcely 
less distinguished for his philosophy than 
his eloquence, and rose to the highest 
dignities of the state with no other rec- 
ommendation than his personal merits. 
No man in Rome enjoyed a higher de- 

Mia. of Sorrow. 6 



82 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

gree of popular favor, and no one was 
more deservedly hailed as "the father 
and deliverer of his country.' 7 But he 
was a disappointed man — a man of sor- 
row, driven into exile, a desponding wan- 
derer in foreign lands, his property con- 
fiscated, his family persecuted, an idol 
daughter torn from him by death, him- 
self beheaded by a Eoman centurion, and 
his head and hands carried to Koine. 
Pagan biography may be safely chal- 
lenged to furnish a purer, brighter char- 
acter than that of Cicero, or a more 
undeserved overthrow of earthly hopes, 
and sudden fall from the eminence of 
popular favor, wealth, and power, to the 
depths of poverty, dependence, dishonor, 
and death. 

It may be instructive to inquire what 
were the resources and what the refuge 
of such a man in the season of adversity. 
He had no Bible for his teacher, and no 



LESSONS FROM THE BIBLE. 83 

G-od to go to. He was familiar with the 
teachings of the schools, and all the 
questions which relate to the academic 
philosophy. He himself had written a 
treatise in which he discusses the opinions 
of the sages of antiquity respecting the 
chief good and chief end of man; and 
also large treatises devoted to the con- 
sideration of topics most essential to 
human happiness. And now, in the hour 
of trial, what is his solace, and whence 
his consolation His first severe afflic- 
tion was his banishment from Kojne. 
His enemies were triumphant, and in one 
respect he was like the king of Israel 
when driven from Jerusalem. He loved 
Rome, and would fain have thrown some 
guardian shield around her. But alas, 

"The heathen in his blindness 
Bows down to wood and stone." 

11 A little before his exile, he took a small 
statue of Minerva, which had long been 



84 THE MISSION OF SOKROW. 

reverenced in his family as a kind of 
tutelar deity, carried it to the capitol, 
and placed it in the temple of Jupiter, 
under the title of Minerva, the guardian 
of the city" He had nothing else to 
cheer him when he turned his back upon 
his beloved Rome. It was a dark hour ; 
they were overwhelming sorrows that 
invaded him ; but his only refuge was a 
marble statue in the mple of Jupiter ! 
Such is paganism ; such are the consola- 
tions of natural religion ; such was the 
hope of the noblest man in Rome with- 
out the Bible. 

A lacerating berc . m jnt awaited him 
on his return to Rome, in the death of 
that remarkable and accomplished wom- 
an his daughter Tullia. His grief was 
inconsolable, and his lamentations most 
bitter. He had no comforter. Mind 
and body seemed to be sinking under 
the burden. Yain was all his philoso- 



LESSONS FROM THE BIBLE. 85 

phy to fortify himself against this over- 
whelming disaster. Philosophers came 
from all parts to comfort him ; but they 
could not convince him that pain and 
misfortune and death are no evils. They 
could not wipe away his tears, nor light- 
en his burden. He thought and read, 
but found nothing to relieve his despond- 
ency. Caesar wrote to him an affection- 
ate letter of condolence; Brutus wrote 
another, "so friendly and affectionate 
that it greatly moved him ;" Servius 
Sulpicius also wrote another, "which is 
thought to be a masterpiece of the con- 
solatory kind," and which closes with 
the thought, that it is "unbecoming the 
character and dignity of such a man as 
Cicero to be thus inconsolable, and that 
he who had borne prosperity so nobly, 
should bear adversity with the same 
moderation. 77 But philosophy had no 
drops of consolation to pour into his bit- 



86 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

ter cup. He retired to a little island on 
the Latian shore, there, amid woods and 
groves, to bury himself in solitude and 
tears. He lost all his cheerfulness. "In 
the ruin of the republic/ 7 he says, "I 
still had Tullia ; but by this last cruel 
wound all the rest, which seemed to be 
healed, are broken out again afresh. " 
Unrelieved by the counsels of his friends, 
he himself wrote his treatise "De Con- 
solatione," with a view to employ his 
mind and mitigate the anguish of his suf- 
ferings. His biographer informs us that 
this treatise was much read by the prim- 
itive fathers, especially Lactantius. Yet 
strange to say, his main consolation and 
the main object of the treatise was to 
vindicate the propriety of paying divine 
honors to the dead ; to urge the erection 
of a temple to her memory, as one "now 
admitted into the assembly of the gods ;" 
to gratify his fond affection, and to per 






LESSONS FKOM THE BIBLE. 81 

mit his grief to evaporate at the shrine 
of the departed. 

Such is Paganism. Such is the state 
of mind in Christian lands where the 
truths of God have no access. I have 
dwelt upon it, because I do not know 
that human reason, unenlightened by the 
gospel, can prescribe any better cure for 
the sorrow-stricken mind. 

We turn from it all to the thought of 
the psalmist, "Thou hast magnified thy 
word above all thy Dame." Among the 
varied and accumulative proofs that the 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ment are the word of God, is its adapta- 
tion to the character of man, not only as 
a sinner, but as a sufferer. It not merely 
provides ample securities for the peace 
of the guilty, but abundant consola- 
tions for the comfort of the miserable. 
Men feel the burden of their sorrows; 



88 THE MISSION OF SOEROW. \ 

they struggle with it ; they groan under 
the yoke, but find no relief. They can- 
not avoid it; it is upon them. They 
cannot combat it; it is stronger than 
they. 

The insufficiency of natural religion is 
never more apparent than to the con- 
sciousness of a sufferer. A survey of 
the earth on which we dwell discovers so 
much suffering, that for all that human 
philosophy can teach us, it appears to 
be inconsistent with that infinite wisdom 
and goodness which direct and control 
the affairs of men. We see the spoiler 
everywhere ; invading the habitations of 
the best of men as well as the worst; 
blighting their hopes, resting like a heavy 
cloud upon the fairest portion of man's 
earthly heritage, multiplying his trophies 
in the tears of the living and amid the 
silence of the dead, and sometimes 
thrusting in his sickle as though the har- 



LESSONS FKOM THE BIBLE. 89 

vest of the earth were fully ripe. And 
we cannot help inquiring, Why is this ? 
Why, under the control of unerring wis- 
dom and infinite goodness and almighty 
power, is this vast aggregate of human 
suffering allowed thus to accumulate? 
Why, rather, does it exist at all; and 
why should humanity groan under it a 
single hour ? 

A thinking pagan like Seneca or Cice- 
ro would naturally propose this question 
to himself; but he would in vain seek 
for a solution of the problem. His phi- 
losophy is a synopsis of doubts, of sup- 
positions, of theories, of vague conjec- 
tures, and at the same time of deep and 
powerful reasoning. Yet none of its 
conclusions bring peace and consolation 
to the miserable. It is a sad philosophy, 
a melancholy philosophy ; profoundly 
melancholy, and profoundly sad. 



90 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 

" Let all the heathen writers join 
To form one perfect book ; 
Great God, if once compared with thine, 
How mean their writings look." 

To a struggling sufferer, depressed and 
broken-hearted, the teachings of natural 
religion are like the scathing winds of 
autumn and the cold breath of winter. 
They chill the soul, and drive it back 
into its own dark and hopeless dungeon. 
There is no Sun of righteousness there 
with healing in its wings. The highest 
intellectual and moral culture of pagan 
lands is a stranger to the source and 
author, the aim and end of human woes. 
It does not meet the exigencies of the 
mourner; it has no mission to "bind up 
the broken-hearted.' 7 

Amid such shadows as these the light 
of the gospel shines with fresh brillian- 
cy. There heart-comforting truths are 
revealed, and heart-comforting scenes 
portrayed. " Blessed are they that 



LESSONS FKOM THE BIBLE. 91 

mourn ; for they shall be comforted. As 
the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so 
our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. 
Thou hast been a strength to the poor, a 
strength to the needy in his distress, a 
refuge from the storm, a shadow from 
the heat, when the blast of the terrible 
ones is as a storm against the wall. 
Though the fig-tree do not blossom, and 
there be no fruit in the vine ; the field 
shall yield no meat, the flocks shall be 
cut off from the fold, and there be no 
herd in the stalls ; yet will I rejoice in 
the Lord, and joy in the God of my sal- 
vation. Yea, though I walk through the 
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear 
no evil ; for thy rod and thy staff they 
comfort me. Why art thou cast down, 
my soul? and why art thou disquieted 
within me ? hope thou in God ; for I shall 
yet praise him who is the health of my 
countenance, and my God." 



92 THE MISSION OF SORBOW. 

Here is Bible consolation. There is 
not one of these precious declarations 
but is as the shadow of a great rock in 
a weary land, and as rivers of water in 
a dry place. Martyrs have hugged their 
fetters, and clanked their chains, and 
saluted their executioners with affection- 
ate endearments, because light and im- 
mortality are brought to light in the gos- 
pel, The promises of G-od, Oh they are 
like the dew of heaven upon the arid and 
exhausted heart of the mourner; they 
are like the breath of heaven, and redo- 
lent with its love ; they are the life of 
the soul, transforming its sorrows into 
joys. I have often thought of those 
touching appellations which are given 
to the Great Supreme, especially in the 
relation he sustains to the sons and 
daughters of sorrow. The apostle Paul 
speaks of him as "the God of coxso- 
latiox ; elsewhere he speaks of him as 






LESSONS FROM THE BIBLE. 93 

the God of all comfort. He is styled 
the widow's husband and defender, 
and the Father of the fatherless. He 
is revealed in the New Testament as The 
Comforter, and as though there were no 
other. Under his wise and gracious ad- 
ministration, suffering becomes the par- 
ent of joy: the wife loses her husband, 
that she may have Glod for her portion 
and guide ; the parent loses his child, that 
he may have God for his Father ; the 
rich lose their wealth, that the living 
God may be their portion ; the ambitious 
and aspiring lose their honors, that He 
maybe "their glory, and the lifter up of 
their head. 77 

When the celebrated Dr. Samuel John- 
son was called to follow a beloved wife 
to the grave, though no preacher of the 
gospel, he wrote her funeral - sermon. 
Among many excellent thoughts in this 
discourse, he says, "To afford adequate 



94 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

consolation to the last hour, to cheer the 
gloomy passage through the valley of the 
shadow of death, and to ease that anxie- 
ty to which beings prescient of their own 
dissolution, and conscious of their own 
danger, must be necessarily exposed, is 
the privilege only of revealed religion. 
To bring life and immortality to light, to 
give such proofs of our future existence 
as may influence the most narrow mind 
and fill the most capacious intellect, to 
open prospects beyond the grave in 
which thought may expatiate without 
obstruction, and to supply a refuge and 
support to the mind amid all the miser- 
ies of decaying nature, is the peculiar 
excellence of the gospel of Christ. With- 
out this heavenly instructor, he who 
feels himself sinking under the weight 
of years, or melting away by the slow 
waste of lingering disease, has no other 
remedy than obdurate patience, a gloomy 



LESSONS FKOM THE BIBLE. 95 

resignation to that which cannot be 
avoided. " 

The time will come when the wise as 
well as the unwise will appreciate this 
great truth, and when u every one that 
thirsteth" will draw water from these 
wells of salvation. In Christian lands 
the mission of sorrow and the mission of 
the gospel stand abreast. Christian min- 
isters, like their divine Lord, are minis- 
ters of mercy. Their observation and 
their testimony come to us from the 
chambers of sickness and the house of 
mourning. And what are they? "I 
have seen," said a departed man of God, 
not many years ago the adornment of 
the American pulpit, "I have seen this 
Gospel hush into a calm the tempest 
raised in the bosom by conscious guilt. 
I have seen it melt down the most obdu- 
rate into tenderness and contrition. I 
have seen it cheer up the broken-heart- 



% THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

ed, and bring the tear of gladness into 
eyes swollen with grief. I have seen it 
produce and maintain serenity under 
evils which drive the worldling mad. I 
have seen it reconcile the sufferer to his 
cross, and send the song of praise from 
lips quivering with agony. I have seen 
it enable the most affectionate relatives 
to part in death, not without emotion, 
but without repining, and with a cordial 
surrender of all they held most dear, to 
the disposal of their heavenly Father. 
I have seen the fading eye brighten at 
the promise of Jesus, ' Where I am, there 
shall my servant be.' I have seen the 
faithful spirit released from its clay, now 
mildly, now triumphantly, to enter into 
the joy of its Lord." In all the pages of 
human philosophy, where are to be found 
consolations like these ? 

Affliction is also the best expositor of 
God's word. No small part of it is es- 

4 



LESSONS FROM THE BIBLE. 9T 

pecially addressed to the children of sor- 
row. To a sufferer languishing on the 
couch of debility and pain — to a mourner 
depressed and desolate under crushing 
bereavements, there are no themes of 
contemplation so well timed and wel- 
come, nor any so fitted to heal the heart 
already bruised to tenderness, as these 
precious counsels of heavenly love. It 
is the voice of heaven, even though it 
comes on the cold night air, or the 
bloody battle-field, or the ingulfing 
ocean, or the poisoned atmosphere. It 
is like the angel messenger in the Gar- 
den. The children of sorrow are sensi- 
tive ; their minds are easily arrested by 
God's truth ; they read it, they hear it, 
they turn it over in their thoughts as 
they are not wont to do in the days of 
cheerfulness and mirth. Martin Luther 
says "he never understood the book of 
Psalms until he was in trouble. 77 Again 

7 



98 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

he says, "It was tribulation made me 
understand the Bible.' 7 Its richness, its 
beauty, its power are more than ever 
then seen and felt. We more than be- 
lieve it ; we know it, we feel it ; it is in- 
wrought in our experience. We listen 
with gratified earnestness and grateful 
emotion to its promises, as though they 
were something new. Who but the child 
of sorrow ever appreciated the beauty 
and force of such cheering words as the 
following : " When the poor and needy 
seek water, and there is none, and their 
tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will 
hear them, I the God of Israel will not 
forsake them. 77 Creatures are broken 
cisterns/ that hold no water. The mourn- 
er wearies in his search ; his tongue fail- 
eth for thirst, until he finds rivers opened 
even on the sandy and barren places of 
his pilgrimage, and enjoys in the desert 
the cedar and the myrtle and the fig-tree 



LESSONS EKOM THE BIBLE. 99 

and the pine and the box-tree together. 
How many millions of God's afflicted 
ones have hailed the light of that com- 
prehensive and cheering promise : "Thus 
saith the Lord that created thee, Ja- 
cob, and that formed thee, Israel, Fear 
not; for I have redeemed thee, I have 
called thee by thy name ; thou art mine. 
When thou passest through the waters, 
I will be with thee ; and through the riv- 
ers, they shall not overflow thee : when 
thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt 
not be burnt ; neither shall the flame kin- 
dle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy 
God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Ee- 
deemer." Oh, it is like the moon "walk- 
ing in her brightness " through a night of 
storms. "The Spirit of the Lord God is 
upon me," says the promised Messiah, 
"because the Lord hath anointed me to 
preach good tidings unto the meek ; he 
hath sent me to bind up the broken- 



100 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

hearted, to proclaim liberty to the cap- 
tives, and the opening of the prison to 
them that are bound ; to comfort all that 
mourn ; to appoint unto them that mourn 
in Zion, to give unto them beauty for 
ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the 
garment of praise for the spirit of heav- 
iness ; that they might be called trees of 
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, 
that he might be glorified. " There is no 
book like the Bible in the time of trial. 
" Blessed is the man/ 7 says the Psalmist, 
"whom thou chastenest, Lord, and 
teachest him out of thy word. 77 G-od's 
truth is unchanging and eternal. Once 
planted in the soul, it shall bring forth 
fruit. One lesson truly learned from it, 
and that would not have been otherwise 
learned, is worth all our tears. It was 
no undue estimate of it that led one of 
old to say, " Unless thy law had been 
my delight, I should have perished in 



LESSONS FROM THE BIBLE. 101 

mine affliction. Trouble and anguish, 
have taken hold on me ; yet thy com- 
mandments are my delight." I pity the 
man who, in the day of trial, is igno- 
rant of the Bible. The bright and per- 
manent realities of God's truth are alone 
able to cheer him. In every view this 
book of God is a most wonderful book. 
To an afflicted man it occupies a place 
which no other can occupy. Infinite in- 
telligence and infinite love only could 
have made it what it is. Human wis- 
dom has no part in it. It shines by its 
own light, is hallowed by its own sanc- 
tity, embalmed in its own love. It is 
sorrow's " silent comforter. 77 

" There no delusive hope invites despair ; 
No mockery meets you, no delusion there ; 
The spells and charms that blinded you before, 
All vanish there and fascinate no more." 

There is a voice from that new-made 
grave saying to them that mourn, Prize 



102 THE MISSION OF SOKROW. 

these messages of heavenly wisdom and 
tenderness. They come from the ' ' spirit- 
land. 7 ' However bitter your cup, you 
will not faint in the day of adversity, so 
long as the Bible is the more precious 
for all that you suffer. Fly from gloom 
and sadness to Grod ? s word. Fly from 
the darts of the fowler to his word ; and 
though you will find there every thing to 
instruct and much to reprove you, you 
will there find that "all things work to- 
gether for good to them that love God, 
and are the called according to his pur- 
pose." 



THE THRONE OF GRACE. 103 



VII. SORROW AT THE THRONE OP 
GRACE. 

"Is any among you afflicted ? let him 
pray." We cannot misunderstand nor 
misinterpret this apostolic injunction, 
nor doubt as to those to whom it is defi- 
nitely addressed. Are there those who 
are suffering from povert}^? They are 
the afflicted. Want, dependence, and 
mortification are a bitter cup to the proud 
and selfish heart. To be cast upon the 
cold charities of this heartless world, is 
to be a man of sorrows. Are there those 
who are suffering from the neglect or 
contempt of others? They are the afflict- 
ed. Their sorrows may never be told, 
but remain shut up within their own 
bosoms; but they are sad and depressing 
sorrows. Are there those who suffer 
from oppression and wrong ? They are 



104 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

the afflicted. Such were the afflictions 
of the psalmist when Ahithophel desert- 
ed and Shimei cursed him, and Saul and 
Absalom thirsted for his blood. Are 
there those who suffer from unjust impu- 
tations and false invective? They are 
the afflicted. To an honorable mind, no 
trial is more severe than the pestilential 
breath of calumny and reproach. Are 
there those who suffer from disappoint- 
ments and losses ? They are the afflict- 
ed. "The rich man fades away in his 
ways." His property is lost on the ocean, 
or destroyed by fire, or injured by acci- 
dent, or torn from him by dishonesty and 
fraud ; and he feels the loss. Are there 
those who suffer from trying bereave- 
ments? They are the afflicted. God 
has removed the desire of their eyes with 
a stroke; lover and friend are taken 
away, and their acquaintance, into dark- 
ness. Man goeth to his long home, and 



THE THRONE OF GRACE. 105 

the mourners go about the streets. Are 
there those who suffer from pain and 
sickness? They are the afflicted. "In 
the morning they say, Would to God 
it were evening ; and in the evening, 
Would to God it were morning. 77 They 
are "made to possess months of vanity, 
and wearisome nights are appointed unto 
them. 77 

Afflictions like these crave alleviation. 
What shall it be ? You cannot relieve 
the poverty of the poor, nor reverse the 
sentence of neglect and contempt, nor 
arrest the arm of oppression and cruelty, 
nor seal the lips of # the calumniator, nor 
recompense the losses of the unfortunate, 
nor bring back the departed from the 
tomb, nor heal the maladies of the body 
or mind. It is no comfort to counsel 
these children of sorrow, that since it is 
their allotment to suffer, it must be their 
allotment to endure. Endurance does 



106 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

not relieve one pang, and only abandons 
the hope of relief. You may counsel 
them to forget their trials ; but memory 
cannot bid sorrow be gone, so long as 
the heart bleeds. You may counsel them 
to drown their sorrows in the cares of 
the world, and by a resort to its gay 
companions and fashionable amusements. 
But miserable, miserable comforters are 
they all. 

The afflicted must look higher than the 
world. They must look away beyond 
the everlasting hills whence cometh their 
help. The children of sorrow feel their 
helplessness ; nor is there any such relief 
as that which is found at the throne of 
heavenly grace. Let them bear their 
sorrows to the closet, to the family altar, 
and to the sanctuary. If you have hith- 
erto lived a prayerless life, let your afflic- 
tions urge you to pray, and instruct you 
to come to the throne to obtain mercy, 



THE THRONE OF GRACE. . 10T 

and find grace to help in the time of 
need. If you are a man of prayer, let 
your afflictions urge you to retire from 
the world, and to be much alone with 
God. You will learn there to know 
more of him, to love him more, and trust 
him more. Your murmuring heart will 
learn to be still there ; you will lay your 
hand upon your mouth, and say, "Be- 
hold, I am vile; what shall I answer 
thee ?" 

The world little know the satisfaction 
which the children of sorrow enjoy, when 
in the exercise of a filial spirit, and by 
a living faith in the great Mediator, they 
hold intercourse with God, and come 
near, even to his seat, and fill their mouth 
with arguments. They repair then to 
the Being who can remove or sanctify 
their sorrows. He said to the father of 
the faithful, "I am the Almighty God: 
fear not; I am thy shield, and thine ex- 



108 . TH% MISSION OF SOEEOW. 

ceeding great reward. " He is the God 
of creation, of providence, and of grace. 
He can avert the sorrows they feel. He 
can lift the needy from the dunghill, and 
set him among princes. He can extort 
from their enemies the tribute of affec- 
tion and homage. He can cover them 
with his feathers, and under his wings 
they shall trust. He can hide them in 
the secret of his presence from the pride 
of man. He can keep them secretly in 
a position from the strife of tongues. He 
can rebuke the devourer for their sakes, 
and give them a name and a place better 
than that of sons or of daughters. He 
can bid the destroyer put up his sword 
into its scabbard. In every instance he 
will remove the afflictions of the suppli- 
ant where it is best for him that they 
should be removed. And where he does 
not see fit to remove them, he will make 
them the means of a more progressive 



THE THRONE OF GRACE. 109 

holiness and spiritual comfort. His 
grace shall be sufficient for these chil- 
dren of sorrow, teaching them by this 
salutary discipline to live above the 
world and walk with God. Afflictions 
are to the soul what storms and frost are 
to the earth. For a while they deform 
the face of nature ; they tell us of its sol- 
itude and barrenness and desertion ; and 
it feels like winter as we pass over its 
fields ; but they prepare the soil for the 
verdure and promise of the harvest. 

This near intercourse with Grod is also 
the direct way to remove from his peo- 
ple the cause of their afflictions. As we 
have already seen, they are like the re- 
finer's crucible. Mourners who never 
pray, instead of being made better by 
their sorrows, are made worse. Like 
Pharaoh, they harden their hearty and 
become insolent and rebellious. In the 
day of their adversity, they sin faster 



110 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 

and stronger than ever. But it is not so 
with those who, in the time of their trib- 
ulation, enter into their chambers and 
shut the doors about them. They find 
not only a better mind under their afflic- 
tions, but present comfort and support. 
These God alone is able to impart, and 
will impart to those who seek his face. 
It is a sweet thought, that there is one 
gracious Being who has access to the 
mind, even when the body is enervated 
by the debility, or racked by the torture 
of disease. Sorrow has a heart of ex- 
quisite tenderness — a heart whose thou- 
sand chords yield harmony or loose dis- 
cord, as they are touched by human 
hands or divine. 

"No wounds like those a wounded spirit feels ; 
No cure for such till God, who makes them, 
heals." 

He alone can support and cheer the 
soul when blasted by the storm and stung 



THE THKONE OF GKACE. Ill 

by the arrows of adversity. His still 
small voice reaches the sufferer's ear in 
the dungeon, and soothes his fears in the 
burning, fiery furnace. "The name of the 
Lord is a strong tower, into which the 
righteous runneth, and is safe. 7 ' When 
the fountains of the great deep are bro- 
ken up, and the windows of heaven are 
opened, they are safely embosomed in 
the ark. There stands the promise : ' ' Call 
upon me in the day of trouble; I will 
deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." 
The afflicted have trusted in God, and 
in so doing have never been confounded. 
When the atrocious Herod beheaded 
John the Baptist, the disciples took up 
the body and buried it, and "went and 
told Jesus. 77 When the women at the 
sepulchre trembled, a voice came to them, 
saying, "Be not affrighted ; ye seek Jesus, 
who was crucified. 77 When the exiled 
disciple fell down as one dead before the 



112 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

overwhelming glory of his divine Lord, 
the Saviour said to him, "Fear not; I 
am the first and the last: I am he that 
liveth, and was dead ; and behold, I am 
alive for evermore ; and have the keys of 
hell and of death. 77 The sorrows of the 
bereaved are not spread before Jesus in 
vain. No being in the universe has a 
deeper sympathy with them ; "in all their 
afflictions he is afflicted ■ the angel of his 
presence saved them ; in his love and in 
his pity he redeemed them. 77 When he 
was on the earth, the poor, the sorrow- 
ing, and the miserable everywhere sent 
forth the cry, "Have mercy on us, 
Lord, thou son of David. 77 He "had 
compassion on the multitude; 77 he "had 
compassion 77 on the man possessed with 
devils; he "had compassion 77 on the 
widow of Nain. He invites all "who 
labor and are heavy-laden 77 to come to 
him and find rest. There is no cloud so 



THE THK0NE OF GKACE. 113 

dark but the light of his countenance can 
turn the shadow of death into the morn- 
ing, and no mourning so sad but he can 
give songs in the night. He does more 
than pity ; he turns their mourning into 
joy. This is his character, this is his 
office; and though now exalted at the 
right hand of G-od, it is that he may 
"comfort all that mourn." 

It is the mission of sorrow therefore 
to take the mourner by the hand, and 
lead him to the throne of heavenly grace. 
There the afflicted find consolation ; there 
"a portion shall be given unto six, yea, 
unto seven. " Behold, he prayeth, is the 
precursor of the divine presence. There 
are tokens of the divine favor which 
come only by prayer. Cheering, most 
cheering are those beams of the Sun of 
righteousness which thus fall upon the 
gloom and solitude of adversity. These 
sharp distresses would be overwhelming 



Mis. of Sorrow. 



114 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

but for free access to the Hearer of pray- 
er. We can bear them, if God is with 
us. But if we have no faith nor hope 
in God — if all our resources are within 
ourselves, and all our refuge in this per- 
ishing world, and we have no access to 
the Father of mercies and God of all 
comfort — this is to have no hope, and 
to be without God in the world. Every 
prayerless man is thus ungodly, thus 
hopeless — ungodly and hopeless even in 
prosperity, much more in adversity. His 
path lies through a world of sorrow ; he 
is an orphan, and has no comforter. If 
those sorrows do but make you a man of 
prayer, you will make them welcome. 
We say then again, in the words of the 
apostle, "Is any among you afflicted? 
let him pray. 77 Whatever be his con- 
flicts or his trials, let him pray. Let him 
ask for any thing, for every thing he 
needs. "Open thy mouth wide, and I 



THE THRONE OF GRACE. 115 

will fill it. Ask, and it shall be given 
you. I am God/ 7 all-sufficient. Go to 
him daily, and live on his fulness. The 
greater your trials, the more ready is 
he to hear ; the greater your wants, the 
more ready is he to give. You can- 
not ask too much, you cannot hope too 
much from God. You cannot measure 
his munificence ; it is a boundless ocean, 
supplying the greatest wants as easily as 
the least. The greater the blessing, the 
more is he gratified with the giving. Go 
with the spirit of prayer, and you shall 
meet with no chilling repulse. Though 
a woman forget her sucking child, he will 
not, in the time of their tribulation, for- 
get his mourners. 

" I seem forsaken and alone, 
I hear the tempest roar, 
And every door is shut but one, 
And that is mercy's door." 



116 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 



VIII. MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN 
THROUGH SORROW. 

God's people are dear to him. They 
are his because thej^ are his creatures. 
He made them, and he made them "for 
himself." "The Lord, he is Grod ; he 
hath made us, and not we ourselves. 77 
Before he formed them, they were noth- 
ing. Just as "the sea is his, 77 because 
u he made it;" just as the heavens are 
his, and the earth also is his, and the 
world and the fulness thereof are his, 
because he has founded them, so his peo- 
ple are his, because he called them into 
existence. "0 Jacob and Israel, thou 
art my servant : I have formed thee; thou 
art my servant. 77 His people are his 
absolute, inalienable property by this 
original and independent right of crea- 
tion. They are and ever have been the 



MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 11? 

objects of his preserving, watchful, and 
paternal care. His Son has redeemed 
them ; they were given to him by his 
Father, and he bought them by his own 
precious blood. 

"They shall be mine, saith the Lord, 
in the day that I make up my jewels" 
They are his peculiar treasure, vessels 
of mercy and honor, and their names 
are all recorded in "the Lamb's book 
of life. 77 They are "comely through 
the comeliness he puts upon them; 77 a 
" crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, 
and a royal diadem in the hand of our 
God, 77 and are destined to shine in his 
own kingdom for ever and ever. Yet 
by nature they are very unfitted for this 
high destiny. They scarcely thought of 
God, and never loved him. They cast 
off fear, and restrained prayer, and re- 
belled against him, though he nourished 
and brought them up as children. 



118 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

There is *a wide difference between a 
man who is born in sin, and the same 
man who dies a Christian. The first 
thing, in order to fit him for heaven, is 
that a work of grace should be begun in 
his heart. There has been a movement 
in heaven towards him. " We love Him 
because he first loved us. 77 God himself 
is the author and finisher of man's re- 
demption. There is the work which 
Jesus Christ has performed for his peo- 
ple, and there is the work which the 
Holy Spirit performs in them. The 
work performed without them has its 
counterpart in the work performed with- 
in them. God himself alone has the 
power to change their hearts, to form 
them new creatures, to make them ves- 
sels of mercy, to turn them from dark- 
ness to light, and from the power of 
Satan to the liberty wherewith Christ 
makes them free. "To as many as re- 



MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 119 

ceived him, to them gave he power to be- 
come the sons of God, even to them which 
believe on his name ; who were born, not 
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
of the will of man, but of God.' 7 None 
are fitted for heaven unless their hearts 
are thus turned from sin to holiness, and 
receive this hallowed and heavenward 
direction and tendency. "Verily, I say 
unto you, Except a man be born again, 
he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
This is an important epoch in the his- 
tory of every redeemed sinner, and the 
first effectual step in preparing him for 
heaven. 

This work of grace must also be car- 
ried on; and he which "began it will 
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." 
Succor in the time of need is without 
themselves. If they are not overcome 
in the spiritual warfare, it is because the 
Captain of their salvation watches over 



120 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

them, cares for them, and throws around 
them the shield of his salvation. " In 
them, that is, in their flesh, there dwell- 
eth no good thing." They are exposed 
to wander, to backslide, to plunge into 
fatal snares ; nor would they ever re- 
turn if he did not reclaim them; nor 
would they ever reach the celestial city 
if he did not "restore their souls, and 
lead them in paths of righteousness for 
his name's sake." 

In making his people meet for the in- 
heritance of the saints in light, the God 
of all grace, as^ has already been re- 
marked, makes use of his word and 
ordinances. And it is when afflictive 
dispensations run through and are in- 
mingled with the means of grace and 
salvation, that they ordinarily enjoy 
heart -affecting views of invisible and 
eternal realities. Seasons of trial be- 
come seasons of divine manifestation. 



MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 121 

Grod is pleased to manifest himself to 
them as he does not to the world. As such 
views are not essential to a state of grace, 
God gives them as their peculiar circum- 
stances require. They are precious man- 
ifestations in the hour of trial ; they leave 
lasting impressions on the mind, and are 
never forgotten. Sometimes they come 
upon them unexpected, and almost un- 
sought: it may be in the darkest night 
of their sorrow, and when they feel most 
like pilgrims and strangers on the earth, 
and are most oppressed by the solitude 
of the wilderness. The saddest hours 
are often cheered by the most hallowed 
themes. Hallowed moments of celestial 
visitation are they when faith, with more 
than ordinary vividness, realizes the un- 
seen world, and hope, full of immortal- 
ity, sheds its fragrance over the soul and 
makes it long for heaven. 

It is true that seasons of affliction are 



122 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

not always thus favored. They are some- 
times seasons of darkness and sore temp- 
tation, as Christian biography teaches us. 
" Alas," said Lady Russel, when her no- 
ble husband was sent to the block by the 
licentious and inexorable Charles, "I 
want liberty to approach nearer my 
heavenly Friend. But my understand- 
ing is clouded, my r faith weak, sense 
strong, and Satan busy in filling my 
thoughts with false notions, difficulties, 
and doubts respecting a future state and 
the efficacy of prayer. My thoughts fly 
everywhere but to God." This is a most 
unhappy state of mind ; but it is by no 
means of so frequent occurrence as those 
bright views which discover the pillar of 
cloud by day and of fire by night. 

The early Christians were remarkable 
examples of this hallowed influence of 
trials. They " gloried in tribulation," 
because it was the means of sustaining a 



MEETNESS FOE HEAVEN. 123 

heavenward tendency of mind. They 
looked upon it as a privilege to suffer. 
"Unto you it is given in the behalf of 
Christ, not only to believe on his name, 
but to suffer for his sake. 77 Strange as 
it may appear to us, faith and suffering 
are both declared to be the gift of God. 
Such was the apostle Paul's love to his 
divine Master, that he could affirm, "I 
take pleasure in infirmities, in reproach- 
es, in necessities, in persecutions, in dis- 
tresses for Christ's sake.' 7 These primi- 
tive disciples of the New Testament were 
the noblest of men. Their habitual lan- 
guage was, "For our light affliction, 
which is for a moment, worketh for us a 
far more exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory ; while we look not at the things 
that are seen, but at the things that are 
unseen. 77 Their character was formed 
and developed by the severe discipline 
of adversity. Trials indicated their sin- 



124 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

cerity. proved the strength of their faith 
and the strength of their consolations, and 
gave brilliancy to the crown of their re- 
joicing. They were not more partakers 
in the sufferings of Christ, than they are 
the partakers in his glory. ''TTe are 
joint-heirs with Christ," say they, " if so 
be that we suffer with him, that we may 
be glorified together. " They " reckoned 
that the sufferings of this present time 
are not worthy to be compared with the 
glory which shall be revealed/' 

If we ever get to heaven, we shall see 
that it was not our own wisdom or fidel- 
ity that brought us there. Every step 
we have taken would have been a false 
one, but for Grod. He moved first, and 
we did but follow as fast and as far as 
he drew us and led the way. Of all the 
events and circumstances which were 
either in themselves auspicious to our 
salvation or overruled to our spiritual 



MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 125 

welfare, our trials will never be forgot- 
ten. Thousands upon thousands have 
been made meet for heaven by their tri- 
als. The fetters of gold which bound 
them to earth have been thus sundered, 
and even the ties of nature have been 
held by a looser hand. They would not 
live always, but desired rather to depart 
and be with Christ. This world does not 
compensate for the sorrow and pain and 
conflict and sin of living in it beyond the 
bounds of our appointed time. True 
Christians have more and better friends 
in heaven than they have on earth, and 
who wait to give them a joyful greeting. 
It is no marvel that they sometimes 
" struggle and pant to be free," and long 
to "put on their blood-bought attire," 
and "wonder and worship" with those 
who, like themselves, are "washed, and 
justified, and sanctified in the name of the 
Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." 



126 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

How many, think you, are now in 
heaven who bless Grod even for the bit- 
terest cup? How many can say,. "I dal- 
lied with sin and trifled with the Tempt- 
er; I cropped flowers on the brink of 
the precipice, but found a gravestone 
there which told me of one I loved. I 
had gone astray, but my grief agitated 
me, my depression humbled me, my sins 
alarmed me. My idol was there, and 
my heart bled. I thought of death and 
eternity, and was separated from them 
only by the breath of my nostrils. Grod 
smote me, but he made all my bed in my 
sickness. I was afraid to die, but when 
I came to the conflict, I found the foe 
vanquished. Death was swallowed up 
in victory. It is all reality now, all 
heaven, all joy, all praise to God my 
Eedeemer, Grod all-sufficient, God all in 
all/ 7 

Sanctified afflictions will not be for- 



MEETNESS FOE HEAVEN. 127 

gotten in heaven. "Thou shalt remem- 
ber all the way thy God led thee in the 
wilderness." To suffer God's will is as 
truly honorable to him and profitable to 
our own spiritual interests, as to do his 
will. They are equally acts of obedi- 
ence. When sufferings are endured with 
a Christian spirit and wisely employed, 
not only is the work of God thereby 
manifested in the sufferers, but their own 
future blessedness 4s thereby promoted. 
If they were not always happy in their 
trials, they will be happy in their -tri- 
umphs, happy in their eternal home. 
When the exiled apostle was in Patmos, 
one of the elders before the throne said 
to him, "What are these which are ar- 
rayed in white robes, and whence come 
they?" The apostle was unable to an- 
swer the question, and replied, "Sir, 
thou knowest." " These are they," said 
the angelic messenger, " which came out 



128 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

of great tribulation, and have washed 
their robes, and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they 
before the throne of God, and serve him 
day and night in his temple : and he that 
sitteth on the throne shall dwell among 
them. They shall hunger no more, nei- 
ther thirst any more ; neither shall the 
sun light on them, nor any heat. For 
the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
throne shall feed tbem, and shall lead 
them unto living fountains of waters : 
and Grod shall wipe away all tears from 
their eyes. 77 The most afflicted and des- 
olate will then prove the love and faith- 
fulness of the severest chastisements. 
"There remaineth a rest for the people 
of God, 77 a perfect and everlasting rest. 
If by marvellous grace in Christ Jesus 
you ever enter it, you will look back 
with grateful admiration at the tender 
care and covenant faithfulness of Him 



MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 129 

who loved you. And as you look back 
and call to mind how often you grieved 
his Spirit and forfeited his love, and 
how, but for these desolating afflictions, 
you never would have entered the heav- 
enly city, you may well say with dear 
Eichard Baxter, "When he broke thy 
heart, as well as when he bound it up, 
thy blessed Eedeemer was saving thee. 77 
With adoring surprise you may exclaim 
with him, u O blessed way, and thrice- 
blessed end ! Is my mourning and my 
heavy walking come to this? Are all 
my afflictions come to this? Blessed 
gales, that have blown me into such a 
harbor ! Oh what a God there is in 
heaven! 77 

Such is the mission of sorrow. Its 
lessons cannot be learned from the teach- 
ings of human wisdom. It may be you 
have been thrown upon a bed of sick- 
ness, and even painful and lingering ag- 

Mia. of Sorrow. 9 



130 'THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

ony. The bloom of health fades on your 
cheek, and wasting debility premonishes 
you of the grave. God grant that celes- 
tial visions may throng around your pil- 
low, and that underneath that aching 
head you may find the everlasting arms. 
It may be "a wife of youth 57 has sunk 
to the grave, and the heart that watched 
her lingering decay, amid its alternate 
hopes and fears, sinks under the blow. 
And can you not lean on an almighty 
arm, and make your refuge in the shad- 
ow of his wings? Perhaps you have 
seen a favorite child sinking under a dis- 
ease that was appointed to do its fatal 
work. You have turned from the scene 
with sighing. Your fears have been 
realized. The flower is cut down, and 
withers in the grave. Mourning parent, 
strive to look upward. It may cost you 
tears ; but God would teach you that his 
favor, without earthly comforts, is worth 



MEETXESS FOB HEAVEN. 131 

more to you than all earthly comforts 
without his favor. He sent this rushing 
calamity on purpose to throw a tempo- 
rary cloud over the sun of time, and open 
to you the brighter scenes of a sinless 
world. He would cement, rather than 
sunder the bond that unites you to the 
departed. That bright spirit has left 
you, and your fondest, proudest wishes — 
dust is upon them. These sorrows have 
their mission. 

" Your God, to call you homeward, 
His only Son sent down ; 
And now, still more to tempt your heart, 
Has taken up your ownP 

Of such is the kingdom of heaven. 
Your jewel shines in your Kedeemer's 
crown. Would you pluck that little star 
from his brow? If you could, would you 
call back the beloved one ? 

ye who weep and ye who have 
wept, ye who are far from God and ye 



132 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

who are brought nigh, come and learn 
from him the sweet supports of his truth 
and grace in the hour of trial, and the 
precious lessons which his Spirit incul- 
cates in the school of affliction. Sorrow 
is the sad heritage of sin. Let it soften 
your heart and render it more suscepti- 
ble to the influences of heavenly grace. 
Bow under these strokes of the rod, and 
then lift your eyes to the hills whence 
cometh your help. Mourning friends, 
though ' ' you walk in the midst of trou- 
ble, God will revive you. Though he 
cause grief, yet will he have compassion, 
according to the multitude of his mer- 
cies. 7 ' These exhausting days and wea- 
risome nights will soon be over. The 
aching head, the throbbing heart will ere- 
long be at rest. G-od's voice to you is, 
"For a small moment have I forsaken 
thee, but with great mercies will I gather 
thee ; in a little wrath I hid my face from 



MEETNESS FOE HEAVEN. 133 

thee for a moment, but with everlasting 
kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith 
the Lord thy Redeemer. 7; 

" The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown ; 
No traveller ever reached that blest abode, 
Who found not thorns and briars on his road," 



134 THE MISSION OF SOEKOW. 



IX. NO SORROW THERE. 

In heaven at last. The days of mourn- 
ing are ended. God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes. To the wicked he 
says, "Woe unto you that laugh now; 
for ye shall mourn and weep :" to the 
righteous, "Blessed are ye that weep 
now; for ye shall laugh." Everlasting 
joy shall be upon their head, and sorrow 
and sighing shall flee away. 

"0 blessed way, and thrice-blessed 
end!" We are still in the wilderness, 
and have not yet reached that city of 
our God. We are still buffeting the 
storm, but pressing onward to the land 
where clouds and darkness are known 
no more. The soul of man in the pres- 
ent world is no true expression of its 
Maker's handiwork. Its elements are 
incongruous and discordant. It is a dis- 



N0J30RR0W THERE. 135 

jointed mechanism ; unrefined and un- 
directed, all its movements are ominous 
of disaster. It needs to pass through 
the furnace, before it shall come out in 
purity and brightness. So long as the 
people of God linger on these shores of 
time, they will not only be suffering, but 
sinning men. " I shall be satisfied" says 
the Psalmist, " when I awake in thy like- 
ness. 77 Nothing else satisfies. The re- 
generated soul thirsts for God, for the 
living God. The turbid and bitter wa- 
ters of earth have served to prepare it 
for the pure river of life. Nor was the 
process completed until, at the grave 7 s 
mouth, the last chain that bound it to 
earth was dissolved. These infirmities 
and sins and sorrows will vanish then. 
Christ 7 s sorrowing followers are made 
like unto the angels; they are "the chil- 
dren of God, being the children of the 
resurrection. 77 



136 THE MISSION OF SORKOW. 

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor 
have entered into the heart of man, the 
things that Grod hath prepared for them 
that love him. That is a wondrous world 
of which the Saviour says, " Where I 
am, there also shall my servant be." It 
has no need of the sun or the moon to 
shine in it. The glory and honor of the 
nations are gathered into it ; there is no 
more curse ; but the throne of Glod and 
the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants 
shall serve him. The actual transition 
of the immortal spirit from time to eter- 
nity, from earth to heaven, no human 
eye ever beheld. No ear of man ever 
heard the shout, as the weary feet of the 
once mourning pilgrim were first planted 
on the long wished for shore, though 
guardian angels hovered over him as he 
passed through the dark valley. 

There is no darkness now ; the Lamb 
is the light thereof; they are the daz- 



NO SORROW THERE. 13T 

zling glories of eternal day. When 
the martyr Stephen fell, he exclaimed, 
"I see the glory of God, and Jesus 
standing at the right hand of God." 
And what must be the vision when the 
children of sorrow see him face to face, 
and know even as they are known ; 
where "the ransomed of the Lord re- 
turn, and come to Zion with songs and 
everlasting joy upon their heads, and 
they shall obtain joy and gladness, and 
sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 

Well may they look to the rock whence 
they were hewn, and- the hole of the pit 
whence they were digged. It was a world 
alienated from God, and where sorrow 
upon sorrow, and convulsion upon con- 
vulsion agitated it in a thousand forms. 
It is a mournful, a fearful retrospect they 
look upon, with only here and there a 
few radiations emerging from the gen- 
eral gloom. Well may they exclaim, Is 



138 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

this the dark land from which we have 
been rescued, and this the wilderness we 
have travelled over? 

And how were they rescued ? They 
were partakers in the universal aposta- 
sy, and under the condemning sentence 
of that law which is holy, just, and good. 
It was not by works of righteousness 
which they had done, or ever could per- 
form. They are redeemed sinners, and 
would have sunk under the weight of 
their iniquity, had not the God-man bore 
their sins in his own body on the tree. 
Not a thread, not a filament, not a fibre 
of their justifying righteousness was 
wrought by their own hands. And their 
personal holiness, whence was it ? Who 
made them to differ from a world that 
lieth in wickedness, and from what they 
themselves once were ? When days of 
trial came, and temptations assaulted 
them, and flesh and sense were arrayed 



NO SORROW THERE. 139 

against them; when there was conflict 
and tumult, and the subtle adversary 
went about seeking whom he might de- 
vour ; who stimulated them to watch and 
pray, and wrestle and overcome? Whose 
unsleeping eye and unwearied arm and 
unchanging faithfulness cared for them 
in youth, in manhood, and in old age — 
at home and abroad, in health and in 
sickness, in storm and in sunshine ? And 
whose were those everlasting arms ever 
and anon thrown around them ; and 
whose that loving heart, giving them the 
oil of joy for mourning, and the garment 
of praise for the spirit of heaviness, lest 
they should be discouraged in the con- 
flict, and never reach the heavenly land ? 
Many a youthful pilgrim who seemed to 
run well, grew weary and fainted, and 
turned back. The wilderness, as they 
look back upon it, is strewed with the 
fainting, the slumbering, the fallen, the 



140 THE MISSION OF SOKKOW. 

dead, the lost. From the cradle to the 
grave, and from the grave up to the 
heavenly city, every incident in their 
history, every joy and every pang of 
sorrow has been under the control of 
infinite love. Even the hairs of their 
head were all numbered. Will it not 
be delightful to look back and see how 
the outstretched arm was spread over 
them, and how they were borne as on 
eagles' wings ? 

Oh what adoring, what humble thank- 
fulness will then take the place of that 
restive and depressed and murmuring 
spirit with which they so unsubmissively 
endured their trials in the present world. 
Sweet reminiscences these, that make the 
mourner humble. Blessed retrospect, 
that prostrates the soul in the dust, and 
makes it fall at the feet of Jesus, and 
cover its angelic face with its wings. 
Profound will be the veneration with 



NO SORROW THERE. 141 

which they enter into His presence and 
contemplate his awful majesty, yet calm 
and tranquil as the sea of glass on which 
they stand to show forth his praise. 
Never will they again love the creature 
more than the Creator. They are lost 
and swallowed up, not in the floods of 
earthly sorrow, but the ocean of heav- 
enly joy — not in themselves and those 
they loved on the earth, but in the un- 
created, undying glories of the Infinite 
One. It will be the wonder of their 
eternity that they are thus filled with 
all the fulness of God, and that, plung- 
ing as they once were in miry places, 
they now float in that ocean of light and 
love where there is neither bottom nor 
shore. 

The humility of heaven is one of the 
brightest features of its character, and 
one of the sources of its sweetest joy. 
Honors they have; but they cast their 



142 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

crowns before the throne. If " pride was 
not made for man/ 7 last of all will it be 
found in heaven. Its empire on earth 
is world-wide and powerful ; it reigns in 
hell ; but in the spirits of just men made 
perfect it shall find no place. Amid the 
splendors of that everlasting and glori- 
ous world, every laurel withers that is 
not wreathed around the Saviour's brow. 
If the religion of earth is the religion of 
heaven in miniature, the purest gem that 
adorns it is this heaven-born humility. 
It is a sacred thing, because it is so hum- 
ble and lies so low. We should love to 
think of that blessed world if it were 
only for its humility. When those ran- 
somed spirits, weary of the conflicts of 
earth, repose under the shadow of the 
tree of life, and there, at the feet of the 
enthroned Lamb, reflect upon the way 
they have been led through the wilder- 
ness, and look down upon the agonies of 



NO SOEEOW THEEE. 143 

that eternal pit from which they have 
been rescued, how can it be otherwise 
than that a deep and everlasting sense of 
their unworthiness and ill-desert should 
add to the fulness of their gratitude and 
joy ? They are perfectly humble, and 
perfectly happy. From the hour of their 
conversion, redeeming love has been their 
theme ; but never till now, as they stand 
on Mount Zion, have they given utter- 
ance to the ecstacy of their joy. And 
even here, on this low earth, where the 
graves of the departed are scattered and 
the cypress mourns, voices are not want- 
ing, embarrassed and suppressed it may 
be by their tears, to utter the song, 
1 ' Thou art worthy;. for thou wast slain, 
and hast redeemed us unto God by thy 
blood." Oh that I could direct the eyes 
of the mourner upward, and in these 
hours of darkness bid his heart rest on 
that blessed world where, in a few short 



144 THE MISSION OF SORROW. 

hours, all, both among the living and the 
dead, who fear God and love his Son, 
will meet in holier and more intimate 
fellowship. " Up there/' sin and sorrow 
and death never enter. "Up there," 

" Sighs and farewells are a sound unknown." 

" Up there, 77 they sit together in heaven- 
ly places, and drink the wine new with 
Christ in his Father's kingdom. "Up 
there/ 7 the holy men and women who 
parted at the grave, redeemed parents 
and their redeemed children, whom the 
voice of the archangel and the trump of 
God have summoned from the sleep of 
centuries, will meet, not to recount their 
own sorrows, but to tell of His who 
came to the humiliation of the manger 
and the agonies of the cross to rescue 
them from endless weeping and infinite 
despair. 



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