The Abiding Friend

“I will never leave tlice, nor forsake thee.” — IIec. xiii. 5.

‘No human friend can say so. The closest and clearest of earthly links may be broken, yea I have been broken. Distance may part — time estrange — the grave sunder. Loving earthly looks may only greet thee now in muts smiles from the portrait on the wall. But here is an unfainting, unvarying, unfailing Friend. Sorrowing one! amid the wreck of earthly joys which thou mayest be even now bewailing, here is a message sent unto thee from thy God — “/ will never leave ihee, nor forsaJce iheeF Thy gourd lias withered, but He who gave it thee remains! Surrender thyself to his disposal. He wishes to shew thee His present sufficiency for thy happiness. As ofttimes thy heart in silence and sadness weaves its plaintive lament, “Joseph is not, and Simeon is not I” think of Him who hath promised to set “the solitary in families” (Ps. Ixvlii. 6), and to “give unto them a name and a place better than of sons or of daughters!” Alone! thou art not alone! Turn in sar-oblivion to Jesus. It is not, it can not be “night,” if He, “the Sun of thy soul,” be ever near! In the morning, He comes with the earliest beam that visits thy chamber. AVhen the curtains of night close around thee, lie, to whom “the darkness and the light are both alike,” is at thy side I — In the stillness of night, when in thy wakeful moments, the visions of the departed flit before thee like shadows on the wall, — He, the unslumbering Shepherd of Israel, is tending thy couch, and whispering in thine ear, “Fear not, for am with thee I”

Thy experience may be that of Paul, “All forsook me I” But, like him, also, thou wilt, doubtless, be able to add in the extremity of thy sorrow, ‘“Nevertheless THE Lord stood with mo, and strengthened me!” (2 Tim. iv. 16, 17). He can compensate, by His own loving presence, for every earthly loss. Without the consciousness of His friendship and love, the smallest trial will crush thee. With Him in thy trial, supporting and sustaining thee under it, (yea, coming in the place of those thou inournest), thou wilt have an infinite and inexhaustible portion for a finite and mutable one. Many a cloud is there without a Bow in Nature — but never in Grace. Every Sorrow has its corresponding and counterpart Comfort — ‘’/?z the multitude of the SoKROWS that I had in my heart, Thy Comforts have refreshed my souV (Ps. xciv. 19). If in the midnight of thy grief thy earthly sun appear to have set for ever, an inner, but not less real sunshine, lights up thy stricken heart. The stream of life may have been poisoned at its source, but blessed be His name if it have driven thee to gay, “All my springs are IN Thee!” “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in Him!”