e ripple; the other flows through a
lovely valley, and is discoloured by its earth. They unite in one
common current. So in these two verses we have two streams, a white
and a black, and they both blend together and flow out into a common
hope. In the former of them we have the dark stream--'through
patience and comfort,' which implies affliction and effort. The issue
and outcome of all difficulty, trial, sorrow, ought to be hope. And
in the other verse we have the other valley, down which the light
stream comes: 'The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, that ye may abound in hope.'

So both halves of the possible human experience are meant to end in
the same blessed result; and whether you go round on the one side of
the sphere of human life, or whether you take the other hemisphere,
you come to the same point, if you have travelled with God's hand in
yours, and with Him for your Guide.

Let us look, then, at these two contrasted origins of the same
blessed gift, the Christian hope.

I. We have, first of all, the hope that is the child of the night,
and born in the dark.

'Whatsoever things,' says the Apostle, 'were written aforetime, were
written for our learning, that we, through patience,'--or rather
_the brave perseverance_--'and consolation'--or rather perhaps
_encouragement_--'of the Scriptures might have hope.' The written
word is conceived as the source of patient endurance which acts as
well as suffers. This grace Scripture works in us through the
encouragement which it ministers in manifold ways, and the result of
both is hope.

So, you see, our sorrows and difficulties are not connected with, nor
do they issue in, bright hopefulness, except by reason of this
connecting link. There is nothing in a man's troubles to make him
hopeful. Sometimes, rather, they drive him into despair; but at all
events, they seldom drive him to hopefulness, except where this link
comes in. We cannot pass from the black frowning cliffs on one side
of the gorge to the sunny tablelands on the other without a
bridge--and the bridge for a poor soul from the blackness of sorrow,
and the sharp grim rocks of despair, to the smiling pastures of hope,
with all their half-open blossoms, is builded in that Book, which
tells us the meaning and purpose of them all; and is full of the
histories of those who have fought and overcome, have hoped and not
been ashamed.

Scripture is given for this among other reasons, t