The Transmission of Blessings

“The God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our troubles, that we may be able to comfort.’’ — 2 Cor. i. 8, 4.

HERE is one of the great secrets of great living. If we would help others efficiently we must recall how God has dealt with us. Forgetfulness in the one direction will breed selfishness in the other. Where there is no keen sense of divine mercy there is not likely to be a broad stream of vital beneficence. And even if we were inclined to be beneficent our service would probably be wanting in fine sense and discernment. It is the remembrance of God’s mercy which inclines us to be merciful, and it is the same remembrance which endows our mercy with wise and intelligent sight. What the Lord has done for us will teach us what we ought to do to others; and how the Lord did it unto us will instruct us as to our appropriate moods and manners. “I forgave thee all that debt; oughtest thou not, therefore, to have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, as I had compassion on thee?’ Our obligations are born in our blessings; if we seriously consider the one we shall undertake the other.

And here the Apostle asks us to remember our Lord’s comforts. We are to retrace our steps down the old road and call to mind just how the Lord visited us in the consolations of His grace. We are to recall how He came to us in the dark hours of our sorrow and pain. We are to recollect how He approached us, and in what particular manner He gave us His cordials and balms. In which of His promises did we find the richest bread of endurance? What word was it that relit our flickering lamp? Which of His inspired hymns gave us new wings of faith and hope? What holy vision took us far beyond the darkness of our prison-house to fairer worlds on high? What was it brought back a little salt and savour to our tasteless days? So are we to retread our yesterdays, with memory and imagination all awake, repeopling the road with the messenger comforts of our Lord.

And all this we are to do in order that we may learn how to comfort others. We were comforted in order that we might be comforters. We are to take the light He gave us and kindle another man’s lamp. We are to take His tenderness and touch the sorrows of others as He touched ours. Within a few hours after Mrs. Gladstone had lost her noble husband she was in the home of a poor miner, comforting a widow whose husband had just been killed in the mine. Comforted to comfort! And what need there is of comforters to-day! Let us go back on our old roads and diligently study God’s dealings with us, that in the power of His grace we may be skilful in the comfort of others.