TWO WAYS OF RELIEF FOR SORROW

^[p. 293] TWO WAYS OF RELIEF FOR SORROW

There are two ways of relief for the sorrowing one here: one is present nearness to Christ, where whatever the heart needs is found in Him. The want indicates the supply, but there must be nearness to Him for this. It is touching Christ that draws out the needed virtue. Now this mode of relief, while it places me superior to the pressure of the hour, enables me to be, though sorrowful, always rejoicing - able to serve, without being incommoded by the strait-waistcoat of circumstances here. There are “songs in the night”.

The other mode of relief is the one, I apprehend, you look for, and that is the immediate coming of our Lord. Surely this will be the perfect relief; but I fear that you are looking at the termination of incongruities, more than seeking His present succour, so as to be like a giant refreshed with wine, making moral space for Christ in the midst of the direst opposition to Him. I should like to see you like a rose breaking through the dense jungle, to shed its fragrance, when there was no one, apparently, to appreciate it; made superior to the thorns and briars of the wilderness by the succour of His presence, who will speedily quash them in the day of His coming, and perpetuate to you the joy, without a check, which has sustained you in the dreariest hour here; and not simply looking for the termination of everything adverse, in the brightness and joy of a day when all shadows will be dispersed for ever. Is it the termination of the incongruous and sorrowful that you look for? or is it the present succour of Christ to be superior now, knowing that if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him? You are more a captive, waiting for and expecting the coming Deliverer, than the one His heart doth safely trust in, delighting in His love and succour, and thinking of the joy and welcome He will have at His return.