"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward[#]" is a very true saying. And I suppose there will be few people, if any, of those who read this book, who will not know something about sorrow. Yes, we all feel sorrow, more or less. Some people feel it more acutely than others. To some it is a real burthen. From the little child who cries over its broken toy to the old man who weeps over his lost wealth, all are partakers of sorrow.
[#] Job v. 7.
Suffering, again, might be "sorrow's own sister," so closely are the two connected here below. For instance, God sends a great and crushing sorrow; say, for instance, the death of a dear friend, or the sickness of one we love; and to us the news of this sorrow brings intense pain, deep suffering. And you may ask, why is this suffering necessary? You tell us it is sent by God, and that all He sends is for our good, what is the need of suffering? I will tell you. A friend of mine who had been in Eastern lands, told me he once saw a shepherd who wanted his flock to cross a stream. The shepherd went into the water himself and called them, but no, they would not follow him into the water. What did he do? Why, he went in among the flock, and lifting a little lamb under each arm, plunged right into the stream, and crossed it without even looking back. When he lifted the lambs, my friend said, the old sheep looked up into his face, and began to bleat for them; but when he plunged into the water, the dams plunged in after him, and then the whole flock followed. When they reached the other side he put down the lambs, and they were quickly joined by their mothers, and there was a happy meeting. My friend told me, too, that he noticed that the pastures on the other side of the stream were much better, and the fields greener, and on this account the shepherd was leading them across. And in like manner does the good Shepherd, even Jesus Christ, having found his oft-repeated call to men to look up to heaven vain, so also does He often take from His flock a little lamb, and crossing with it the stream of death, places it down amid the green pastures and still waters of Paradise. And by this means he often causes the parents to look up to the same place, for right well He knows the truth of His own words, that "Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also.[#]"
[#] Matt. vi. 21.
And so, perhaps, you begin to see that suffering used by Almighty God has its uses. It very often is the means, in cases where other means have failed, of weaning a soul away from earth, and fixing its hopes on the things of heaven. It very often is the first warning given to the soul of man, that here has he no continuing city, but must seek one to come. Reader, it may be as you have walked along life's troubled way, you have as yet had but little taste of suffering. But it will come one day. It comes to us all; and very often, the best men, and the holiest men are the greatest sufferers, under the chastening hand of God. You remember the case of Job in the Bible, what a sufferer he was! And yet Job was a good man; for when the temptation came to him to curse God and die, he recognised it as the voice of Satan, even though the words were spoken by the one nearest to him on earth.
The great thing for us all to recognise in the day of suffering and the time of sorrow alike, is the good hand of our God upon us. To understand that there is such a thing as being "perfect through suffering," and that we, even as the Master Himself did, may learn obedience by the things which we suffer. That a smooth existence without sorrow and without suffering may be a life of mental anguish, while a life of sorrow and suffering may be a life of joy, of hope, and of triumph, are doubtless lessons hard to learn; but for all that we must needs learn them. And if we cannot learn this lesson from the lives of those around us, it may be God's good pleasure to teach it in our own.
DEATH.
"There is a Reaper whose name is Death,
And with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between."
Longfellow.
So solemn a subject is that of death, and so near have many of us been brought to it, either in our own homes or in those of others, that we cannot but approach it with a feeling of awe. To the worldly man death can never be a pleasant prospect. At best it means to him the cessation of all hope and of all action. All worldly pleasure is then at an end, and for him there remains no such rest as is the hope and stay of the people of God.
Another class there is that looks upon death in another way. These do not really enjoy life here below, still less do they enjoy any hope of life to come. For such persons death is but a leap in the dark; a bridge across the dark valley from the mists of earth into a far more misty future; a passage from the darkness here into the deeper and blacker darkness beyond.