reach of their cry. Their
sorrow, indeed, to the love divine, involves no difficulty; it is a
small matter, easily met. The father, whose elder son is ever with him,
but whose younger is in a far country, wasting his substance with
riotous living, is unspeakably more to be pitied, and is harder to help,
than that father both of whose sons lie in the sleep of death.

Much of what goes by the name of comfort, is merely worthless; and such
as could be comforted by it, I should not care to comfort. Let time do
what it may to bring the ease of oblivion; let change of scene do what
in it lies to lead thought away from the vanished; let new loves bury
grief in the grave of the old love: consolation of such sort could never
have crossed the mind of Jesus. Would The Truth call a man blessed
because his pain would sooner or later depart, leaving him at best no
better than before, and certainly poorer--not only the beloved gone, but
the sorrow for him too, and with the sorrow the love that had caused the
sorrow? Blessed of God because restored to an absence of sorrow? Such a
God were fitly adored only where not one heart worshipped in spirit and
in truth.

'The Lord means of course,' some one may say, 'that the comfort of the
mourners will be the restoration of that which they have lost. He means,
"Blessed are ye although ye mourn, for your sorrow will be turned into
joy."'

Happy are they whom nothing less than such restoration will comfort! But
would such restoration be comfort enough for the heart of Jesus to give?
Was ever love so deep, so pure, so perfect, as to be good enough for
him? And suppose the love between the parted two had been such, would
the mere restoration in the future of that which once he had, be ground
enough for so emphatically proclaiming the man blessed now, blessed
while yet in the midnight of his loss, and knowing nothing of the hour
of his deliverance? To call a man _blessed_ in his sorrow because of
something to be given him, surely implies a something better than what
he had before! True, the joy that is past may have been so great that
the man might well feel blessed in the merest hope of its restoration;
but would that be meaning enough for the word in the mouth of the Lord?
That the interruption of his blessedness was but temporary, would hardly
be fit ground for calling the man _blessed_ in that interruption.
_Blessed_ is a strong word, and in the mouth of Jesus means all it can
mean. Can his