{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20312/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20312","id":"gutenberg_20312","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20312","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Consolation"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1906 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\nOut of the Deep:\nWORDS FOR THE SORROWFUL.\n\n\n_FROM THE WRITINGS OF_\nCHARLES KINGSLEY.\n\n\"Out of the deep have I cried unto Thee, O God.\"\n\nLondon\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n\n1906\n_All rights reserved_\n\nPrinted by Robert MacLehose & Co. Ltd.\nUniversity Press, Glasgow.\n\nFirst Edition 1880.\nReprinted 1883, 1885, 1886, 1887, 1889, 1891, 1893, 1896, 1900, 1906\n\nTHIS LITTLE BOOK IS\nDedicated\nTO ALL TROUBLED SOULS\nAND\nTO THE DEAR MEMORY OF ONE\nWHO PASSED THROUGH THE DEEP\nINTO ETERNAL REST.\n\nF. E. K\n\n_June_ 12,1880.\n\n\n\n\nI.  OUT OF THE DEEP OF SUFFERING AND SORROW.\n\n\n   Save me, O God, for the waters are come in even unto my soul: I am\n   come into deep waters; so that the floods run over me.--Ps. lxix. 1,\n   2.\n\n   I am brought into so great trouble and misery: that I go mourning all\n   the day long.--Ps. xxxviii. 6.\n\n   The sorrows of my heart are enlarged: Oh! bring Thou me out of my\n   distress.--Ps. xxv. 17.\n\n   The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping: the Lord will receive my\n   prayer.--Ps. vi. 8.\n\n   In the multitude of the sorrows which I had in my heart, Thy comforts\n   have refreshed my soul.--Ps. xciv. 17.\n\nEach heart knows its own bitterness; each soul has its own sorrow; each\nman's life has its dark days of storm and tempest, when all his joys seem\nblown away by some sudden blast of ill-fortune, and the desire of his\neyes is taken from him, and all his hopes and plans, all which he\nintended to do or to enjoy, are hid with blinding mist, so that he cannot\nsee his way before him, and knows not whither to go, or whither to flee\nfor help; when faith in God seems broken up for the moment, when he feels\nno strength, no purpose, and knows not what to determine, what to do,\nwhat to believe, what to care for; when the very earth seems reeling\nunder his feet, and the fountains of the abyss are broken up.\n\nWhen that day comes, let him think of God's covenant and take heart.  Is\nthe sun's warmth perished out of the sky because the storm is cold with\nhail and bitter winds?  Is God's love changed because we cannot feel it\nin our trouble?  Is the sun's light perished out of the sky because the\nworld is black with cloud and mist?  Has God forgotten to give light to\nsuffering souls, because we cannot see our way for a few short days of\nperplexity?\n\nNo.  God's message to every sad and desolate heart on earth, is that God\nis Light, and in Him is no darkness at all; that God is Love, and in Him\nthere is no cruelty at all; that God is One, and in Him there is no\nchange at all.  And therefore we can pray boldly to Him, and ask Him to\ndeliver us in the time of our tribulation and misery; in the hour of\ndeath, whether of our own death or the death of those we love; in the day\nof judgment, whereof it is written--\"It is God who justifieth us; who is\nhe that condemneth?  It is Christ who died, yea, rather who is risen\nagain, who even now maketh intercession for us.\"  To that boundless love\nof God, which He showed forth in the life of Christ Jesus; to that\nperfect and utter will to deliver us which God showed forth in the death\nof Christ Jesus, when the Father spared not His own Son, but gave Him\nfreely for us; to that boundless love we may trust ourselves, our\nfortunes, our families, our bodies, our souls, and the bodies and souls\nof those we love.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nTo all, sooner or later, Christ comes to baptise them with fire.  But do\nnot think that the baptism of fire comes once for all to a man, in some\none terrible affliction, some one awful conviction of his own sinfulness\nand nothingness.  No; with many--and those perhaps the best people--it\ngoes on month after month, year after year.  By secret trials,\nchastenings, which none but they and God can understand, the Lord is\ncleansing them from their secret faults, and making them to understand\nwisdom secretly; burning out of them the chaff of self-will, and self-\nconceit, and vanity, and leaving only the pure gold of righteousness.  How\nmany sweet and holy souls, who look cheerful enough before the eyes of\nman, yet have their secret sorrows.  They carry their cross unseen all\nday long, and lie down to sleep on it at night; and they will carry it\nperhaps for years and years, and to their graves, and to the throne of\nChrist before they lay it down; and none but they and Christ will ever\nknow what it was; what was the secret chastisement which God sent to make\nthat soul better which seemed to us already too good for earth.  So does\nthe Lord watch His people, and tries them with fire, as the refiner of\nsilver sits by his furnaces watching the melted metal till he knows that\nit is purged from all its dross by seeing the image of his own face\nreflected on it.\n\n_Town and Country Sermons_.\n\nBy sufferings was Christ made perfect; and what was the best path for\nJesus Christ is surely good enough for us, even though it be a rough and\nthorny one.  Let us lie still beneath God's hand; for though His hand be\nheavy upon us, it is strong and safe beneath us too; and none can pluck\nus out of His hand, for in Him we live and move and have our being.  He\nwaits for us year after year, with patience which cannot tire; therefore,\nlet us wait awhile for Him.  With Him is plenteous redemption, and\ntherefore redemption enough for us and for those likewise whom we love.\nAnd though we go down into hell with David, with David we shall find God\nthere (Ps. cxxxix. 8; Ps. xvi. 10), and find that He does not leave our\nsouls in hell, nor suffer His holy ones to see corruption.  Yes, have\nfaith in God.  Nothing in thee which He has made shall see corruption;\nfor it is a thought of God's, and no thought of His can perish.  Nothing\nshall be purged out of thee, but thy disease; nothing shall be burnt out\nof thee but thy dross; and that in thee of which God said in the\nbeginning, \"Let us make man in our own image,\" shall be saved and live to\nall eternity.  Yes, have faith in God, and cry to Him out of the deep,\n\"Though Thou slay me, yet will I love Thee, for Thou lovedst me in Jesus\nChrist before the foundation of the world.\"\n\n_Sermons_--_Good News of God_.\n\nOh, sad hearts and suffering!  Anxious and weary ones!  Look to the cross\nof Christ.  There hung your King!  The King of sorrowing souls, and more,\nthe King of Sorrows.  Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, death\nand hell--He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength, and\ntaught them His, and conquered them right royally.  And since He hung\nupon that torturing cross, sorrow is divine, godlike, as joy itself.  All\nthat man's fallen nature dreads and despises, God honoured on the cross,\nand took unto Himself, and blest and consecrated for ever.  And now\nblessed are the poor, if they are poor in heart as well as purse; for\nJesus was poor, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are the\nhungry, if they hunger for righteousness as well as food; for Jesus\nhungered, and they shall be filled.  Blessed are those who mourn, if they\nmourn not only for their sorrows, but for their sins; for Jesus mourned\nfor our sins, and on the cross He was made sin for us, who knew no sin;\nand they shall be comforted.  Blessed are those who are ashamed of\nthemselves, and hate themselves, and humble themselves before God, for on\nthe cross Jesus humbled Himself; and they shall be exalted.  Blessed are\nthe forsaken and despised; did not all men forsake Jesus in His hour of\nneed?  And why not thee, too, thou poor deserted one?  Shall the disciple\nbe above his Master?  No.  Every one that is perfect must be as his\nMaster.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nNever let us get into the common trick of calling unbelief Resignation;\nof asking, and then because we have not faith to believe, putting in a\n\"Thy will be done\" at the end.  Let us make God's will our will, and so\nsay, \"Thy will be done.\"  There is a false as well as a true and holy\nresignation.  When the sorrow is come or coming, or necessary apparently\nfor others' good, let us say with our Master in the Agony, \"Not what we\nwill, but what Thou wilt!\"  But up to that point, let us pray boldly.\n\n_Letters and Memories of Charles Kingsley_.\n\nChristianity heightens as well as deepens the human as well as the divine\naffections.  I am happy; for the less hope, the more faith.  God knows\nwhat is best for us.  I am sure we do not.  Continual resignation, I\nbegin to find, is the secret of continual strength.  \"Daily dying,\" as\nBoehmen interprets it, \"is the path of daily living.\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nIn all the trials of life, there is still some way of escape to be found\nif a man goes to the right place to look for it; and, if not of escape,\nstill of compensation.  I speak of that which I know.  Of my own comfort\nI will not speak--of the path by which I attained it I will.  It was\nsimply by not struggling, doing my work vigorously where God had put me,\nand believing firmly that His promises had a real, not a mere\nmetaphorical meaning, and that Psalms x., xxvii., xxxiv., xxxvii., cvii.,\ncxii., cxxiii., cxxvi., cxlvi., are as practically true for us as they\nwere for the Jews of old, and that it is the faithlessness of this day\nwhich prevents men from accepting God's promises in their literal sense\nwith simple childlike faith.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nDo not fear the clouds and storm and rain; look at the bow in the cloud,\nin the very rain itself.  That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot\nsee it, is shining still--that up above, beyond the cloud, is still\nsunlight and warmth and cloudless blue sky.  Believe in God's covenant.\nBelieve that the sun will conquer the clouds, warmth will conquer cold,\ncalm will conquer storm, fair will conquer foul, light will conquer\ndarkness, joy will conquer sorrow, life conquer death, love conquer\ndestruction and the devouring floods; because God is light, God is love,\nGod is life, God is peace and joy eternal, God is without change, and\nlabours to give life and joy and peace to man and beast and all created\nthings.  This was the meaning of the rainbow.  It is a witness that God,\nwho made the world, is the friend and preserver of man; that His promises\nare like the everlasting sunshine which is above the clouds, without spot\nor fading, without variableness or shadow of turning.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nIf I did not believe in a special Providence, in a perpetual education of\nmen by evil as well as good, by small things as well as great--if I did\nnot believe that--I could believe nothing.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nLet us be content; we do not know what is good for us, and God does.\n\nIt is true, and you will find it true (though God knows it is a difficult\nlesson enough to learn) that there should be no greater comfort to\nChristian people than to be made like Christ by suffering patiently not\nonly the hard work of every-day life, but sorrows, troubles, and\nsicknesses, and all our heavenly Father's corrections, whensoever, by any\nmanner of adversity, it shall please His gracious goodness to visit them.\nFor Christ Himself went not up to joy, but first He suffered pain.  He\nentered not into His glory before He was crucified.  Therefore those\nwords which we read in the Visitation of the Sick about this matter are\nnot mere kind words, meant to give comfort for the moment.  They are\ntruth and fact and sound philosophy.  They are as true for the young lad\nin health and spirits as for the old folks crawling towards their graves.\nIt is true that sickness and all sorts of troubles are sent to correct\nand amend in us whatsoever doth offend the eye of our heavenly Father.  It\nis true, and you will find it true, that whom the Lord loveth He\nchasteneth.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.\n\n\"That ye through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope,\"\nsays St. Paul; and, again, \"Let patience have her perfect work.\"  But\nwhere are we to get patience?  God knows it is hard in such a world as\nthis for poor creatures to be always patient.  But faith can breed\npatience, though patience cannot breed itself; and faith in whom?  Faith\nin our Father in Heaven, even in Almighty God Himself.  He calls Himself\nthe \"God of Patience and Consolation.\"  Pray for His Holy Spirit, and He\nwill make you patient; pray for His Holy Spirit, and He will console and\ncomfort you.  He has promised that Spirit of His--the Comforter--the\nSpirit of Love, Trust, and Patience--to as many as ask Him.  Ask Him at\nHis Holy Table to make you patient; ask Him to change your wills into the\nlikeness of His will.  Then will your eyes be opened; then will you see\nin the Scriptures a sure promise of hope, and glory, and redemption for\nyourself and all the world; then you will see in the blessed Sacrament of\nthe Lord's body and blood a sure sign and warrant, handed down from hand\nto hand, from age to age, from year to year, from father to son, that His\npromises shall be fulfilled--that patience shall have her perfect\nwork--that hope shall become a reality--that not one of the Lord's words\nshall fail or pass away till all be fulfilled.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nGod means some good to you by prostrating you--perhaps He means by giving\nyou blessings almost without your asking, to show you how little avails\nmorbid sensitiveness or self-tormenting struggles.  Synthetical minds are\nsubject to this self-torture.  Such a period in your life is the time to\nbecome again a little child!  I do not mean a re-regeneration, but a\npermitting of the mind to assume that tone of calm wonder and infantile\ntrust, which will allow all the innate principles within--all\nGod-bestowed graces which have been bruised and bowed by the tempest, to\nblossom gently upwards again, in \"the clear shining after rain\"--a\nbreathing time in life--not too much retrospection or\nself-examination--keep that for the healthy and vigorous hours of the\nmind--but a silent basking in the light of God's presence--a time for\nfaith, more than for labour; for general and unexpressed, more than for\nparticular or earnest prayer.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nSorrow, though dreary, is not barren.  Nothing need be barren to those\nwho view all things in their real light, as links in the great chain of\nprogression, both for themselves and for the universe.  To us, all Time\nshould seem so full of life; every moment the grave and the father of\nunnumbered events and designs in heaven and earth, revealing the mind of\nour God Himself--all things moving smoothly and surely, in spite of\napparent checks and disappointments, towards the appointed End!\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nIn all the chances and changes of this mortal life, it is our one comfort\nto believe firmly and actively in the changeless kingdom, and in the\nchangeless King.  This alone will give us calm, patience, faith, and\nhope, though the heavens and the earth be shaken around us.  For so only\nshall we see that the kingdom, of which we are citizens, is a kingdom of\nlight, and not of darkness; of truth, and not of falsehood; of freedom,\nand not of slavery; of bounty and mercy, and not of wrath and fear; that\nwe live and move and have our being, not in a \"Deus quidam deceptor,\" who\ngrudges His children wisdom, but in a Father of Light, from whom comes\nevery good and perfect gift; who willeth that all men should be saved,\nand come to the knowledge of the truth.  In His kingdom we are; and in\nthe King whom He has set over it we can have most perfect trust.  For us\nthat King stooped from heaven to earth; for us He was born, for us He\ntoiled, for us He suffered, for us He died, for us He arose again, for us\nHe sits for ever at God's right hand.  And can we not trust Him?  Let Him\ndo what He will.  Let Him lead us whither He will.  Wheresoever He leads\nmust be the way of truth and life.  Whatsoever He does, must be in\nharmony with that infinite love which He displayed for us upon the Cross.\nWhatsoever He does must be in harmony with that eternal purpose by which\nHe reveals to men God their Father.  Therefore, though the heaven and the\nearth be shaken around us, we will trust in Him; for we know that He is\nthe same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nIf we believe that God is educating men, the when, the where, and the\nhow, are not only unimportant, but considering Who is the teacher,\nunfathomable to us; and it is enough to be able to believe that the Lord\nof all things is influencing us through all things.\n\n_Essays_.\n\nProvided we attain at last to the truly heroic and divine life, which is\nthe life of virtue, it will matter little to us by what strange and weary\nways, or through what painful and humiliating processes, we have arrived\nthither.  If God has loved us, if God will receive us, then let us submit\nloyally and humbly to His law--\"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and\nscourgeth every son whom He receiveth.\"\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.\n\nI believe that the wisest plan of bearing sorrow is sometimes not to try\nto bear it--as long as one is not crippled for one's every-day duties--but\nto give way to sorrow, utterly and freely.  Perhaps sorrow is sent that\nwe _may_ give way to it, and, in drinking the cup to the dregs, find some\nmedicine in it itself which we should not find if we began doctoring\nourselves, or letting others doctor us.  If we say simply, \"I am\nwretched, I ought to be wretched;\" then we shall perhaps hear a voice,\n\"Who made thee wretched but God?  Then what can He mean but thy good?\"\nAnd if the heart answers impatiently, \"My good?  I don't want it, I want\nmy love!\" perhaps the voice may answer, \"Then thou shalt have both in\ntime.\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nAfter all, the problem of life is not a difficult one, for it solves\nitself--so very soon at best--by death.  Do what is right, the best way\nyou can, and wait to the end to _know_. . . .\n\nIf, in spite of wars, and fevers, and accidents, and the strokes of\nchance, this world be green and fair, what must the coming world be like?\nLet us comfort ourselves as St. Paul did (in infinitely worse times),\nthat the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared\nwith the glory that shall be revealed.  It is not fair to quote one text\nabout the creation groaning and travailing without the other, that it\nwill not groan and travail long.  Would the mother who has groaned and\ntravailed and brought forth children--would she give up those children\nfor the sake of not having had that pain?  Then believe that the day will\ncome when the world, and every human being in it who has really groaned\nand travailed, would not give up its past pangs for the sake of its then\npresent perfection, but will look back on this life, as the mother does\non past pain, with glory and joy.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nI write to you because every expression of human sympathy brings some\nlittle comfort, if it be only to remind such as you that you are not\nalone in the world.  I know nothing can make up for such a loss as yours.\n{26}  But you will still have love on earth all round you; and _his_ love\nis not dead.  It lives still in the next world for you, and perhaps with\nyou.  For why should not those who are gone, if they are gone to their\nLord, be actually nearer us, not further from us, in the heavenly world,\npraying for us, and it may be, influencing and guiding us in a hundred\nways, of which we in our prison-house of mortality cannot dream?\n\nYes, do not be afraid to believe that he whom you have loved is still\nnear you, and you near him, and both of you near God, who died on the\nCross for you.  That is all I can say.  But what comfort there is in it,\nif one can give up one's heart to believe it!\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\n. . .  All that I can say about the text, Matt. xxii. 30 [of Marriage in\nthe world to come], is that it has nought to do with me and my wife.  I\nknow that if immortality is to include in my case identity of person, I\nshall feel for her for ever what I feel now.  That feeling may be\ndeveloped in ways which I do not expect; it may have provided for it\nforms of expression very different from any which are among the holiest\nsacraments of life.  Of that I take no care.  The union I believe to be\neternal as my own soul, and I leave all in the hands of a good God.\n\nIs not marriage the mere approximation to a unity that shall be perfect\nin heaven?  And shall we not be reunited in heaven by that still deeper\ntie?  Surely if on earth Christ the Lord has loved--some more than\nothers;--why should not we do the same in heaven, and yet love all?\n\nDo I thus seem to undervalue earthly bliss?  No! I enhance it when I make\nit the sacrament of a higher union!  Will not this thought give more\nexquisite delight; will it not tear off the thorn from every rose; and\nsweeten every nectar cup to perfect security of blessedness in this life,\nto feel that there is more in store for us--that all expressions of love\nhere, are but dim shadows of a union which will be perfect if we but work\nhere, so as to work out our own salvation?\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nThat is an awful feeling of having the roots which connect one with the\nlast generation seemingly torn up, and having to say, \"Now I am the root,\nI stand self-supported, with no other older stature to rest on.\" {30}  But\nthis one must believe that God is the God of Abraham, and that all live\nto Him, and that we are no more isolated and self-supported than when we\nwere children on our mother's bosom.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nBelieve that those who are gone are nearer us than ever; and that if, as\nI surely believe, they do sorrow over the mishaps and misdeeds of those\nwhom they leave behind, they do not sorrow in vain.  Their sympathy is a\nfurther education for them, and a pledge, too, of help, and, I believe,\nof final deliverance for those on whom they look down in love.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\n\"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; for they rest from their\nlabours, and their works do follow them.\"\n\nThey rest from their labours.  All their struggles, disappointments,\nfailures, backslidings, which made them unhappy here, because they could\nnot perfectly do the will of God, are past and over for ever.  But their\nworks follow them.  The good which they did on earth--that is not past\nand over.  It cannot die.  It lives and grows for ever, following on in\ntheir path long after they are dead, and bearing fruit unto everlasting\nlife, not only in them, but in men whom they never saw, and in\ngenerations yet unborn.\n\n_Good News of God_--_Sermons_.\n\n\"A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye\nshall see me, because I go to the Father,\" said our Lord when speaking of\nHis own death to His sorrowing disciples.  And if it be so with Christ,\nthen is it so with those who are Christ's, with those whom we love.  They\nare the partakers of His death, therefore they are the partakers of His\nresurrection.  Let us believe that blessed news in all its fulness, and\nbe at peace.  A little while and we see them, and again a little while\nand we do not see them.  But why?  Because they are gone to the Father--to\nthe source and fount of all life and power, all light and love, that they\nmay gain life from His life, power from His power, light from His light,\nlove from His love--and surely not for nought.  Surely not for nought.\nFor, if they were like Christ on earth, and did not use their powers for\nthemselves alone, if they are to be like Christ when they shall see Him\nas He is, the more surely will they not use their powers for themselves,\nbut as Christ uses His, for those they love?  Surely, like Christ they\nmay come and go even now unseen.  Like Christ they may breathe upon our\nrestless hearts and say, \"Peace be unto you.\"  And not in vain--for what\nthey did for us when they were yet on earth they can do more fully now\nthat they are in heaven.\n\nThey may seem to have left us, and we may weep and lament.  But the day\nwill come when the veil shall be taken from our eyes and we shall see\nthem as they are--with Christ and in Christ for ever--and remember no\nmore our anguish, for joy that another human being has entered into that\none true, real, and eternal world, wherein is neither disease, disorder,\nchange, decay, nor death, for it is none other than the bosom of the\nFather.\n\n_All Saints-Day Sermons_.\n\nAnd what if earthly love seems so delicious that all change in it would\nseem a change for the worse, shall we repine?  What does reason (and\nfaith, which is reason exercised on the invisible) require of us, but to\nconclude that if there is change, there will be something better there?\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nWhat is the true everlasting life--the life of God and Christ--but a life\nof love, a life of perfect active, self-sacrificing goodness, which is\nthe one only true life for all rational beings, whether on earth or in\nheaven--in heaven as well as on earth.  Form your own notions as you will\nabout angels and saints in heaven, (for every one must have some notions\nabout them,) and try to picture to yourself what the souls of those whom\nyou have loved and lost are  doing in the other world; but bear this in\nmind, that if the saints in heaven live the everlasting life, they must\nbe living a life of usefulness, of love, and of good works.\n\nThere are those who believe what we are too apt to forget, and that is\nthat the everlasting life cannot be a selfish and idle life, spent only\nin being happy oneself.  They believe that the saints in heaven are not\nidle--that they are eternally helping mankind, doing all sorts of good\noffices for those souls who need them.  I cannot see why they should not\nbe right.  For if the saints' delight was to do good on earth, much more\nwill it be to do good in heaven.  If they helped poor sufferers, if they\ncomforted the afflicted here on earth, much more will they be willing to\nhelp and comfort them, now that they are in the full power, the full\nfreedom, the full love and zeal of the everlasting life.  If their hearts\nwere warmed and softened by the fire of God's love here, how much more\nthere!  If they lived God's life of love here, how much more there,\nbefore the throne of God and the face of Christ!\n\nAnd if any one shall say that the souls of good men in heaven cannot help\nus who are here on earth, I answer--When did they ascend into heaven to\nfind out that?  If they had ever been there, let us be sure they would\nhave had better news to bring home than this, that those whom we have\nhonoured and loved on earth have lost the power which they used once to\nhave of comforting us who are struggling below.\n\nNo, we will believe--what every one who loses a beloved friend comes\nsooner or later to believe--that those whom we have honoured and loved,\nthough taken from our eyes, are near to our spirits; that they still\nfight for us under the banner of their Master, Christ, and still work for\nus by virtue of His life of love, which they live in Him and by Him for\never.\n\nPray to them, indeed, we need not, as if they would help us out of any\nself-will of their own.  They do God's will, and not their own; and go on\nGod's errands, and not their own.  If we pray to God our Father Himself,\nthat is enough for us.  And what shall we pray?  \"Father, Thy will be\ndone on earth as it is in heaven.\"\n\n_Good News of God_, _Sermons_.\n\nIs not that one thought that our beloved ones sleep in Christ Jesus\nenough?  They sleep in Jesus, and therefore in infinite tenderness,\nsympathy, care, and love.  They sleep in Jesus; and He is the Life, and\ntherefore they sleep in Life.  They sleep in Jesus; and He is the Light,\nand therefore they sleep in Light.  They sleep in Jesus; and He is Love,\nand therefore they sleep in Love.  And what better?  This is better--that\nthey who sleep in Jesus must surely awaken.  For, as it is written, His\nis a quickening, awakening, life-giving Spirit, and so to sleep in Him is\nto sleep in the very fount and core of life and power.  If from Jesus all\nour powers and talents come here on earth, surely He will give us more\nand nobler, when we sleep in Him, and wake in Him to a risen and eternal\nlife.  And more, it is written that them that sleep in Jesus will He\nbring with Him.  At the last day we shall see face to face those we\nloved--and before that--oh! doubt it not.  Oftentimes when Christ draws\nnear our spirits He comes not alone, but loving souls, souls whom we knew\nin the flesh on earth, bear up His train, and hover near our hearts and\njoin their whispers to the voice and inspiration of Him who loved us, and\nwho will guide us with counsel here, and after that receive us into\nglory, where we shall meet those beloved ones--not as our forefathers\ndreamed, as meagre shadows flitting through dreary and formless chaos--but\nas we knew them once--the body of the flesh alone put off, but the real\nbody, the spiritual body to which flesh and blood was but a husk and\nshell, living and loving more fully, more utterly, than even before,\nbecause it is in Christ who is the fount of life, and freed in Him for\never from hell and death.\n\nAnd if you wish for a sign that this is so, come to holy communion and\ntake the bread and wine as a sign that your bodies and theirs, your souls\nand theirs, are fed from the same fount of everlasting life--the dead and\nrisen and ever living body of Christ Jesus, which He has given to be the\nlife of the world.\n\n_MSS. Sermons_.\n\nWe know that afflictions do come--terrible bereavements, sorrows sad and\nstrange.  There they are, God help us all.  But from whom do they come?\nWho is Lord of life and death?  Who is Lord of joy and sorrow?  Is not\nthat the question of all questions?  And is not the answer the most\nessential of all answers?  It is the Holy Spirit of God; the Spirit who\nproceedeth from the Father and the Son; the Spirit of the Father who so\nloved the world, that He spared not His only begotten Son; the Spirit of\nthe Son who so loved the world that He stooped to die for it upon the\nCross; the Spirit who is the Comforter, and says, \"I have seen thy ways\nand will heal thee, I will lead thee also, and restore comforts to thee\nand to thy mourners.  I speak peace to him that is near and to him that\nis afar off, saith the Lord; and I will heal him.\"  Is not that the most\nblessed news, that He who takes away, is the very same as He who gives?\nThat He who afflicts is the very same as He who comforts?\n\n_All Saints-Day Sermons_.\n\nOh! blessed news, that God Himself is the Comforter.  Blessed news, that\nHe who strikes will also heal; that He who gives the cup of sorrow will\nalso give the strength to drink it.  Blessed news, that chastisement is\nnot punishment, but the education of a Father.  Blessed news, that our\nwhole duty is the duty of a child--of the Son who said in His agony,\nFather, not my will, but Thine be done.  Blessed news, that our Comforter\nis the Spirit who comforted Christ the Son Himself; who proceeds both\nfrom the Father and the Son, and who will tell us that in Christ we are\nreally and literally the children of God, who may cry to Him in our\nextreme need, \"Father,\" with full understanding of all that that royal\nword contains.\n\n_All Saints-Day Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nII.  OUT OF THE DEEP OF SIN.\n\n\n   Innumerable troubles are come about me.  My sins have taken such hold\n   upon me, that I am not able to look up; yea, they are more in number\n   than the hairs of my head, and my heart hath failed me.--Ps. xl. 15.\n\n   I acknowledge my faults, and my sin is ever before me.  Against Thee\n   only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight.--Ps. li. 3.\n\n   I said, I will confess my sins unto the Lord; and so Thou forgavest\n   the wickedness of my sin.--Ps. xxxii. 6.\n\n   Blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven, and whose sin is\n   purged.--Ps. xxxii. 1.\n\n   There is forgiveness with Thee, therefore shalt Thou be feared.--Ps.\n   cxxx. 1.\n\nGod is not against you but for you, in all the struggles of life; He\nwants you to get through safe; wants you to succeed; wants you to\nconquer; and He will hear your cry out of the deep and help you.  And\ntherefore when you find yourselves wrong, utterly wrong, do not cry to\nthis man or that man, \"Do _you_ help me; do you set me a little more\nright before God comes, and finds me in the wrong and punishes me.\"  Cry\nto God Himself, to Christ Himself; ask Him to lift you up; ask Him to set\nyou right.  Do not be like St. Peter before his conversion, and cry,\n\"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord; wait a little till I have\nrisen up, and washed off my stains, and made myself somewhat fit to be\nseen.\"--No.  Cry, \"Come quickly, O Lord--at once--just because I am a\nsinful man; just because I am sore let and hindered in running my race by\nmy own sins and wickedness; because I am lazy and stupid; because I am\nperverse and vicious, _therefore_ raise up Thy power, and come to me, Thy\nmiserable creature, Thy lost child, and with Thy great might succour me.\nLift me up, because I have fallen very low; deliver me, for I have\nplunged out of Thy sound and safe highway into deep mire where no ground\nis.  Help myself I cannot, and if Thou help me not, I am undone.\"\n\nDo so.  Pray so.  Let your sins and wickedness be to you not a reason for\nhiding from Christ, who stands by; but a reason, the reason of all\nreasons, for crying to Christ, who stands by.  And then, whether He\ndelivers you by gentle means or by sharp ones, deliver you He will, and\nset your feet on firm ground, and order your goings, that you may run\nwith patience the race which is set before you along the road of life and\nthe pathway of God's commandments wherein there is no death.\n\n_Good News of God_, _Sermons_.\n\nWhat are we to do when our sins bring us, as they certainly will some day\nbring us, into trouble, but to open our eyes and see that the only thing\nfor men and women whom God has made is to obey Him?  How can we prosper\nby doing anything else?  It is ill fighting against God.  But some one\nmay say, \"I know I have sinned, and I do wish and long to obey God, but I\nam so weak, and my sins have so entangled me, that I cannot obey God.  I\nlong to do so.  I feel and know, when I look back, that all my sin and\nshame and unhappiness come from being proud and self-willed and\ndetermined to have my own way.  But I _cannot_ mend.\"\n\nDo not despair, poor soul!  I had a thousand times sooner hear you say\nthat you cannot mend than that you can.  For those who really feel they\ncannot mend--those who are really weary and worn out with the burden of\ntheir sins--those who are tired out with their own wilfulness, and feel\nready to lie down and die, like a spent horse, and say, \"God take me\naway, no matter to what place; I am not fit to live here on earth, a\nshame and a torment to myself day and night\"--those who are in that state\nof mind are very near--very near--finding out glorious news.\n\nGod knows as well as you what you have to struggle against; ay, a\nthousand times better.  He knows--What does He not know?  Therefore pray\nto Him.  Cry to Him to make your will like His own will, that you may\nlove what He loves, hate what He hates, and do what He wishes you to do;\nand you will surely find it come true that those who try to mend, and yet\nknow that they cannot mend themselves, God will mend them.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nSin, [Greek text], is literally, as it signifies, the missing of a mark;\nand that each miss brings a penalty, or rather is itself the penalty, is\nto me the best of news, and gives me hope for myself and for every human\nbeing, past, present, and future, for it makes me look on them all as\nchildren under a paternal education, who are being taught to become aware\nof, and use their own powers in God's house, the universe, and for God's\nwork in it; and in proportion as they learn to do that, they attain\nsalvation, [Greek text], literally _health_ and _wholeness_ of spirit,\nwhich is, like the health of the body, its own reward.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nIf in sorrow the thought strikes you that you are punished for your sins,\nmourn for them, but not for the happiness they have prevented.  Rather\nthank God that He has stopped you in time, and remember His promises of\nrestoring us if we profit by His chastisement.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nAh! how many a poor, foolish creature, in misery and shame, with guilty\nconscience and sad heart, tries to forget his sin, to forget his sorrow;\nbut he cannot.  He is sick and tired of sin.  He is miserable, and he\nhardly knows why.  There is a longing, and craving, and hunger at his\nheart after something better.  Then he begins to remember his Heavenly\nFather's house.  Old words, which he learnt in childhood; good old words\nout of his Catechism and Bible, start up strangely in his mind.  He had\nforgotten them, laughed at them perhaps in his wild days.  But now they\ncome up, he does not know where from, like beautiful ghosts gliding in.\nAnd he is ashamed of them.  They reproach him, the dear old lessons; and\nat last he says, \"Would God that I were a little child again; once more\nan innocent little child at my mother's knee!  Perhaps I have been a\nfool; and the old Sunday books were right after all.  At least, I am\nmiserable!  I thought I was my own master, but perhaps He about whom I\nused to read in the old Sunday books is my Master after all.  At least, I\nam not my own master; _I am a slave_.  Perhaps I have been fighting\nagainst Him, against the Lord God, all this time, and now He has shown me\nthat He is the stronger of the two.\"\n\nAnd when the Lord has drawn a man thus far, does He stop?  Not so.  He\ndoes not leave His work half done.  If the work is half done, it is that\n_we_ stop, not that He stops.  Whoever comes to Him, however confusedly,\nor clumsily, or even lazily they may come, He will in no wise cast out.\nHe may afflict them still more to cure that confusion and laziness; but\nHe is a physician who never sends a patient away, or keeps him waiting\nfor a single hour.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nThe blessed St. Augustine found he could never conquer his own sins by\narguing with himself, or by any other means, till he got to know God, and\nto see that God was the Lord.  And when his spirit was utterly broken,\nwhen he saw himself to have been a fool and blind all along--then the old\nwords which he learned at his mother's knee came up to his mind, and he\nknew that God had been watching, guiding him, letting him go wrong only\nto show him the folly of going wrong, caring for him, bearing with him,\npleading with his conscience, alluring him back to the only true\nhappiness, as a loving father will a rebellious and self-willed child;\nand he became a changed man.  To that blessed state may God of His great\nmercy bring us in His own good time.  And if He does bring us to it, it\nis little matter whether He brings us to it through joy or through\nsorrow, through honour or through shame, through the Garden of Eden or\nthrough the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  For what matter how bitter\nthe medicine is if it does but save our lives?\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\n. . .  Your sense of sin is not fanaticism; it is, I suppose, simple\nconsciousness of fact.  As for helping you to Christ, I do not believe I\ncan one inch.  I can see no hope but in prayer, in going to Him yourself,\nand saying: \"Lord, if Thou art there, if Thou art at all, if this be not\nall a lie, fulfil Thy reputed promises, and give me peace and the sense\nof forgiveness, and the feeling that, bad as I may be, Thou lovest me\nstill, seeing all, understanding all, and therefore making allowance for\nall!\"\n\nI have had to do that in past days; to challenge Him through outer\ndarkness and the silence of night, till I almost expected that He would\nvindicate His own honour by appearing visibly, as He did to St. Paul and\nSt. John; but He answered in the still, small voice only; yet that was\nenough.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\n. . .  Dear friend, the secret of life for you and for me is to lay our\npurposes and our characters continually before Him who made them, and\ncry, \"Do _Thou_ purge me, and so alone shall I be clean.  Thou requirest\ntruth in the inward parts.  Thou wilt make me to understand wisdom\nsecretly.\"  What more rational belief?  For surely if there be any God,\nand He made us at first, He who makes can also mend His own work if it\ngets out of gear.  What more miraculous in the doctrines of regeneration\nand renewal than in the mere fact of creation?\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nAs for the sins of youth, what says the 130th Psalm?  If Thou, Lord, were\nextreme to mark what is done amiss, who could abide it?  But there is\nmercy with Him, therefore shall He be feared.  And how to fear God I know\nnot better than by working on at the special work which He has given us,\ntrusting to Him to make it of use to His creatures, if He needs us.\nTherefore fret not nor be of doubtful mind, but just do the duty which\nlies nearest.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nYes; this is our comfort, this is our hope; Christ, the Great Healer, the\nGreat Physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us from the remains of\nour old sins, the consequences of our own follies.  Not, indeed, at once\nor by miracles, but by slow education.  Better, indeed, for us perhaps\nthat He should not cure us at once, lest we should fancy that sin was a\nlight thing which we could throw off whenever we chose; and not that it\nis an inward disease, corroding and corrupting, the wages whereof are\ndeath.  And so it is that because Christ loves us He hates our sins, and\ncannot abide or endure them, but will punish them, and is merciful and\nloving in punishing as long as a tincture or remnant of sin is left in\nus.  Therefore let us put ourselves into the hands of Christ, the Great\nPhysician, and ask Him to heal our wounded souls, and purge our corrupted\nsouls, and leave to Him the choice of how He will do it.  Let us be\ncontent to be punished and chastised.  Let Him deal with us, if He sees\nfit, as He dealt with David of old, when He forgave the sin, and yet\npunished it by the death of his child.  Let Him do what He will by us,\nprovided He does--what He will do--make us good men.\n\n_All Saints-Day Sermons_.\n\nMy belief is that God will punish (has He not punished already somewhat?)\nevery wrong thing I ever did unless I repent--that is, change my\nbehaviour therein; and that His lightest blow is hard enough to break\nbone and marrow.  But as for saying of any human being whom I ever saw on\nearth that there is no hope for them; that if ever, under the bitter\nsmart of just punishment, they opened their eyes to their folly and\naltered their mind, even then God would not forgive them; as for saying\nthat, I will not for all the world and the rulers thereof.  I never saw a\nman in whom there was not some good, and I believe that God sees that\ngood far more clearly, and loves it far more deeply, than I can, because\nHe Himself put it there, and therefore it is reasonable to believe that\nHe will educate and strengthen that good, and chastise the holder of it\ntill he obeys it, and loves it, and gives himself up to it; and that the\nsaid holder will find such chastisement terrible enough if he is unruly\nand stubborn I doubt not, and so much the better for him.  Beyond this I\ncannot say.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nIf a man really believed himself to be a son, under a father's education,\nhe would believe everything which happened to be a part of that\neducation.  And such a man, I believe, so praying and so working, keeping\nbefore him as his lode-star--\"Our Father, hallowed be Thy name; Thy\nkingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;\" and asking\neven for his daily bread for that purpose and no other, would find\nselfishness and self-seeking die out of him, and active benevolence grow\nup in him.  He would find past sorrows and falls turned unexpectedly to\npractical use for his own and other's good; and discover to his delight,\nthat his Father had been educating him, while he fancied he was educating\nhimself; and he would neither have leisure nor need to torment himself\nabout the motives of his actions, but simply whatever his hand found to\ndo, do it with all his might.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nLet us forward.  God leads us; though blind, shall we be afraid to\nfollow?  I do not see my way; I do not care to; but I know that He sees\nHis way, and that I see Him, and I cannot believe that in spite of all\none's sins He will forget His gracious promises.  \"They had an eye unto\nHim, and were lightened.  They that put their trust in Him shall not be\nashamed.\"\n\nI know the miserable, peevish, lazy, conceited, faithless, prayerless\nwretch that I am, but I know this too, that One is guiding me, and\ndriving me when I would not be guided, who will make me, and has made me,\ngo His way, and do His work, by fair means or by foul.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nBe of good cheer.  WHEN the wicked man turneth from his wickedness (then,\nthere and then) he shall save his soul _alive_--and all his sin and\nwickedness shall not be mentioned unto him.  What your \"measure\" of guilt\n(if there can be a measure of the incommensurable spiritual) may be, I\nknow not.  But this I know that as long as you keep the sense of guilt\nalive in your own mind you will remain justified in God's mind; as long\nas you set your sins before your face He will set them behind His back.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nThis is the Gospel, the good news for fallen men, that there is a Man in\nthe midst of the throne of God to whom all power is given in heaven and\nearth; that the fate of the world and all that is therein, the fate of\nsun and stars, the fate of kings and nations, the fate of every publican\nand harlot, heathen and outcast, the fate of all who are in death and\nhell, depend alike upon the sacred heart of Jesus; the heart which\ngrieved at the tomb of Lazarus, His friend; the heart which wept over\nJerusalem; the heart which said to the blessed Magdalene, the woman that\nwas a sinner, \"Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee\"; the heart that\nyearns over every sinful and wandering soul all over the earth of God,\ncrying to all, \"Why will ye die?  Have I any pleasure in the death of him\nthat dieth, saith the Lord, and not rather that he should turn from his\nwickedness and live?\"  \"Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy\nladen and I will give you rest.\"\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nThis is the message of the blessed sacrament of the body and blood of\nChrist, which tells you that in spite of all your daily sins and\nfailings, you can still look up to God as your Father; to the Lord Jesus\nas your life; to the Holy Spirit as your guide and your inspirer; that\nthough you be a prodigal son, your Father's house is still open to you;\nyour Father's eternal love ready to meet you afar off the moment that you\ncry from your heart--\"Father, I have sinned, and am no more worthy to be\ncalled Thy child;\" and that you must be converted and turn back to God\nyour Father not merely once for all, but weekly, daily, hourly, as often\nas you forget and disobey Him.  This is the message of the blessed\nsacrament--that though you cannot come to it trusting in your own\nrighteousness, you can come trusting in His manifold and great mercies;\nthat though you are not worthy to gather up the crumbs under His table,\nyet He is the same Lord whose property is ever to have mercy, and He will\ngrant that your souls shall be washed in Christ's most precious blood,\nthat you may dwell in Him, and He in you, for ever.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nMembers of Christ, children of God, heirs of the kingdom of heaven, heirs\nof a Hope undying, pure, that will never fade away, you have a right\ngiven you by the promise and oath of Almighty God Himself, to hope for\nyourselves, for your neighbours, for this poor distracted world for ever\nand ever: a right to believe that there is an everlasting day of justice,\nand peace, and happiness in store for the whole world, and that you, if\nyou will, may have your share in that glorious sunrise which shall never\nset again.  Go to the Scriptures, and there read the promises of God, the\ngrounds of your just hope, for all heaven and earth.  \"Behold the Lamb of\nGod, who takes away the sin of the world.\"  How dare we, who call\nourselves Christians, who have been baptized into His name, who have\ntasted of His mercy, who have the might of His love, the converting and\nrenewing power of His Spirit--how dare we doubt that He will take away\nthe sins of the world?  Ay, step by step, nation by nation, year by year,\nthe Lord shall conquer; for He must reign till He has put all enemies\nunder His feet. . . .  He has promised to take away the sins of the\nworld, and He is God, and cannot lie.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nIII.  OUT OF THE DEEP OF FEAR AND ANXIETY.\n\n\n   My heart is disquieted within me.  Tearfulness and trembling are come\n   upon me, and an horrible dread hath overwhelmed me.--Ps. lv. 4.\n\n   Thou hast proved and visited my heart in the night season--Ps. xvii.\n   3.\n\n   Nevertheless though I am sometimes afraid, yet put I my trust in\n   Thee.--Ps. lv. 3.\n\n   The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is\n   the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?--Ps. xxvii. 1.\n\n   I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my\n   fear.--Ps. xxxiv. 4.\n\nWho is there who has not at times said to himself--\"God is so holy, so\npure and glorious; while I am so unjust, and unclean, and mean! and God\nis so great and powerful; while I am so small and weak!  What shall I do?\nDoes not God hate and despise me?  Will He not take from me all I love\nbest?  Will He not hurl me into endless torment when I die?  How can I\nescape from Him?  Wretched man that I am, I cannot escape from Him!  How\nthen can I turn away His hate?  How can I make Him change His mind?  How\ncan I soothe and appease Him?  What shall I do to escape Him?\"\n\nDid you ever have such thoughts?  And did you ever find those thoughts,\nthat slavish terror of God's wrath, that dread of hell make you better\nmen?  I never did.  Unless you go beyond them--as far beyond them as\nheaven is beyond hell, as far above them as a free son is above a\nmiserable crouching slave, they will do you more harm than good.  This\nspirit of bondage, this slavish terror, instead of bringing us nearer to\nGod, only drives us farther from Him.  It does not make us hate what is\nwrong, it only makes us dread the punishment of it.\n\nHow then shall we escape the terror and misery of an evil conscience, and\nrise out of our sins?  Believe the warrant of your baptism.  Your baptism\nsays to you--\"God is your Father, He does not hate you though you be the\ngreatest sinner on earth.  He loves you, for you are His child, and He\nwilleth not the death of a sinner, but that all should come and be saved.\nHe hateth nothing that He has made.\"  This is the message of your\nbaptism--that you are God's child, and that God's will and wish is that\nyou should grow up to become His son, to serve Him lovingly, trustingly,\nmanfully; and that He can and will give you the power to do so; ay, He\nhas given you the power already, _if_ you will but claim and use it.  But\nyou must claim and use it, because you are meant not merely to be God's\nwilful, ignorant, selfish child, obeying Him from fear of the rod, but to\nbe His willing, loving, loyal son.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nGod is not a tyrant who must be appeased with gifts, or a task-master who\nmust be satisfied with the labour of his slaves.  He is a Father, who\nloves His children, who gives and loveth to give, who gives to all\nfreely, and upbraideth not.  He truly willeth not the death of a sinner,\nbut rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live.  His will is\na good will, and howsoever much men's sin and folly may resist it, and\nseem for a time to mar it, yet He is too great and good to owe any man,\neven the worst, the smallest spite or grudge.  Patiently, nobly,\nmagnanimously, God waits--waits for the man who is a fool, to find out\nhis folly; waits for the heart which has tried to find pleasure in\neverything else, to find out that everything else disappoints, and to\ncome back to Him, that fountain of all wholesome pleasure, that\nwell-spring of all life fit for a man to live.  When the fool finds out\nhis folly; when the wilful man gives up his wilfulness; when the rebel\nsubmits himself to law; when the son comes back to his father's\nhouse--there is no sternness, no upbraiding, no revenge; but the\neverlasting and boundless love of God wells forth again as ever.  The\nCreator has condescended to wait for His creature, because what He wanted\nwas not His creature's fear, but His creature's love; not his\nlip-obedience, but his heart; because He wanted him not to come back as a\ntrembling slave to his master, but as a son who has found out at last\nwhat a father he has left him, when all beside has played him false.  Let\nhim come back thus, to find all is forgiven; and to hear the Father say,\n\"This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.\"\n\n_Discipline and other Sermons_.\n\nWhen the tempest comes; when affliction, fear, anxiety, shame come, then\nthe Cross of Christ begins to mean something to us.  For then in our\nmisery and confusion we look up to heaven and ask, Is there any One in\nheaven who understands all this?  Does God understand my trouble?  Does\nGod feel for my trouble?  Does God care for my trouble?  Does God know\nwhat trouble means?  Or must I fight the battle of life alone, without\nsympathy or help from God, who made me and has put me here?  Then, does\nthe Cross of Christ bring a message to our heart such as no other thing\nor being on earth can bring.  For it says to us, God does understand thee\nutterly; for Christ understands thee.  Christ feels for thee; Christ\nfeels with thee; Christ has suffered for thee, and suffered with thee.\nThou canst go through nothing which Christ has not gone through.  He, the\nSon of God, endured poverty, fear, shame, agony, death for thee, that He\nmight be touched with the feeling of thine infirmity and help thee to\nendure, and bring thee safe through all to victory and peace.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\nThough we, happily, no longer believe in the terror by night, which of\nold was thought to come from witches, ghosts, demons, yet there is a\nterror by night in which we must believe, for it comes to us from God,\nand should be listened to as the voice of God, even that terror about our\nown sinfulness, folly, weakness, which comes to us in dreams and\nsleepless nights.  We may learn from these night fancies and night\nthoughts; for they are often God's message to us, calling us to\nrepentance and amendment of life.  They are often God's Book of Judgment,\nwherein our sins are written, which God is setting before us, and showing\nus the things we have done.  God sends dreams to men which enable them to\nlook back, and recollect things past, which they had forgot only too\neasily; and these humble and penitential dreams are God's warning that\n(as the Article says) the infection of nature doth remain even in those\nwho are regenerate, and that nothing but the continual help of God's\nSpirit will keep us from falling back or falling away.\n\n_Discipline and other Sermons_.\n\nThe religion of terror is the most superficial of all religions.  God's\narbitrary will and almighty power may seem dark by themselves though\ndeep, as they do to the Calvinists, because they do not involve His moral\ncharacter.  Join them with the fact that He is a God of mercy as well as\njustice, remember that His essence is love, and the thunder cloud will\nblaze with dewy gold, full of soft rain and pure light.  All the deep\nthings of God are bright, for God is light.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nI am not, and will not (please God to help me, as He has hitherto) be\nanxious about anything.  Why should we weary out the little life we have\nleft in us, when He has promised to care for us, and make us renew our\nyouth, and heap us with everything that is good for us?\n\nAnd as for our difficulties.  Has it not been fulfilled in them--As thy\nday so shall thy strength be?  Have they not been God's sending?  God's\nway of preventing the cup of bliss being over sweet? and consider, have\nthey not been blessed lessons?  Have we not had in all things with the\ntemptation a way to escape?  So out of evil God brings good; or rather\nout of necessity He brings strength.  The highest spiritual training is\ncontained in the most paltry physical accidents; and the meanest actual\nwant may be the means of calling into actual life the possible but\nsleeping embryo of the very noblest faculties.\n\nThis is a great mystery; but we are animals, in time and space; and by\ntime and space, and our animal natures, are we educated.  Therefore let\nus be only patient, patient; and let God our Father teach His own lesson,\nHis own way.  Let us try to learn it well, and learn it quickly; but do\nnot let us fancy that He will ring the school bell, and send us to play\nbefore our lesson is learnt.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nIn all the events of life pray, pray take what God does _not_ send as\n_not_ good for us, and trust Him to send us what is good.  Remember all\nthese things are right, and come with a reason, and a purpose, and a\nmeaning; and he who grumbles at them believeth not (for the time being at\nleast) in the Living God.\n\nAh! do not fancy that I am not often perplexed--\"Cast down, yet not in\ndespair.\"  No; Christ reigns, as Luther used to say--and therefore I will\nnot fear, \"though the mountains be removed (and I with them) and cast\ninto the midst of the sea.\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nAll these anxieties will be good for you.  They all go to the making of a\nman--calling out that God-dependence in him which is the only true self-\ndependence, the only true strength.  Well said old Hezekiah, \"Lord, by\nall _these_ things men live (by trouble, sorrow, sickness), and in these\nthings is the life of the spirit.\"\n\n_MS. Letters_.\n\nOur Lord said, \"Take no thought for the morrow; the morrow shall take\nthought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil\nthereof.\"  Matt. vi. 34.  And do we not find that our Lord's words are\ntrue?  Who are the people who get through most work in their lives, with\nthe least wear and tear?  Are they the anxious people?  Those who imagine\nto themselves possible misfortunes, and ask continually, What if this\nhappened, or if that?  How should I be able to get through such and such\na trouble?  Far, far from it.  Let us not waste the strength which God\nhas given us for to-day in vain fears or vain dreams about to-morrow.  To-\nday is quite full enough of anxiety and care.  Sufficient for the day is\nthe evil thereof, and sufficient for the day is the good thereof.  To-day,\nand to-morrow too, may end very differently from what we _hope_.  Yes.\nBut they may end very differently from what we _fear_.  Look not too far\nahead, lest you see what is coming before you are ready for the sight.  If\nwe foresaw the troubles that are coming, perhaps it would break our\nhearts; and if we foresaw the happiness which is coming, perhaps it would\nturn our heads.  Let us not meddle with the future but refrain our souls\nand keep them low, like little children, content with the day's food, and\nthe day's schooling, and the day's play-hours, sure that the Divine\nMaster knows all that is right, and how to train us, and whither to lead\nus, though we know not, and need not know, save this, that the path by\nwhich He is leading each of us--if we will but obey and follow, step by\nstep--leads up to Everlasting Life.\n\n_All Saints-Day Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nIV.  OUT OF THE DEEP OF LONELINESS, FAILURE, AND DISAPPOINTMENT.\n\n\n   My heart is smitten down, and withered like grass.  I am even as a\n   sparrow that sitteth alone on the housetop--Ps. cii. 4, 6.\n\n   My lovers and friends hast Thou put away from me, and hid mine\n   acquaintance out of my sight--Ps. lxxviii. 18.\n\n   I looked on my right hand, and saw there was no man that would know\n   me.  I had no place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul.  I\n   cried unto Thee, O Lord, and said, Thou art my Hope.  When my spirit\n   was in heaviness, then Thou knewest my path.--Ps. cxlii. 4, 5.\n\n   Gracious is the Lord, and righteous, yea, our God is merciful.  I was\n   in misery, and He helped me.--Ps. cxvi. 5, 6.\n\nIt is sorrow--sorrow and failure--which forces men to believe that there\nis One who heareth prayer, forces them to lift up their eyes to One from\nwhom cometh their help.  Before the terrible realities of danger, death,\ndisappointment, shame, ruin--and most of all before deserved shame,\ndeserved ruin--all arguments melt away; and the man or woman, who was but\ntoo ready a day before to say, \"Tush, God will never see and will never\nhear,\" begins to hope passionately that God does see, that God does hear.\nIn the hour of darkness, when there is no comfort nor help in man, when\nhe has no place to flee unto, and no man careth for his soul, then the\nmost awful, if most blessed of all questions is, But is there no One\nhigher than man to whom I can flee?  No One higher than man who cares for\nmy soul, and for the souls of those who are dearer to me than my own\nsoul?  No friend?  No helper?  No deliverer?  No counsellor?  Even no\njudge?  No punisher?  No God, even though He be a consuming fire?  Am I\nin my misery alone in the universe?  Is my misery without any meaning and\nwithout hope?  If there be no God, then all that is left for me is\ndespair and death.  But if there be, then I can hope that there is a\nmeaning in my misery; that it comes to me not without cause, even though\nthat cause be my own fault.  Then I can plead with God, even though in\nwild words like Job; and ask, What is the meaning of this sorrow?  What\nhave I done?  What should I do?  I will say unto God, \"Do not condemn me;\nshow me wherefore Thou contendest with me.  Surely I would speak unto the\nAlmighty; I desire to reason with God.\"  Oh, my friends, a man, I\nbelieve, can gain courage and wisdom to say that only by the inspiration\nof the Spirit of God.  But when once he has said that from his heart, he\nbegins to be justified by faith; for he has had faith in God.  He has\ntrusted God--and more--he has justified God.  He has confessed that God\nis not a mere force or law of Nature; nor a mere tyrant and tormentor;\nbut a Reasonable Being who will hear reason, and a Just Being who will do\njustice by the creatures He has made.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\nThe deeper, the bitterer your loneliness, the more you are like Him who\ncried upon the cross, \"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?\"  He\nknows what that grief, too, is like.  _He_ feels for thee at least.\nThough all forsake thee, He is with thee still, and if He be with thee,\nwhat matter who has left thee for a while?  Ay, blessed are those that\nweep now, for whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth; and because He loves\nthe poor, He brings them low.  All things are blessed now but sin; for\nall things excepting sin are redeemed by the life and death of the Son of\nGod.  Blessed are wisdom and courage, joy and health, and beauty and love\nand marriage, childhood and manhood, corn and wine, fruits and flowers;\nfor Christ redeemed them by His life.  And blessed, too, are tears and\nshame, blessed are weakness and ugliness, blessed are agony and sickness,\nblessed the sad remembrance of our sins, and a broken heart and a\nrepentant spirit.  Blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms, where\nsouls await the resurrection day, for Christ redeemed them by His death.\nBlessed are all things, weak as well as strong.  Blessed are all days,\ndark as well as bright, for all are His, and He is ours; and all are\nours, and we are His for ever.\n\nTherefore sigh on, ye sad ones, and rejoice in your own sadness; ache on,\nye suffering ones, and rejoice in your own sorrows.  Rejoice that you are\nmade free of the holy brotherhood of mourners; rejoice that you are\ncounted worthy of a fellowship in the sufferings of the Son of God.\nRejoice and trust on, for after sorrow shall come joy.  Trust on; for in\nman's weakness God's strength shall be made perfect.  Trust on; for death\nis the gate of life.  Endure on to the end, and possess your souls in\npatience for a little while, and that, perhaps, a very little while.\nDeath comes swiftly, and more swiftly still perhaps, the day of the Lord.\nThe deeper the sorrow, the nearer the salvation:--\n\n   The night is darkest before the dawn;\n   When the pain is sorest, the child is born;\n   And the day of the Lord at hand.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nThou who art weary and heavy laden; thou who fanciest at moments that the\nLord's arm is shortened that it cannot save, and art ready to cry, God\nhath forgotten me, take comfort, and look upon Christ.  Thou wilt never\nbe sure of the love of God, unless thou rememberest that it is the same\nas the love of Christ; and by looking at Christ, learnest to know thy\nFather and His Father, whose likeness and image He is, and see that the\nSpirit which proceeds alike from both of them is the Spirit of humanity\nand love, which cannot help going forth to seek and to save thee, simply\nbecause thou art lost.  Look, I say, unto Christ; and be sure that what\nthe good Samaritan did to the wounded traveller, that same will He do to\nthee, because He is the Son of Man, human and humane.\n\nArt thou robbed, wounded, deserted, left to die, worsted in the battle of\nlife, and fallen in its rugged road, with no counsel, no strength, no\nhope, no purpose left?  Then remember that there is One walking to and\nfro in this world unseen, but ever present, whose form is as the form of\nthe Son of Man.  And He has time, as He has will, to turn aside and\nminister to such as thee!  No human being so mean, no human sorrow so\npetty, but that He has the time and the will and the power to have mercy\non it, because He is the Son of Man.  Therefore He will turn aside even\nto thee, whoever thou art, who art weary and heavy laden, and can find no\nrest for thy soul, at the very moment, and in the very manner which is\nbest for thee.  When thou hast suffered long enough, He will stablish,\nstrengthen, settle thee.  He will bind up thy wounds, and pour in the oil\nand the wine of His Spirit--the Holy Ghost, the Comforter--and will carry\nthee to His own inn, whereof it is written, \"He will hide thee secretly\nin His own presence from the provoking of men; He will keep thee in His\ntabernacle from the strife of tongues.  He will give His angels charge\nover thee to keep thee in all thy ways;\" and He will give thee rest at\nlast in the bosom of the Father, from which thou, like all human souls,\ncamest forth at first, and to which thou shalt at last return, with all\nhuman souls who have in them the Spirit of God and of Christ, and of\neternal life.\n\n_Discipline and other Sermons_.\n\nWe all like comfort.  But what kind of comfort do we not merely like, but\nneed?  Merely to be comfortable?  To be free from fear, anxiety, sorrow?\nThe comfort which poor human beings want in such a world as this is not\nthe comfort of ease, but the comfort of strength.  The comforter whom we\nneed is not one who will merely say kind things, but give help--help to\nthe weary, lonely, heavy-laden heart which has no time to rest.  We need\nnot the sunny and smiling face, but the strong helping arm.  For we may\nbe in that state that smiles are shocking to us, and mere kindness--though\nwe may be grateful for it--of no more comfort to us than sweet music to a\ndrowning man.  We may be miserable, and unable to help being miserable,\nand unwilling to help it too.  We do not wish to flee from our sorrow: we\ndo not wish to forget it.  We dare not.  It is so awful, so\nheart-rending, so plain-spoken, that God, the master and tutor of our\nhearts, must wish us to face it and endure it.  Our Father has given us\nthe cup--shall we not drink it?  Oh! for a comforter who will help us to\ndrink the bitter cup--who will give us faith to say, with Job, \"Though He\nslay me, yet will I trust in Him\"--who will give us the firm reason to\nlook steadily at our grief, and learn the lesson it is meant to teach--who\nwill give us the temperate will to keep sober and calm amid the shocks\nand changes of mortal life!  If we had such a comforter as that, we\nshould not care if he seemed at times stern, as well as kind; we could\nendure rebuke from him if we could only get from him wisdom to understand\nthe rebuke, and courage to bear the chastisement.  Where is that\ncomforter?  God answers: That Comforter am I, the God of Heaven and\nEarth.  There are comforters on earth who can help thee with wise words\nand noble counsels, can be strong as man and tender as woman.  But God\ncan be more strong than man, more tender than woman likewise; and when\nthe strong arm of man supports thee no longer, yet under thee are the\nEverlasting Arms.\n\n_All Saints-Day Sermons_.\n\n. . . You are disappointed.  Do remember if you lose heart about your\nwork, that none of it is _lost_.  That the good of every good deed\nremains, and breeds, and works on for ever; and that all that fails and\nis lost is the outside shell of the thing, which perhaps might have been\nbetter done, but better or worse has nothing to do with the real\nspiritual good which you have done to men's hearts, for which God will\nsurely repay you in His own way and time.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nDon't be downhearted if outward humiliation, disappointment, failure,\ncome at first.  If God be indeed our Father in any real sense, then whom\nHe loveth He chasteneth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.\nAnd \"till thou art emptied of thyself, God cannot fill thee,\" though it\nbe a law of the old Mystics, is true and practical common sense.  Go thy\nway, though the way to true light is a long ladder.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nAs for any schemes of mine, it is a slight matter whether they have\nfailed or not.  But the failure of a hundred schemes would not alter my\nconviction that they are attempts in a right direction; and I will die in\nhope, not having received the promises, but beholding them afar off, and\nconfessing myself a stranger and a pilgrim.\n\nSo I am content to have failed.  I have learnt in the experiment\npriceless truths concerning myself, my fellow-men, and the City of God,\nwhich is eternal in the heavens, for ever coming down among men, and\nactualizing itself more and more in every succeeding age.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nWe have hope in Christ for the next life as well as for this--hope that\nin the next life He will give us power to succeed where we failed here;\nthat He will enable us to be good and to do good, and, if not to make\nothers good (for there we trust all will be good together), to enjoy the\nfulness of that pleasure for which we have been longing on earth--the\npleasure of seeing others good, as Christ is good and perfect, as their\nFather in Heaven is perfect.\n\n_All Saints-Day Sermons_.\n\nThere are many who have in them, by grace of God, the divine thirst for\nthe higher life; who are discontented with themselves, ashamed of\nthemselves; who are tormented by longings which they cannot satisfy,\ninstincts which they cannot analyse, powers which they cannot employ,\nduties which they cannot perform, doctrinal confusions which they cannot\nunravel; who would welcome any change, even the most tremendous, which\nwould make them nobler, purer, juster, more loving, more useful, more\nclear-hearted and sound-minded; and, when they think of death, say with\nthe poet--\n\n   'Tis life, not death, for which I pant,\n   'Tis life whereof my nerves are scant,\n   More life, and fuller, that I want.\n\nTo them we can say, for God has said it long ago--Be of good cheer.  The\ncalling and gifts of God are without repentance.  If you have the divine\nthirst, it will be surely satisfied.  If you long to be better men and\nwomen, you will surely be so.  Only be true to those higher instincts;\nonly do not learn to despise and quench that divine thirst; only struggle\non, in spite of mistakes, of failures, even of sins, for every one of\nwhich last your Heavenly Father will chastise you, even while He\nforgives; in spite of all disappointment struggle on.  Blessed are you\nwho hunger and thirst after righteousness, for you shall be filled.  To\nyou, and not in vain, \"The Spirit and the Bride say, Come.  And let him\nthat is athirst, Come.  And whosoever will, let him drink of the water of\nlife freely.\"\n\n_Water of Life_--_Sermons_.\n\nThe heart and soul of man wants more than \"a religion,\" as it is written,\n\"My soul is athirst for God, even the Living God.\"  They want a living\nGod, who cares for men, forgives men, saves men from their sins; and Him\nI have found in the Bible, and nowhere else, save in the facts of life,\nwhich the Bible alone interprets.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nWhat was Christ's life?  Not one of deep speculation, quiet thoughts, and\nbright visions; but a life of fighting against evil; earnest, awful\nprayers and struggles within, continual labour of body and mind without;\ninsult and danger and confusion and violent exertion and bitter sorrow.\nThis was Christ's life--this is the life of almost every good and great\nman I ever heard of.  This was Christ's cup, which His disciples were to\ndrink of as well as He; this was the baptism of fire with which they were\nto be baptised of as well as He; this was to be their fight of faith;\nthis was the tribulation through which they, and all other great saints,\nwere to enter into the kingdom of heaven.  For it is certain that the\nharder a man fights against evil the harder evil will fight against him\nin return; but it is certain too that the harder a man fights against\nevil, the more is he like his Saviour Christ, and the more glorious will\nbe his reward in heaven.\n\n_Village Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nV.  OUT OF THE DEEP OF DOUBT, DARKNESS, AND HELL.\n\n\n   O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night unto Thee.  Oh!\n   let my prayer enter into Thy presence.  For my soul is full of trouble\n   and my life draweth nigh unto Hell.  Thou hast laid me in the lowest\n   pit, in a place of darkness, and in the deep.--Ps. lxxxviii. 1, 2.\n\n   If I go down to Hell, Thou art there also.  Yea, the darkness is no\n   darkness with Thee; but the night is as clear as the day.--Ps. cxxxix.\n   7, 11.\n\n   I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my\n   calling.  He brought me also out of the horrible pit, out of the miry\n   clay, and set my feet upon the rock.  And He hath put a new song into\n   my mouth, even a thanksgiving unto our God.--Ps. xl. 2, 3.\n\n   God hath delivered my soul from the place of Hell.  He shall receive\n   me.--Ps. xlix. 15.\n\nIt is sometimes true, that sunshine comes after storm.  Sometimes true--or\nwho could live?--but not always.  Equally true that in most human lives\nthere are periods of trouble, blow following blow, wave following wave,\nfrom opposite and unexpected quarters, till all God's billows have gone\nover the soul.  How paltry and helpless in such dark times are all proud\nattempts to hang self-poised in the centre of the abyss, and there\norganise for oneself a character by means of circumstances.  Easy enough\nit seems for a man to educate himself without God while he lies\ncomfortably in idleness on a sofa.  But what if he found himself hurled\nperforce among the real universal experiences of humanity; and made free\nin spite of himself, by doubt and fear and horror of great darkness, of\nthe brotherhood of woe, common alike to the simplest peasant woman, and\nto every great soul, who has left his impress upon the hearts of after\ngenerations?  Jew, Heathen, or Christian; men of the most opposite creeds\nand aims--whether it be Moses or Socrates, Isaiah or Epictetus, Augustine\nor Mohammed, Dante or Bernard, Shakespeare or Bacon--each and all of them\nhave this one fact in common--that once in their lives, at least, they\nhave gone down into the bottomless pit, and there out of the utter\ndarkness have asked the question of all questions--\"Is there a God? and\nif there be, what is He doing with me?\"  What refuge then--when a man\nfeels himself powerless in the gripe of some unseen and inevitable power,\nand knows not whether it be chance or necessity, or a devouring fiend--to\nwrap himself sternly in himself and cry, \"I will endure though all the\nuniverse be against me\"?  How fine it sounds!  But who has done it?  No,\nthere is but one escape, one chink through which we may see light, one\nrock on which our feet may find standing-place, even in the abyss; and\nthat is the belief, intuitive, inspired, due neither to reasoning nor to\nstudy, that the billows are God's billows; and that though we go down\ninto Hell, He is there also; the belief that not we, but He, is educating\nus; that these seemingly incoherent miseries, storm following earthquake,\nand earthquake fire, as if the caprice of all the demons were let loose\nagainst us, have in His mind a spiritual coherence, an organic unity and\npurpose, though we see it not; that these sorrows do not come singly,\nonly because He is making short work with our spirits; and because the\nmore effect He sees produced by one blow, the more swiftly He follows it\nup by another; till in one great and varied crisis, seemingly long to us,\nbut short compared with immortality, our spirits may be--\n\n   \"Heated hot with burning fears,\n   And bathed in baths of hissing tears,\n   And battered with the strokes of doom,\n   To shape and use.\"\n\n_Two Years Ago_.\n\nThere is no darker temptation than that which comes over a man when the\ndevil whispers to him such thoughts as these, \"God does not care for\nme--God hates me.  Luck, and everything else is against me.  There seems\nsome curse upon me.  Why should I change?  Let God first change to me and\nthen will I change towards Him.  But God will not change; He has\ndetermined to have no mercy on me.  I can see that; for everything goes\nwrong with me.  Then what is the use of my repenting.  I will go my own\nway--and what must be must.\"  Have you ever had such thoughts?  Then hear\nthe word of the Lord to you: \"When, whensoever, wheresoever, the wicked\nman turneth away from his wickedness which he has committed, and doeth\nthat which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.  Have I any\npleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord, and not rather\nthat he should be converted and live?\"  Never believe the devil when he\ntells you that God hates you.  Never believe him when he tells you that\nGod has been too hard upon you, and placed you in such circumstances of\ntemptation, ignorance, poverty or anything else, that you cannot mend.\nWhat does the promise of your Baptism say?  \"Be you poor, tempted,\nignorant, stupid, be you what you will, you are God's child--your\nFather's love is over you, His mercy ready for you.\"  You feel too weak\nto change.  Ask God's Spirit to give you a strength of will you never\nfelt before.  You feel too proud to change.  Ask God's Spirit to humble\nyour proud heart, to soften your hard heart; and you will find to your\nsurprise that when your pride is gone, when you are utterly ashamed of\nyourself, and see your sins in their true blackness, and feel unworthy to\nlook up to God, that then will come a nobler, holier, manlier\nfeeling--self-respect, and a clear conscience, and the thought that, weak\nand simple as you are, you are in the right way; that God and the Angels\nof God are smiling on you; that you are in tune again with all earth and\nheaven, because you are what God wills you to be.  Not His proud,\npeevish, self-willed child, fancying yourself strong enough to go alone,\nwhen you are really the slave of your own passions and appetites and the\nplaythings of the devil; but His loving, loyal son through the strength\nof God, and able to do what you will, because what you will God wills\nalso.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nTo escape atheism and despair, let us remember that the Creator and\nOrdainer of the circumstances of life is not chance or Nature, but the\nFather of our Lord Jesus Christ and of us.\n\nWhen you feel you are in the deepest and gloomiest doubt, pray the prayer\nof desperation; cry out, \"Lord, if Thou dost exist, let me know that Thou\ndost exist!  Guide my mind by a way that I know not into Thy truth,\" and\nGod will deliver you.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nSad as your letter was, it gave me pleasure; for it is always a pleasure\nto see life springing out of death, health returning after disease,\nthough, as doctors know, the recovery from asphyxia or drowning is always\nas painful as the temporary death itself was painless.  Faith is born of\ndoubt.  \"It is not life, but death, where nothing stirs.\"  Take all these\ndoubts and struggles of yours as simply so many signs that your Father in\nheaven is treating you as a father, that He has not forsaken you, is not\noffended with you, but is teaching you in the way best suited to your own\nidiosyncracy, the great lesson of lessons, \"Empty thyself and God will\nfill thee.\"  Take your sorrows to your Father in heaven.  If that name\nFather mean anything, it must mean that He will not turn away from His\nwandering child in a way that you would he ashamed to turn away from\nyours.  If there be pity, lasting affection, patience in man, they must\nhave come from God.  They above all things must be His likeness.  Believe\nthat He possesses them a million times more fully than any human being.\n\nSt. Paul knew well at least the state of mind in which you are.  He said\nthat he had found a panacea for it.  And his words, to judge from the way\nin which they have taken root and spread and conquered, must have some\ndepth and life in them.  Why not try them?  Just read the first nine\nchapters of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, taking for granted that\nthey mean the simplest and most obvious sense which can be put upon them.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nWhen the hour of temptation comes, go back, go back if you would escape,\nto what you were taught at your mother's knee concerning the grace of\nGod; for that alone will keep you safe, or angel, or archangel, or any\ncreated being safe, in this life, and in all lives to come.\n\n_Sermons on David_.\n\nWhat does it all mean?  I cry.  Night and day the heavens have been black\nto me.  You may think it sinful to have such thoughts.  My experience is\nthat when they come, one must do battle with them; one must face them; do\nbattle with them deliberately; be patient if they worst one for a while.\nBy all such things men live; in these is the life of the spirit.  Only by\ngoing down into hell can one rise the third day.  I have been in hell\nmany times in my life, therefore, perhaps, I have had some small power of\ninfluencing human hearts.  But I never have looked hell so close in the\nface as I have been doing of late.  Wherefore, I hope thereby to get\nfresh power to rise and to lift others heavenward.\n\nI can only cry--\"O Lord, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be\nconfounded.  Wherefore should the wicked say--Where is now his God?\"  But\nwhile I fret most there comes to me an inner voice, saying--\"What matter\nif _thou_ art confounded.  _God is not_.  Only believe firmly that God is\nas good as thou with thy finite reason canst conceive; and He will make\nthee at last able to conceive how good He is, and thou shalt have the\nperfect blessing of seeing God.\"  You will say I am inconsistent.  So I\nam; and so, if read honestly, are David's Psalms.  Yet, that very\ninconsistency is what brings them home to every human heart for ever.  The\nwords of a man in real doubt and real darkness, crying for light, and not\ncrying in vain, as I trust I shall not.\n\n. . .  I only know that I know nothing, but hope that Christ, who is the\nSon of Man, will tell me piecemeal, if I be patient and watchful, what I\nam and what man is.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nSome things I see clearly, and hold with desperate clutch--a Father in\nHeaven for all; a Son of God incarnate for all (that incarnation is the\none fact which is to me worth all, because it makes all others possible\nand rational, and without it I should go mad); and a Spirit of the Father\nand the Son, the fountain of all good on earth--who works to will and to\ndo of His own good pleasure--in whom?  In every human being in whom there\nis one spark of active good, the least desire to do right, or to be of\nuse.  Beyond that I see little save that Right is divine and\nall-conquering--Wrong utterly infernal, and yet weak, foolish, a mere\nbullying phantom, which will flee at each brave blow, had we courage to\nstrike at it in God's name.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nThere is not a sorrow which man can taste which Jesus Christ has not\nfulfilled.  He filled the cup of misery to the brim, and drained it to\nthe dregs.  He tasted death for every man, and went down into the lowest\ndepths of terror and shame and agony and death, and, worst of all, into\nthe feeling that God had forsaken Him; that there was no help or hope for\nHim in heaven, as well as earth; in a word, He went down into hell; even\ninto that lowest darkness where, for one moment, a man feels, that God is\nnothing to him, and he is nothing to God.  Even into that depth Jesus\ncondescended to go down for us.  That worst of all temptations, of which\nDavid only tasted a drop, when he cried out, \"My God, my God, why hast\nthou forsaken me?\"--Jesus drained to the very dregs for us.  He went down\ninto hell for us, and conquered hell and death, and the darkness of the\nunknown world, and rose again glorious from them, that He might teach us\nnot to fear death and hell; that He might know how to comfort us in the\nhour of death, and in the day of judgment, when on our sick-bed, or in\nsome bitter shame and trouble, the lying devil is telling us that we are\ndamned and lost, and forsaken by God, and every sin we ever did rises up\nand stares us in the face.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nWhatever may be the mysteries of life and death, there is one mystery\nwhich the Cross of Christ reveals to us, and that is the infinite and\nabsolute goodness of God.  Let all the rest remain a mystery so long as\nthe mystery of the Cross of Christ gives us faith for all the rest.\nFaith, I say.  The mystery of evil, of terror, of death, the gospel does\nnot pretend to solve, but it tells us that the mystery is proved to be\nsoluble; for God Himself has taken upon Himself the task of solving it;\nand Christ has proved by His own act, that if there be evil in the world,\nit is none of His, for He hates it, fights against it, and He fought\nagainst it to the death.  The Cross says, Have faith in God.  Ask no more\nof Him, \"Why hast thou made me thus?\"  Ask no more, \"Why do the wicked\nprosper on the earth?\"  Ask no more, \"Whence pain and death, war and\nfamine, earthquake and tempest, and all the ills to which flesh is heir?\"\nAll fruitless questioning, all peevish repinings are precluded henceforth\nby the death and passion of Christ.\n\nDost thou suffer?  Thou canst not suffer more than the Son of God.  Dost\nthou sympathise with thy fellow-sufferers?  Thou canst not sympathise\nmore than the Son of God.  Dost thou long to right them, to deliver them,\neven at the price of thine own blood?  Thou canst not long more ardently\nthan the Son of God, who carried His longing into act, and died for them\nand thee.  What if the end be not yet?  What if evil still endure?  What\nif the medicine have not yet conquered the disease?  Have patience, have\nfaith, have hope, as thou standest at the foot of Christ's Cross, and\nholdest fast to it, as the Anchor of thy soul and reason, as well as of\nthy heart.  For however ill the world may go, or seem to go, the Cross is\nthe everlasting token that God so loved the world, that He spared not His\nonly begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it.  Whatsoever else is\ndoubtful this at least is sure, that God must conquer, because God is\ngood; that Evil must perish, because God hates Evil, even to the death.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\nHow shall the bottomless pit, if we fall into it, be a pathway to the\neverlasting rock?  David tells us, \"Out of the deep have I cried unto\nThee, O God.\"  He cried to God--not to himself, his own learning,\nprudence, talents--to pull him out of that pit.  Not to doctrines, books,\nchurch-goings--not to the dearest earthly friend--not to his own\nexperiences, faith's assurances, frames and feelings.  The matter was too\nterrible to be plastered over in that way, or in any way.  He was face to\nface with God alone, and in utter weakness, in utter nakedness of soul,\n_he cried to God Himself_.  There was the lesson.  God took away from him\nall things, that he might have no one to cry to but to God.\n\nAnd it shall be with every soul of man who, being in the deep, cries out\nof the deep to God, as it was with Moses when he went up alone into the\nMount of God, and fasted forty days and forty nights amid the earthquake\nand the thunderstorm, and the rocks which melted before the Lord.  And\nbehold, when it was past, he talked face to face with God, as a man\ntalketh with his friend, and his countenance shone with heavenly light,\nwhen he came down triumphant out of the Mount of God.\n\n_Good News of God_--_Sermons_.\n\nOn the torturing cross Christ prayed for His murderers, \"Father, forgive\nthem, for they know not what they do.\"  And this is the character many a\nman may get in the dark deep.  To feel for all, to feel with all; to\nrejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep, to\nunderstand people's trials and make allowances for their temptations; to\nput oneself in their place till we see with their eyes, and feel with\ntheir hearts, till we judge no man, and have hope for all; to be fair and\npatient and tender with everyone we meet; to despise no one, despair of\nno one, because Christ despises none and despairs of none; to look on\nevery one we meet with love, almost with pity, because they too may have\nbeen down into the deep of horror, or may go down into it any day; to see\nour own sins in the sins of others, to feel that we might do what they\ndo, and feel as they feel at any moment, did God desert us; to give and\nforgive, live and let live, even as Christ gives to us and forgives us,\nand lives for us and lets us live in spite of all our sins.\n\n_Good News of God_.\n\nRejoice that there is a fire of God the Father whose name is Love,\nburning for ever unquenchably, to destroy out of every man's heart and\nout of the hearts of all nations, and of the physical and moral world,\nall which offends and makes a lie; and that into that fire the Son will\nsurely cast all shams, lies, hypocrisies, tyrannies, false doctrines.  Is\nit not good news that _that_ fire is unquenchable, that _that_ worm will\nnot die?  The fire may be kindled for us--the worm may seize our hearts.\nGod grant that in that day we may have courage to let the fire and the\nworm do their work--to say to Christ, \"These too are Thine, and out of\nThine infinite love they have come.  Thou requirest truth in the inward\nparts, and I will thank Thee for any means, however bitter, which Thou\nusest to make me true.  I want to be an honest man and a right man!  And,\nO joy!  Thou wantest me to be so also.  O joy! that though I long\ncowardly to quench Thy fire, I cannot do it.  Purge me therefore, O Lord,\nthough it be with fire.  Burn up the chaff of vanity and self-indulgence,\nof hasty prejudices, second-hand dogmas,--husks which do not feed my\nsoul, with which I cannot be content, of which I feel ashamed daily--and\nif there be any grains of wheat in me, any word or thought or power of\naction which may be of use as seed for my nation after me, gather it, O\nLord, into Thy garner.\"  Amen.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nThe Fire of God hardens a man and softens him at the same time.  He comes\nout of it hardened to that hardness of which it is written, \"Do thou\nendure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ;\" and again, \"I have\nfought a good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished my\ncourse;\"--yet softened to that softness of which it is written, \"Be ye\ntender-hearted, compassionate, forgiving one another, even as God, for\nChrist's sake, has forgiven you;\" and again, \"We have a High Priest who\ncan be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing that He has\nbeen tempted in all things like as we are.\"\n\nHappy, thrice happy, are they who have thus walked through the Valley of\nthe Shadow of Death, and found it a path that leads to everlasting life.\nHappy are they who have writhed awhile in the fierce fire of God, and\nhave had burned out of them the chaff, and the dross, and all which\noffends and makes them vain and light, yet makes them dull, and drags\nthem down at the same time; till only the pure gold of God's\nrighteousness is left, seven times tried in the fire, incorruptible,\nprecious in the sight of God and man.  Such need not regret, will not\nregret, all that they have gone through.  It has made them brave, sober,\npatient.  It has given them\n\n   The reason firm, the temperate will,\n   Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;\n\nand so shaped them into the likeness of Christ, who was made perfect by\nsuffering; and though He were a Son, yet in the days of His flesh made\nstrong supplication, and crying with tears to His Father, and was heard\nin that He feared; and so, though He died on the Cross and descended into\nHell, yet triumphed over Death and Hell by dying and descending, and\nconquered them by submitting to them.\n\n_Good News of God_--_Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nVI.  OUT OF THE DEEP OF DEATH.\n\n\n   My heart is disquieted within me, and the fear of death has fallen\n   upon me.--Ps. iv. 4.\n\n   My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my\n   heart.--Ps. lxiii. 25.\n\n   Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will\n   fear no evil, for Thou art with me.--Ps. xxiii. 4.\n\n   Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my\n   feet from falling.--Ps. cxvi. 8.\n\nWhat will become of us after we die?  What will the next world be like?\nWhat is heaven like?  Shall I be able to enjoy it?  Shall I be a man\nthere, or only a ghost, a spirit without a body?\n\nTo this St. Paul answers, that Christ, the Son of God, after that He was\nmanifested in the flesh, was received up into glory.  He does not tell us\nwhat heaven is like, for though he had been caught up into the third\nheaven, yet what he saw there was unspeakable.  Neither does he tell us\nwhat the next life will be like; all he says is, the Man Christ Jesus,\nwho walked this earth like other men, was received up into glory, and He\ndid not leave His man's mind, His man's heart, even His man's body behind\nHim.  He carried up into heaven with Him His whole manhood, spirit, soul,\nand body, even to the print of the nails in His hands, and in His most\nholy feet, and the wound of the spear in His most holy side.  That is\nenough for us; because the Man Christ Jesus is in heaven, we, as men, may\nascend to heaven.  Where He is we shall be.  And what He is, in as far as\nHe is Man, we shall be.  And this we do know, that we shall be like Him,\nfor we shall see Him as He is.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nMen are afraid of dying, principally, I believe, because they fear the\nunknown.  It is not that they are afraid of the pain of dying.  It is not\nthat they are afraid of going to hell.  Neither is it that they are\nafraid of not going to heaven.  But when they think of actually _dying_,\nthey feel as if to go into the next world was to be turned out into the\ndark night, into an unknown land, away from house and home, and all they\nhave known and loved; and so they shrink from death.\n\n_All Saints-Day Sermons_.\n\nWhen you are in terror, trouble, and affliction, ay! and in the black\njaws of death, and know not where to turn, that blessed thought, \"Christ\nis risen from the dead,\" will be a shield and a strength to you which no\nother thought can give.  The Lord is risen--a man, with His man's body,\nand His man's spirit, His human love and tenderness; He has taken them\nall up to Heaven with Him.  He is a man still, though He is very God of\nvery God, He rose from the dead as a man, and therefore He can understand\nme and feel for me still--now--here in England in the nineteenth century\njust as much as He could when He was walking upon earth in Judea of old.\n\nWhen this world is vanishing from our eyes, and we are going we know not\nwhither, leaving behind us all we know, and love, and understand; then\nthe thought of all thoughts--\"Christ is risen from the dead\" is the only\none which will save us from sad, dark thoughts, from fear and despair, or\nfrom stupid carelessness, and the death of a brute beast, such as too\nmany die.  \"Christ is risen and I shall rise.  Christ has conquered death\nfor Himself, and He will conquer it for me.  Christ took His man's body\nand soul with Him from the tomb to God's right hand, and He will raise my\nbody and soul at the last day, that I may be with Him for ever, and see\nHim where He is.\"  In life and in death this is the only thing which will\nsave us from sin, from terror, from the dread of the hereafter.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nWhy did he die, we ask?  There must be a final cause, a purpose for each\ndeath of every son of man, or the fact would be altogether hideous--a\nscribble without a meaning--a skeleton without a soul.  Why did he die?\n\"I became dumb, I opened not my mouth; for it was Thy doing.\"  So says\nthe Burial Psalm.  So let us say likewise.  \"I became dumb:\" not with\nrage, not with despair; but because it was Thy doing, and therefore it\nwas done well.  It was the deed, not of chance, nor of necessity.  Not\nso.  For it was the deed of the Father, without whom a sparrow falls not\nto the ground; of the Son who died upon the Cross in the utterness of His\ndesire to save; of the Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Giver of Life to\nall created things.  It was the deed of One who delights in Life and not\nin Death; in bliss and not in woe; in light and not in darkness; in order\nand not in anarchy; in good and not in evil.  It had a final cause, a\nmeaning, a purpose; and that purpose is very good.  What it is, we know\nnot; and we need not know.  To guess at it would be indeed to meddle with\nmatters too high for us.  So let us be dumb.  Dumb, not from despair, but\nfrom faith; dumb, not like a wretch weary with calling for help which\ndoes not come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother's feet, and\nlooking up into her face and watching her doings, understanding none of\nthem as yet, but certain that they are all done in love.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\nChrist is risen!  What a thought was that for the blessed martyrs, for\npoor creatures in the agony of fear and shame, expecting presently to be\ntorn to pieces or burnt alive.  \"Death, this horrible death, cannot\nconquer me, weak and fearful as I am, for my Lord and Master, for whom I\nam going to suffer, has conquered death, and He will not let it conquer\nme.  He is stronger than hell and death, and He will not suffer me in my\nlast hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Him.  He is King of\nHeaven and Earth, and He will care for His own.\"  What comfort to be able\nto say: \"Ay, I am torn from wife and child and all which I love on earth;\nbut not for ever, not for ever; for Christ rose from the dead, and I, who\nbelong to Christ, shall rise as He did.  This poor flesh of mine may be\nburnt in flames, devoured by ravenous beasts.  What matter?  Christ the\nKing of men has risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them\nthat slept.  That same Spirit which brought back His body from the grave\nand hell, will bring my body also from the grave and hell, to a nobler,\nhappier life with Him in joy unspeakable, where Christ now sits on God's\nright hand defending me, pitying me, and blessing me, holding out to me a\ncrown of glory which shall never fade away.\"\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nThese things are most bitter, {147} and the only comfort that I can see\nin them is, that they are bringing us all face to face with the realities\nof human life, as it has been in all ages, and giving us sterner and yet\nmore loving, more human, and more divine thoughts about ourselves, and\nour business here, and the fate of those who are gone, and awakening us\nout of the luxurious, frivolous, unreal dream (full, nevertheless, of\nhard judgments) in which we have been living so long, to trust in a\nLiving Father, who is really and practically governing this world and all\nworlds, and who willeth that none should perish; and therefore has not\nforgotten or suddenly begun to hate and torment one single poor soul\nwhich is past out of this life into some other.  All are in our Father's\nhands; and, oh! blessed thought, though they \"go down into hell, Thou art\nthere also.\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nJesus is the Saviour, the Deliverer, the great Physician, the healer of\nsoul and body.  Not a pang is felt, or a tear shed on earth, but He\nsorrows over it.  Not a human being on earth dies young but He, as I\nbelieve, sorrows over it.  What is it which prevents Him healing every\nsickness, soothing every sorrow, wiping away every tear now, we cannot\ntell.  But this we _can_ tell, that it is His will that none should\nperish.  This we _can_ tell, that He is willing as ever to heal the sick,\nto cleanse the leper, to cast out devils, to teach the ignorant, to bind\nup the broken-hearted.  This we _can_ tell, that He will go on doing so\nmore and more, year by year, and age by age.  This we _can_ tell, from\nScripture, that Christ is stronger than the devil.  This we _can_ tell,\nthat Christ and all good men, the spirits of just men made perfect, the\nwise and the great in God's sight, who have left us their books, their\nsayings, their writings, as precious health-giving heir-looms, have been\nfighting, and are fighting, and will fight to the end, against the devil,\nand sin, and oppression, and misery, and disease, and everything which\nspoils and darkens the face of God's good earth.  And this we _can_ tell,\nthat they will conquer at the last, because Christ is stronger than the\ndevil; good is stronger than evil; light is stronger than darkness; God's\nSpirit, the giver of life and health and order, is stronger than all the\nevil customs and carelessness and cruelty and superstition which make\nmiserable the lives, and, as far as we can see, destroy the souls of\nthousands.  Yes; I say Christ's kingdom is a kingdom of health and\ndeliverance for body and soul; and it will conquer, and it will spread,\nand it will grow, till the nations of the world have become the kingdoms\nof God and of His Christ.  Christ reigns, and will reign, till He has put\nall enemies under His feet, and the last of His enemies which shall be\ndestroyed is Death.  Death is His enemy which He has conquered by rising\nfrom the dead; and the day will come when Death will be no more--when\nsickness and sorrow shall be unknown, and God shall wipe tears from all\neyes.  I say it again--never forget it--Christ is King, and His kingdom\nis a kingdom of health, of life and deliverance from all evil.  It always\nhas been so from the first time our Lord cured the leper in Galilee; it\nwill be so to the end of the world.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nWhat did the spiritual glory of Christ's countenance at His\ntransfiguration show His disciples, but that He was a spiritual King,\nwhose strength lay in the spirit of power, and wisdom, and beauty, and\nlove, which God had given Him without measure; and that there was such a\nthing as a spiritual body--such a body as each of us some day shall have\nif we be found in Christ at the resurrection of the just--a body which\nshall not hide a man's spirit as it does here, when it becomes subject to\nthe wear and tear of life, and disease, and decay; but a spiritual body--a\nbody which shall be filled with our spirits, which shall be perfectly\nobedient to our spirits--a body through which the glory of our spirits\nshall shine out, as the glory of Christ's spirit shone out through His in\nthe transfiguration.  \"Brethren, we know not what we shall be, but this\nwe do know, that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall\nsee Him as He is.\"\n\n_Village Sermons_.\n\nI believe, says the Creed, in the Resurrection of the Flesh.  The Bible\nteaches us to believe, that we, each of us, as human beings, men and\nwomen, shall have our share in that glorious day; not merely as ghosts,\ndisembodied spirits (of which the Bible, thanks be to God, says little or\nnothing), but as real live human beings, with new bodies of our own, on a\nnew earth, under a new heaven.  Therefore, says David, my flesh shall\nrest in hope; not merely my soul, my ghost, but my flesh.  For the Lord,\nwho not only died, but rose again with His body, shall raise our bodies,\naccording to the mighty working by which He subdues all things to\nHimself; and then the whole manhood of each of us, body, soul, and\nspirit, shall have our perfect consummation and bliss in His eternal and\neverlasting glory.  That is our hope.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\nThose who die in the fear of God and in the faith of Christ do not really\ntaste of death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, a\nchange of state; they pass at once into some new life, with all their\npowers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking,\nactive beings which they were here on earth. . . .  Rest they may--rest\nthey will, if they need rest.  But what is their rest?  Not idleness, but\npeace of mind.  To rest from sin, from sorrow, from fear, from doubt,\nfrom care; this is true rest.  Above all, to rest from the worst\nweariness of all--knowing one's duty, and not being able to do it.  That\nis true rest--the rest of God, who works for ever, and is at rest for\never; as the stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a\nday, and yet are at perfect rest, because they move orderly,\nharmoniously, fulfilling the law which God has given them.  Perfect rest,\nin perfect work; that surely is the rest of blessed spirits, till the\nfinal consummation of all things, when Christ shall have made up the\nnumber of His elect.  And if it be so, what comfort for us who must die,\nwhat comfort for us who have seen others die, if death be but a new birth\ninto some higher life; if all that it changes in us is our body--the mere\nhusk and shell of us--such a change as comes over the snake when he casts\nhis old skin, and comes out fresh and gay, or even the crawling\ncaterpillar, which breaks its prison, and spreads its wings to the sun as\na fair butterfly?  Where is the sting of death then, if death can sting,\nand poison, and corrupt nothing of us for which our friends love us;\nnothing of us with which we could do service to men or God?  Where is the\nvictory of the grave, if so far from the grave holding us down, it frees\nus from the very thing which does hold us down--the mortal body?\n\n_Water of Life_--_Sermons_.\n\nConsider the lilies of the field.  We must take our Lord's words exactly.\nHe is speaking of the lilies, the bulbous plants which spring into flower\nin countless thousands every spring over the downs of Eastern lands.  All\nthe winter they are dead, unsightly roots, hidden in the earth.  But no\nsooner does the sun of spring shine upon their graves, than they rise\ninto sudden life and beauty, as it pleases God, and every seed takes its\nown peculiar body.  Sown in corruption, they are raised in incorruption;\nsown in weakness, they are raised in power; sown in dishonour, they are\nraised in glory; delicate, beautiful in colour, perfuming the air with\nfragrance; types of immortality, fit for the crowns of angels.\n\nConsider the lilies of the field, how they grow.  For even so is the\nResurrection of the dead.  Yes, not without a divine providence--yea, a\ndivine inspiration--has the blessed Eastertide been fixed, by the Church\nof all ages, as the season when the earth shakes off her winter's sleep;\nwhen the birds come back, and the flowers begin to bloom, when every seed\nwhich falls into the ground and dies, and rises again with a new body, is\na witness to us of the Resurrection of Christ; and a witness, too, that\nwe shall rise again; that in us, as in it, life shall conquer death; when\nevery bird that comes back to sing and build among us, every flower that\nblows, is a witness to us of the Resurrection of the Lord and of our\nResurrection. . . .  They obey the call of the Lord, the Giver of Life,\nwhen they return to life, as a type and a token to us of Christ their\nMaker, who was dead and is alive again, who was lost in hell on Easter\neve, and was found again in heaven for evermore.  And so the resurrection\nof the earth from her winter's sleep, commemorates to us, as each blessed\nEastertide comes round, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and is\na witness to us that some day life shall conquer death, light conquer\ndarkness, righteousness conquer sin, joy conquer grief; when the whole\ncreation, which groaneth and travaileth in pain until now, shall have\nbrought forth that of which it travaileth in labour--even the new heavens\nand the new earth, wherein shall be neither sighing nor sorrow, but God\nshall wipe away tears from all eyes.\n\n_Discipline and other Sermons_.\n\nDeath is not death if it kills no part of us save that which hindered us\nfrom perfect life.  Death is not death, if it raises us in a moment from\ndarkness into light, from weakness into strength, from sinfulness into\nholiness.  Death is not death, if it brings us nearer to Christ who is\nthe fount of life.  Death is not death, if it perfects our faith by\nsight, and lets us behold Him in whom we have believed.  Death is not\ndeath, if it gives us to those whom we have loved and lost, for whom we\nhave lived, for whom we long to live again.  Death is not death, if it\njoins the child to the mother who was gone before.  Death is not death,\nif it takes away from that mother for ever all a mother's anxieties, a\nmother's fears, and lets her see, in the gracious countenance of her\nSaviour, a sure and certain pledge that those whom she has left behind\nare safe, safe with Christ and in Christ, through all the chances and\ndangers of this mortal life.  Death is not death, if it rids us of doubt\nand fear, of chance and change, of space and time, and all which space\nand time bring forth, and then destroy.  Death is not death; for Christ\nhas conquered death for Himself, and for those who trust in Him.\n\n_Water of Life_--_Sermons_.\n\nOut of God's boundless bosom, the fount of life, we came; through\nselfish, stormy youth and contrite tears--just not too late; through\nmanhood not altogether useless; through slow and chill old age, we return\nfrom Whence we came; to the Bosom of God once more--to go forth again, it\nmay be, with fresh knowledge, and fresh powers, to nobler work.  Amen.\n\n_Essays_.\n\n\n\n\nVII.  PRAYER OUT OF THE DEEP.\n\n\n   Hear my prayer, O God; and hide not Thyself from my petition.  Take\n   heed unto me and hear me; how I mourn in my prayer and am vexed.--Psalm\n   iv. 1, 2.\n\n   In my trouble I will call upon the Lord, and complain unto my God; so\n   shall He hear my voice out of His holy temple, and my complaint shall\n   come before Him; it shall enter even into His ears.--Ps. xviii. 5, 6.\n\n   The Lord is nigh unto them that call upon Him; He also will hear their\n   cry, and will help them.--Psalm cxlv. 18, 19.\n\n   In the day when I cried Thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with\n   strength in my soul.--Psalm cxxxviii. 3.\n\nThe older I grow, and the more I see of the chances and changes of this\nmortal life, and of the needs and longings of the human heart, the more\nimportant seems this question: Is there anywhere in the universe any\nbeing who can hear our prayers?  Is prayer a superfluous folly, or the\nhighest prudence?  I say: Is there a being who can ever hear our prayers?\nI do not say a being who will always answer them, and give us all we ask;\nbut one who will at least hear, who will listen consider what is fit to\nbe granted or not, and grant or refuse accordingly?\n\nIs that strange instinct of worship which rises in the heart of man as\nsoon as he begins to think, to become a civilized being and not a savage,\nto be disregarded as a childish dream when he rises to a higher\ncivilization still?  Is the experience of men, heathen as well as\nChristian, for all these ages to go for nought?  Has every utterance that\nhas ever gone up from suffering and doubting humanity gone up in vain?\nHave the prayers of saints, the hymns of psalmists, the agonies of\nmartyrs, the aspirations of poets, the thoughts of sages, the cries of\nthe oppressed, the pleadings of the mother for her child, the maiden\npraying in her chamber for her lover upon the distant battlefield, the\nsoldier answering her prayer from afar off with \"Keep quiet, I am in\nGod's hands\"--those very utterances of humanity which seemed to us most\nnoble, most pure, most beautiful, most divine--been all in vain?  Mere\nimpertinences, the babblings of fair dreams, poured forth into no where,\nto no thing, and in vain?  Has every suffering, searching soul which ever\ngazed up into the darkness of the unknown, in hopes of catching even a\nglimpse of a divine Eye, beholding all, and ordering all, and pitying\nall, gazed up in vain?  Oh! my friends, those who believe, or fancy they\nbelieve, such things, and can preach such doctrines without pity and\nsorrow, know not of what they rob a mankind already but too miserable by\nits own folly and its own sin--a mankind which if it have not hope in God\nand in Christ, is truly, as Homer said of old, more miserable than the\nbeasts of the field.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\nWhen the human heart asks, Have we not only a God in Heaven, but a Father\nin Heaven? that question can only be answered by our Lord Jesus Christ.\nTruly He said, \"No one cometh unto the Father but by Me.  The only\nbegotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath revealed Him.\"\nAnd therefore we can find boundless comfort in the words, \"Such as the\nFather is, such is the Son and such the Holy Ghost.\"  For now we know\nthat there is A MAN in the midst of the throne who is the brightness of\nGod's glory and the express image of His person--a high priest who can be\ntouched by the feeling of our infirmities, seeing He was tempted in all\nthings like as we are.  To Him we can cry with human passion and in human\nwords, because we know that His human heart will respond to our human\nhearts, and that His human heart again will respond to His Divine Spirit,\nand that His Divine Spirit is the same as the Divine Spirit of His\nFather, for their wills and minds are One, and their will and their mind\nis boundless love to sinful men.\n\nYes, we can look up in our extreme need by faith into the sacred face of\nChrist, and by faith take refuge within His sacred heart, saying, If it\nbe good for me, He will give what I ask; and if He gives it not, it is\nbecause that too is good for me, and for others beside me.  In all the\nchances and changes of this mortal life we can say to Him, as He said in\nthat supreme hour--\"If it be possible let this cup pass from Me,\nnevertheless not My will but Thine be done;\" sure that He will present\nthat prayer to His Father and to our Father, and to His God and our God;\nand that whatsoever be the answer vouchsafed by Him whose ways are not as\nour ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts, the prayer will not have gone\nup to Christ in vain.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\nI have been praying long and earnestly, and have no fears now.\n\"Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, _believing_, ye shall receive.\"\n\"Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief.\"  Those two texts were my\nstronghold when the night of misery was most utterly dark, and in the\nstrength of them we shall prevail.  Fret not then, neither be anxious;\nwhat God intends He will do.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nThe longer I live the more I see that the Lord's Prayer is the pattern of\nall prayers; and whether it be consistent with that to ask that God\nshould alter the course of the universe in the same breath that we say,\n\"Thy will be done on earth\"--judge you.  I do not object to praying for\nspecial things.  God forbid!  I do it myself.  I cannot help doing it any\nmore than a child in the dark can help calling for its mother.  Only it\nseems to me, that when we pray, \"Grant this day that we run into no kind\nof danger,\" we ought to lay our stress on the \"run,\" rather than on the\n\"danger\"; and ask God not to take away the danger by altering the course\nof nature, but to give us light and guidance whereby to avoid it.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nPray night and day very quietly, like a little, weary child, for\neverything you want, in body as well as in soul--the least thing as well\nas the greatest--nothing is too much to ask God for--nothing too great\nfor Him to grant--and try to thank Him for everything.  Glory be to thee,\nO God!\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nWhen you are in the deep--whatever that depth be--cry to God: to God\nHimself, and none but God.  If you can go to the pure fountain-head, why\ndrink of the stream, which must have gathered something of defilement as\nit flows?  If you can go to God Himself, why go to any of God's\ncreatures, however holy, pure, and loving?  Go to God, who is light of\nlight, life of life.  From Him all goodness flows.\n\nGo then to Him Himself.  Out of the deep, however deep, cry unto God,\nunto God Himself.  If David the Jew of old could do so, much more we who\nare baptized into Christ; much more can we who have access by one Spirit\nunto the Father; much more can we who, if we know who we are and where we\nare, should come boldly to the Throne of Grace, to find mercy and grace\nto help us in the time of need.  Hath He promised, and shall He not do\nit?  To every one of you--however weak, however ignorant, aye, however\nsinful, if you desire to be delivered from those sins--this grace is\ngiven; liberty to cry out of the depth to God Himself, who made sun and\nstars, all heaven and earth; liberty to stand face to face with the\nFather of the spirits of all flesh, and cling to the One Being who can\nnever fail nor change, even to the One immortal, eternal God.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\nThe seed which we sow--the seed of repentance, the seed of humility, the\nseed of sorrowful prayers for help--shall take root and grow and bring\nforth fruit, we know not how, in the good time of God who cannot change.\nWe may be sad--we may be weary; our eyes may wait and watch for the Lord\nmore than they who watch for the morning; but it must be as those who\nwatch for the morning, for the morning which must and will come; for the\nsun will surely rise, and the day will surely dawn, and the Saviour will\nsurely deliver those who cry unto Him.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\nFor the poor soul who is abased, who is down, and in the depth; who feels\nhis own weakness, folly, ignorance, sinfulness, and out of the deep cries\nunto God as a lost child crying after its father--even as a lost lamb\nbleating after the ewe--of that poor soul, be his prayers never so\nconfused, stupid, and ill expressed--of him it is written: \"The Lord\nhelpeth them that fall; He is nigh unto all that call upon Him; He will\nfulfil the desire of those that fear Him; He also will hear their cry,\nand will help them.\"\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nPRAYERS AND CONFESSIONS\n\n\nFOR PARDON AND LIKENESS TO GOD.\n\n\nO Lamb eternal, beyond all place and time!  O Lamb of God, slain\neternally before the foundation of the world!  O Lamb that liest slain\neternally in the midst of the throne of God!  Let the blood of life,\nwhich flows from Thee, procure me pardon for the past; let the water of\nlife, which flows from Thee, give me strength for the future.  I come to\ncast away my own life, my life of self and selfishness, which is corrupt\naccording to the deceitful lusts, that I may live it no more, and to\nreceive Thy life, which is created after the likeness of God, in\nrighteousness and true holiness, that I may live it for ever and ever,\nand find it a well of life springing up in me to everlasting life.\nEternal Goodness, make me good like Thee.  Eternal Wisdom, make me wise\nlike Thee.  Eternal Justice, make me just like Thee.  Eternal Love, make\nme loving like Thee.\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nFOR LIGHT.\n\n\nO Lord!  Love who embracest the universe, Light who lightest every man\nthat comes into the world, take away from me all darkness of soul and\nhardness of heart.  Fill me with Thy light, that I may see all things in\nlight.  Fill me with Thy love, that I may love all things which Thou hast\nmade.\n\nAmen.\n\nCome to us, O Lord! open the eyes of our souls, and show us the things\nwhich belong to our peace and the path of life, that we may see that,\nthough all man's inventions and plans come to an end, yet Thy commandment\nis exceedingly broad--broad enough for rich and poor, for scholar,\ntradesman, and labourer, for our prosperity in this life and our\nsalvation in the life to come.\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nFOR TRUE GLORY.\n\n\nO God, quench in us all which is selfish, idle, mean, and quicken to life\nin us all which is God-like and for God, that so we may attain at last to\nthe true glory, the glory which comes, not from selfish ambition, not\nfrom selfish pride, not from selfish ease, but from getting rid of\nselfishness in all its shapes--the glory which Christ alone has in\nperfection--the glory before which every knee will one day bow whether in\nearth or heaven--even the glory of doing our duty, regardless of what it\ncosts us, in the station to which each of us has been called by his\nFather in Heaven.\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nFOR HOLINESS.\n\n\nO Lord Jesus Christ!  Exalt me with Thee so to know the mystery of life,\nthat I may use the earthly as the appointed expression and type of the\nheavenly; and by using to Thy glory the natural body, I may be fit to be\nexalted to the use of the spiritual body.\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nFOR PURITY AND GOODNESS.\n\n\nPurge Thou me, O Lord, or I shall never be pure; wash Thou me, and then\nalone shall I be clean.  For Thou requirest not frames or feelings, not\npride and self-conceit, but truth in the inward parts; and wilt make me\nto understand wisdom secretly.\n\nO God, Thou art good, and I am bad; and for that very reason I come.  I\ncome to be made good.  I adore Thy goodness, and I long to copy it: but I\ncannot unless Thou helpest me.  Purge me.  Make me clean.  Cleanse me\nfrom my secret faults, and give me truth in the inward parts.  Do what\nThou wilt with me.  Train me as Thou wilt.  Punish me if it be necessary.\nOnly make me good.\n\nAmen.\n\nThou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts.  Shut not Thy merciful\nears to our prayer; but spare us, O Lord, most holy!  O God, most mighty!\nThou worthy Judge Eternal, and suffer us not, for any temptation of the\nworld, the flesh, or the devil, to fall from Thee.  I, Lord, am I: and\nwhat I am--a very poor, pitiful, sinful person.  But Thou, Lord, art\nThou; and what Thou art--Perfect!  Thou art Goodness itself.  And\ntherefore Thou canst, and Thou wilt, make me what I ought to be at last,\na good person.  To Thee I can bring the burden of this undying I, which I\ncarry with me, too often in shame and sadness.  I ask Thee to help me to\nbear it.  Guide me, teach me, strengthen me, till I become such as Thou\nwouldst have me be: pure and gentle, truthful and high-minded, brave and\nable, courteous and generous, dutiful and useful like Thy Son, Jesus\nChrist.\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nPRAYER AGAINST BEING CONFOUNDED.\n\n\nO Lord, I am oppressed, crushed--the heart is beaten out of me.  I have\nnothing to say for myself.  Undertake for me.  O Lord, confound me not.  I\nknow I am weak, ignorant, unsuccessful; full of faults and failings,\nwhich make me ashamed of myself every day of my life.  I have gone\nastray, like a sheep that is lost.  But seek Thy servant, O Lord, for I\ndo not forget Thy commandments.  I am trying to learn my duty.  I am\ntrying to do my duty.  I have stuck unto Thy testimonies.  O Lord, have\nmercy and confound me not.  Man may confound me.  But do not Thou of Thy\nmercy and pity, O Lord.  Let me not find when I die, or before I die,\nthat all my labour has been in vain; that I am not wiser, not more useful\nafter all.  Let not my gray hairs go down with sorrow to the grave.  Let\nme not die with the miserable thought that in spite of all my struggles\nto do my duty, my life has been a failure and I a fool.  Let me not wake\nin the next life, to be utterly confounded: to find that I was all wrong,\nand have nothing left but disappointment and confusion of face.  O Lord,\nwho didst endure all shame for me, save me from that most utter shame.\nThou art good and just.  Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.  O God, in\nThee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nFOR PEACE OF MIND.\n\n\nO Father, grant me Thy peace.  I have not a peaceful spirit in me; and I\nknow that I shall never get it by thinking, and reading, and\nunderstanding, for it passes all that; and peace lies far away beyond it,\nin the very essence of Thine undivided, unmoved, absolute, Eternal\nGodhead, which no change nor decay of this created world, nor sin or\nfolly of men or devils, can ever alter; but which abideth for ever what\nit is, in perfect rest, and perfect power, and perfect love.  Soothe this\nrestless, greedy, fretful soul of mine, as a mother soothes a sick and\nfeverish child.  How Thou wilt do it I do not know.  It passes all\nunderstanding.  But though the sick child cannot reach the mother, the\nmother is at hand and can reach it.  And Thou art more than a mother:\nThou art the Everlasting Father.  Though the eagle by flying cannot reach\nthe sun, yet the sun is at hand, and can reach all the earth, and pour\nits light and warmth over all things.  Thou art more than the sun; Thou\nart the Light and Life of all things.  Pour Thy Light and Thy Life over\nme, that I may see as Thou seest, and live as Thou livest, and be at\npeace with myself and all the world, as Thou art at peace with Thyself\nand all the world.  Pour Thy love over me, that I may love as Thou\nlovest.  Again, I say, I know not how, for it passes all understanding;\nbut I hope that Thou wilt do it for me, I trust that Thou wilt do it for\nme, for I believe that Thou art Love, and that Thy mercy is over all Thy\nworks.  I believe that Thou so lovest the world that Thou hast sent Thy\nSon to save the world and me.  I know not how, for that too passes\nunderstanding; but I believe that Thou wilt do it, for I believe that\nThou art Love, and that Thy mercy is over all Thy works, even over me.  I\nbelieve that Thy will is peace on earth, even peace to me, restless and\nunquiet as I am, and goodwill to all men, even to me, the chief of\nsinners.\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nPRAYER BEFORE HOLY COMMUNION.\n\n\nO blessed Jesus!  Saviour, who agonized for us!  God Almighty, who didst\nmake Thyself weak for the love of us!  Oh, write that love upon our\nhearts so deeply that neither pleasure nor sorrow, life nor death may\nwipe it away!  Thou hast sacrificed Thyself for us; oh, give us hearts to\nsacrifice ourselves for Thee!  Thou art the Vine, we are the branches.\nLet Thy priceless blood, shed for us on the cross, flow like life-giving\nsap through all our hearts and minds, and fill us with Thy righteousness,\nthat we may be sacrifices fit for Thee.  Stir us up to offer to Thee, O\nLord, our bodies, our souls, our spirits; and in all we love and all we\nlearn, in all we plan and all we do, to offer ourselves, our labours, our\npleasures, our sorrows, to Thee; to work for Thy kingdom, to live as\nthose who are not their own, but bought with Thy blood, fed with Thy\nbody; and enable us now, in Thy most Holy Sacrament, to offer to Thee our\nrepentance, our prayers, our praises, living, reasonable, and spiritual\nsacrifices--Thine from our birth-hour--Thine now, and Thine for ever!\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nCONFESSION OF SIN.\n\n\nFather, I have sinned against Thee, and am not worthy to be called Thy\nchild; but I come to Thee.  Father, I hate myself; but Thou lovest me.  I\ndo not understand myself; but Thou dost, and Thou wilt be merciful to the\nwork of Thine own hands.  I cannot guide and help myself, but Thou canst\nhelp me, and Thou wilt too, because Thou art my Father, and nothing can\npart me from Thy love, or from the love of Thy Son, my King.  I come and\nclaim my share in Thee, just because I have nothing, and can bring Thee\nnothing, but lie at Thy gate as a beggar full of sores, desiring to be\nfed with the crumbs from Thy table.  And if I would help the wretched,\nhow much more wilt Thou help me.  Thy name is Love, and Thy glory is the\nlikeness of Thy Son Jesus Christ, who said, \"Come to me, all ye that are\nweary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest;\" \"If ye being evil know\nhow to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your\nheavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.\"\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nCONFESSION OF WEAKNESS.\n\n\nO God my Father, I am Thine; save me, for I have sought Thy commandments.\nI am Thine--not merely Thy creature, O God--the very birds, and bees, and\nflowers are that; and do their duty far better than I--God forgive me--do\nmine.\n\nI am Thine--not merely Thy child--but I am Thy school child.  O Lord\nJesus Christ, I claim Thy help as my schoolmaster, as well as my Lord and\nSaviour.  I am the least of Thy school children; and it may be the most\nignorant and stupid.  I do not pretend to be a scholar, a divine, a\nphilosopher, a saint.  I am a very weak, insufficient scholar, sitting on\nthe lowest form in Thy great school-house, which is the whole world, and\ntrying to spell out the mere letters of Thy alphabet, in hope that\nhereafter I may be able to make out whole words and whole sentences of\nThy commandments, and having learnt them, to do them.  If Thou wilt but\nteach me Thy statutes, O Lord, then I will try to keep them to the end;\nfor I long to be on Thy side, and about Thy work.  I long to help, be it\never so little, in making myself better, and my neighbour better.  I long\nto be useful, and not useless; a fruit-bearing tree, and not a noxious\nweed in Thy garden; and therefore I pray that Thou wilt not cut me down\nor root me up, nor let foul creatures trample me under foot.\n\nHave mercy upon me, O Lord, in my trouble, for the sake of the truth\nwhich I long to learn, and for the good which I long to do.  Poor weak\nplant though I may be, I am still a plant of Thy planting, which is\nstruggling to grow, and flower, and bear fruit to eternal life; and Thou\nwilt not despise the work of Thine own hands, O Lord, who died that I\nmight live? Thou wilt not let me perish!  I have stuck unto Thy\ntestimonies.  O Lord, confound me not!\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nCONFESSION OF ONE IN CONFUSION OF SPIRIT.\n\n\nO God, Thou knowest, and Thou alone, how far I am right, and how far\nwrong.  I leave myself in Thy hand, certain that Thou wilt deal fairly,\njustly, lovingly with me, as a Father with his son.  I do not pretend to\nbe better than I am; neither will I pretend to be worse than I am.  Truly\nI know nothing about it.  I, ignorant human being that I am, can never\nfully know how far I am right, and how far wrong.  I find light and\ndarkness fighting together in my heart, and I cannot divide between them.\nBut Thou, Lord, canst.  Thou knowest.  Thou hast made me; Thou lovest me;\nThou hast sent Thy Son into the world to make me what I ought to be.  Thou\nwiliest not that I should perish, but come to the knowledge of the truth;\nand therefore I believe that I shall not perish, but come to the\nknowledge of the truth about Thee, about my own character, my own duty,\nabout everything which it is needful for me to know.  Therefore, O Lord,\nI will go boldly on, doing my duty as well as I can, though not\nperfectly, day by day; and asking Thee day by day to feed my soul with\ndaily bread.  Thou feedest my body with daily bread.  How much more wilt\nThou feed my mind and my heart, more precious by far than my body.  Lord,\nI will trust Thee for soul and body alike; and if I need correcting for\nmy sins, I know this, at least, that the worst thing that can happen to\nme, or to any man, is to do wrong and not to be corrected; and the best\nthing is to be set right, even by hard blows, as often as I stray out of\nthe way.  Therefore, O Lord, I will take my punishment quietly and\nmanfully, and try to thank Thee for it, as I ought; for I know that Thou\nwilt not punish me beyond what I deserve, but far below what I deserve.  I\nknow Thou wilt punish me only to bring me to myself, and to correct me,\nand purge me, and strengthen me.  I believe, O Lord, on the warrant of\nThine own word I believe it--undeserved as the honour is, that Thou art\nmy Father, and lovest me; Thou dost not afflict any man willingly, or\ngrieve the children of men out of passion or out of spite.  Thou wiliest\nnot that I, or any man, should perish; but Thou wiliest have all men to\nbe saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, for Jesus Christ His\nsake.\n\nAmen.\n\n\n\nCONFESSION OF A TORMENTED SOUL.\n\n\nO Lord, I am in misery--my soul is sore troubled--for I have sinned, and\nI confess that I only receive the due reward of my deeds.  I have earned\nmy shame, I have earned my sorrow; Lord, I have deserved it all.  I look\nback on wasted time and wasted powers.  I look round on ruined health,\nruined fortune, ruined hopes; I confess that I deserve it all.  But Thou\nhast endured more than this for me, and Thou hast done nothing amiss.  For\nme Thou didst suffer, for me Thou hast been crucified, and me Thou hast\nbeen trying to save all through the years of my vanity.  Perhaps I have\nnot wearied out Thy love, perhaps I have not conquered Thy patience.  I\nwill take the blessed chance.  I will still cast myself upon Thy love.  O\nLord, I have deserved all my misery.  Yet, Lord, remember me when Thou\ncomest into Thy kingdom.\n\nAmen.\n\nFather! not our will but Thine be done.  All things come from Thy hand,\nand therefore all things come from Thy love.  We have received good from\nThy hand, and shall we not receive evil?  Though Thou slay us, yet will\nwe trust in Thee.  For Thou art gracious and merciful, long-suffering and\nof great goodness.  Thou art loving to every man, and Thy mercy is over\nall Thy works.  Thou art righteous in all Thy ways, and holy in all Thy\ndoings.  Thou art nigh unto them that call upon Thee.  Thou wilt hear\ntheir cry, and wilt help them; for all Thou desirest, when Thou sendest\ntrouble on us, is to make us wiser and better.  And that Thou canst only\nmake us by teaching us the knowledge of Thyself.  Glory be to Thee, O\nGod!\n\nAmen.\n\nTHE END.\n\n{26}  Death of a Husband.\n\n{30}  Death of a Parent.\n\n{147}  Deaths on the battlefield.","title":"Out of the deep : $b Words for the sorrowful","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":25264}