SUNDAY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 23, 25 January 1913, Page 8

SUNDAY COLUMN.

HOW TO BEAR SORROW. (By Rev. F. B. -Meyer, 8.A., D.D.) You are passing through a time of deep sorrow. Hie love on which you wore trusting lias suddenly failed you, ami dried up like a brook in the desert —now a dwindling stream, then shallow pools, and at last drought. You are always listening for footsteps that do not come, waiting for a word that is nob spoken, pining for a reply that tarries overdue.

I Perhaps the savings of your life have suddenly disappeared; instead of helping others you must be helped, or you must leave the warm nest where you have been sheltered from life’s storms to go alone into an unfriendly world ; or you are suddenly called to assume the burden of some other life, taking no rest for yourself till you have steered it through dark and difficult seas into the haven. Your health, or sight, or nervous energy is failing; you carry in yourself the sentence of death ; and the anguish of anticipating the future is almost unbearable. In other cases there is the sense of recent loss through death, like the gap in the forest-glade, where the woodsman.has lately been felling trees. At such times life seems almost insupportable. Will every day be as long as this? Will the slow-moving hours ever again quicken their pace? Will life ever array itself in another garb than the torn autumn remnants of past summer glory? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies? Is His mercy clean gone for ever? This road Las been trodden by myriads.—When you think of the desolating wars which have swept through every century and devastated every land; of the expeditions of the Nimrods, the Nebuchadnezzars, the Timours, the Napoleons of history; of the merciless slave-trade, which has never ceased to decimate Africa; and of all the tyranny, the oppression, the wrong which the weak and defenceless have suffered at the hands of then fellows; of the unutterable sorrows oi women and children, surely you must see that by far the larger number of our race have passed through the same Hitter griefs as those which rend your heart. Jesus Christ Himself trod this difficult path, leaving traces of Hit blood on its flints; and apostles, prophets, confessors, and martyrs have passed by the same way. It is comforting to know that others have traversed the same dark valley, and that the. great multitudes which stand before the Lamb, wearing palms of victory, came out of great tribulation. Where they were we are; and, by God’s grace ,where they are we shall he. Do not talk about punishment.— You may talk of chastisement or correction, for our Father deals with us as with sons; or you may Speak of reaping the results of mistakes and sirs dropped as seeds into life’s furrows in former years; or you may have to bear the consequences of the sins and mistakes of others; hut do not speak of punishment. Surely all the guilt and penalty of sin were laid on Jesus, and He put them away for ever. His were the stripes, and the chastisement of our peace. If God punishes us for our sins, it would seem that the sufferings of Christ were incomplete; and if He once began to punish us, life would be too short for the infliction of all that we deserve. Besides, how could we explain the anomalies of life, and the heavy sufferings of the saints as compared with the gay life of the ungodly? Surely, if our suffering® were penal, there would be a reversal of these lots. . Sorrow is a refiner’s cr'uicible. —It may be caused by tbe neglect or cruelty of another, by circumstances over which the sufferer has no control, or as the direct result of some dark hour in the long past; but, inasmuch a® God has permitted it to come, it must be accepted as His appointment, and considered as the furnace by which He i«s searching, testing, probing, and purifying the soul. Suffering searches tis as fire does metals. We think we are fully for God, until we are exposed to the cleansing fire of pain; then we discover, as Job did, how much dross there is in us, and how little real patience, resignation, and faith. Nothing so detaches us from the things of this world, the life of sense, the birdlime of earthly affections. There is probably no other way by which the, power of the self-life can be arrested, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. | But God always keeps the discipline of sorrow in His own bands.—Our, Lord said, “My Father is the husbandman.” His hand holds tbe pruning-1 knife; His eye watches the crucible; His gentle touch is on the pulse while the operation is 1 in progress. Fie will not allow even the devil to have Ins own way with ns. As in the case of Job, so' alwavs. The moments are carefully allotted. The severity of tbe test is exactly determined by the reserves of grace and strength which are lying unrecognised within, but will be sought for and used beneath the severe pressure of pain. He holds the winds in His fist, and the-waters in the hollow of His hand. He dare not risk the loss of that which has cost Him the blood of His Son. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tried above that ye are able.” In sorrow the Comforter is near.— “Very present in time of trouble.” He sits by the crucible, as a Refiner of silver, regulating the heat, marking every change, waiting patiently for the scum to float away, and His own face to be mirrored in clear, translucent metal. .No earthly friend may tread the winepress with you, but the Saviour is there, His garments stained] with the blood of the grapes of your I sorrow. Dare to repeat it often,l though you do not feel it, and though Satan insists that God lias loft you “Thou art with me.’ Mention His name again and again, ’“Jesus, Jesus, Thou art with me.” So you will become conscious that He is there. When friends come to console you they talk of time’s healing touch, as though the best balm for sorrow were to forget, or iu their well-meant kindness they suggest travel, diversion, amusement, and show their inability to

appreciate the black night that hangs over your soul, so you turn from them, sick at heart, ana prepared to say, as Job of Ids, “Miserable comforters are ve all”; but all the while Jesus is nearer than they are, understanding bow they wear you, knowing each throb of pain,' touched by fellow-feeling, silent in a love too full to speak, waiting to comfort from hour to hour as a mother her weary, suffering babe.