Comforteth

2 Cor. i. 4.

WHAT a word is this! There is music in the very mention of it. And there is not one of us that cannot appreciate its meaning and worth. In the prophecies of Isaiah, God calls on others to comfort His people and speak comfortably to His chosen; but here He is described as being the sole comforter of His saints. It is as if He refused to wait the consummation of all things, before beginning to wipe away all tears from our eyes, and were already prepared to comfort us as a mother comforteth her first-born.

In God there is the mother-nature, as well as the Fatherhood. All love was first in Him, ere it was lit up in human hearts. The fires that burn so brightly on the altars of motherhood the world over, were lit in the first instance from the Heart of God; and He keeps them alight. And therefore the love that is so quick to detect and so swift to hush the wail of the babe; which is so sensitive to discover that something ails the troubled hcarl; which is so inventive of little methods of solace, now by tender touch, and again by delicate suggestion — this love is in the great heart of God, and awaits our need to enwrap us in the embrace of an infinite sympathy and comfort.

The apostle had known this many a time; and when he tells out his experiences on this matter, we feel we are listening to one who knew whereof he spake. Few have suffered more than he did, from the moment that he gave up all for Christ, to the hour in “Comfortetb,”

which he died a martyr for the faith — the break with old friends; the physical sufferings of his lot; the homelessness, and privations, and continual journeyings; the care of all the churches, the opposition of false brethren. Every epistle bears some evidence of the anguish constantly being inflicted on his noble and tender heart. And yet he said, God comforteth us. “Who comforteth in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” (2 Cor. i. 4.)

There are many ways in which “the God of all comfort” comforts us. Sometimes He shoots a ray of cheer over the darkened life by a verse of Scripture, sent on a card, or written by a friend; sometimes a passage of Scripture rings in our memory like a sw’eet refrain, rising and falling as a peal of distant bells heard across a (Bob’s Hass of Comfort. 89

wide valley. Sometimes a gift — which shows that some one is thinking tenderly of us — comes into our hands; and we value it not for its intrinsic worth, but because of the love which prompted it, and which is the symptom of a tenderer love behind. Sometimes an unexpected friend comes into our home, with a bright face and a warm grasp of the hand; and we are comforted of God by the coming of a Titus. (2 Cor. vii. 5, 6.) There is no day so dark, no lot so sad, but that unto it God contrives to put a little scrap of comfort; not enough perhaps to take away the pain, which we need as discipline; but just enough to carry us through the sad hours which move so heavily.

Let us look out for God’s rays of comfort. There is never sorrow without its attendant comfort. Only we are often so deeply exercised and engrossed with the sorrow, that we miss “Covnfortetb.”

the solace. We are so downcast, that we do not see the angel-form waiting by our side. We are too monopolized by grief to be aware of aught beside; and so the light fades from the landscape unobserved, and the sweet singer, who had come to cheer us, steals unnoticed out of our homestead for want of a word of recognition, and a look of grateful acknowledgment.

It is sometimes a mystery why we should be troubled as we are. Why is every chord of sorrow struck within us? Why do we suffer on so many sides of our nature? Why are we touched in the property, which melts before our gaze; and in the home, which becomes darkened by death; and in the person, the body suffering, the heart lacerated and torn? Some go through life without all this. But they are not the noblest characters. No great picture has ever been produced without shadows lurking somewhere on the (Sob’s flbetbobs* 91

canvas. No master composer in music or poetry can touch the heart of humanity without having suffered first* But there is a yet deeper reason: some of us are permitted to pass through all kinds of tribulation, that God may have a chance of comforting us; and that we may learn the divine art of comfort, so as to “be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves have been comforted of God.”

Shall not this thought comfort us when we next pass through any sorrow? The one thing in sorrow which makes it sometimes almost unbearable is its apparent aimlessness. Why am I made to suffer thus? What have I done? Hush, impatient spirit! thou art in God’s school of sorrow for a special purpose. Be careful to notice how He comforts thee. Watch His methods. See how He wraps up the broken spirit, with touch so tender, and bandage so “Comfortetb,”

accurately adjusted. Remember each text which He suggests — put them down so as not to be forgotten: there will come a time in your life when you will be called on to comfort another afflicted just as you are. Your special sorrow is sent because that which you will be called on to solace, will be of quite an unique and uncommon kind; and your comfort will be required. Without this special discipline yourself, you would be totally non-plussed at the difficulty of your task; but you will have no difficulty henceforth. When the agonized heart comes to you and lays bare its grief, bitterly thinking that it is alone and incomprehensible in its anguish, it will be comforted by hearing that you have traversed the over-shadowed pathway, down the deep glen; and you will be able to tell out, step by step, the way in which God comforted you.

O Christian. workers, who long to become adepts in the art of ministering to souls diseased! — be not astonished if your education be long and costly. And since there is no one else to practice on, be prepared to find that God is teaching you how tcf comfort, by first giving you the pain, and then the comfort ‘which is fitted to allay it. No tongue can tell the tenderness of God. Only let us go to Him more freely; opening up the agony of our hearts. The very telling will relieve us.

But in addition to this, we shall be sensible of delicate alleviations and palliatives, suggested by the ingenuity of a Divine tenderness, which will enable us to endure. And God is never wearied by our querulousness or protracted sufferings. He lingers beside us through the years. He fainteth not, neither is weary. And this shall be true of every hour, however dark — and of every path, however rugged —