y text have come, to so many sorrowing
hearts in all generations, like music in the night and like cold
waters to a thirsty soul. We need not hold that there is no reference
here to that comforting thought, 'In all our affliction He is
afflicted.' Brethren, you and I have, each of us--one in one way,
and one in another, all in some way, all in the right way, none in
too severe a way, none in too slight a way--to tread the path of
sorrow; and is it not a blessed thing, as we go along through that
dark valley of the shadow of death down into which the sunniest paths
go sometimes, to come, amidst the twilight and the gathering clouds,
upon tokens that Jesus has been on the road before us? They tell us
that in some trackless lands, when one friend passes through the
pathless forests, he breaks a twig ever and anon as he goes, that
those who come after may see the traces of his having been there, and
may know that they are not out of the road. Oh, when we are
journeying through the murky night, and the dark woods of affliction
and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or
a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of
His hand as He passed, and to remember that the path He trod He has
hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrances and hidden strengths
in the remembrance of Him as 'in all points tempted like as we are,'
bearing grief _for_ us, bearing grief _with_ us, bearing
grief _like_ us.

Oh, do not, do not, my brethren, keep these sacred thoughts of
Christ's companionship in sorrow, for the larger trials of life. If
the mote in the eye be large enough to annoy you, it is large enough
to bring out His sympathy; and if the grief be too small for Him to
compassionate and share, it is too small for you to be troubled by
it. If you are ashamed to apply that divine thought, 'Christ bears
this grief with me,' to those petty molehills that you sometimes
magnify into mountains, think to yourselves that then it is a shame
for you to be stumbling over them. But on the other hand, never fear
to be irreverent or too familiar in the thought that Christ is
willing to bear, and help you to bear, the pettiest, the minutest,
and most insignificant of the daily annoyances that may come to
ruffle you. Whether it be a poison from one serpent sting, or whether
it be poison from a million of buzzing tiny mosquitoes, if there be a
smart, go to Him, and He will help you to endure it. He will do more