hat it may
encourage us, and so may produce in us this great grace of active
patience, if we may call it so.

The first thing to notice is, how Scripture gives encouragement--for
such rather than consolation is the meaning of the word. It is much
to dry tears, but it is more to stir the heart as with a trumpet
call. Consolation is precious, but we need more for well-being than
only to be comforted. And, surely, the whole tone of Scripture in its
dealing with the great mystery of pain and sorrow, has a loftier
scope than even to minister assuagement to grief, and to stay our
weeping. It seeks to make us strong and brave to face and to master
our sorrows, and to infuse into us a high-hearted courage, which
shall not merely be able to accept the biting blasts, but shall feel
that they bring a glow to the cheek and oxygen to the blood, while
wrestling with them builds up our strength, and trains us for higher
service. It would be a poor aim to comfort only; but to encourage--to
make strong in heart, resolved in will, and incapable of being
overborne or crushed in spirit by any sorrows--that is a purpose
worthy of the Book, and of the God who speaks through it.

This purpose, we may say, is effected by Scripture in two ways. It
encourages us by its records, and by its revelation of principles.

Who can tell how many struggling souls have taken heart again, as
they pondered over the sweet stories of sorrow subdued which stud its
pages, like stars in its firmament? The tears shed long ago which God
has put 'in His bottle,' and recorded in 'His book,' have truly been
turned into pearls. That long gallery of portraits of sufferers, who
have all trodden the same rough road, and been sustained by the same
hand, and reached the same home, speaks cheer to all who follow them.
Hearts wrung by cruel partings from those dearer to them than their
own souls, turn to the pages which tell how Abraham, with calm
sorrow, laid his Sarah in the cave at Macpelah; or how, when Jacob's
eyes were dim that he could not see, his memory still turned to the
hour of agony when Rachael died by him, and he sees clear in its
light her lonely grave, where so much of himself was laid; or to the
still more sacred page which records the struggle of grief and faith
in the hearts of the sisters of Bethany. All who are anyways
afflicted in mind, body, or estate find in the Psalms men speaking
their deepest experiences before them; and the grand majesty of
so