Tears of the Pilgrims

Words of Comfort to the Tried, Afflicted, and Bereaved

William Frith, 1883

 

PREFACE

This little book was born in the year 1868, in the furnace of affliction, while the Author was passing through great social trials; and though its former edition betrayed a hurried and careless composition, nevertheless, the Lord has condescended to bless it to many of His poor pilgrims.

The book having now passed out of print, and the Author having had many applications for it from many of the Lord's tried ones, he issues this new edition with the hope that the words of comfort which were realized in the many trials of his own life, may prove, through the power of the Holy Spirit, words of divine consolation to many of the tried and afflicted family of faith.
William Frith, May 1883.

 

How true that this world "is a valley of tears!" How many have to pass through the "Valley of Baca (tears)!"

If we could see the marks which human tears have made, their impressions on the path of life would be as numerous as the rain-drops on an April morning! The pilgrims of God are not a tearless band, like those bright and joyous ones before the eternal throne. There, tear-drops never fall, for they have left the willows behind, and have "come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." But here, in this "waste, howling wilderness," it is impossible to be tearless. God's people often "Wet their couch with tears."

The productive causes of sorrow are so numerous that, until these are removed, there must be tearful eyes. Earth's pilgrim-way is rough, rugged, tiresome, and long: "Mortal spirits tire and faint."

A thousand things distress and weary those who are walking the Christian path. No day dawns, however bright and sunny, that does not bring with its dawning light, some event, some unlooked-for occurrence, that presses from them the reluctant tear. For though grace helps and supports those who are "going up out of the wilderness," yet it does not destroy the nature of humanity.

Ah, no! Tears are human. Tears are sacred. Tears are God's ordained relief for all who walk the rugged way of life. They relieve the heaviness of the soul, which is pressed down with the weight of daily care. They yield relief to those whose spirits are crushed and broken; and whose disappointed hopes, like withered flowers, lay prostrate in the dust.

Yet those who are in living sympathy with Christ, and who are led by the Spirit of the Lord to look in faith and hope to Him whose "tender mercies are over all His works," can still feel that "the valley of tears," though often the place of a great heaviness through manifold temptations," may yet become the place where the soul may enjoy the sweetest and most delightful communion with God.

Blessed Jesus, if we have cause for tears, let them be sacred to You! Oh, sanctify them to us, and make us at last fit to dwell where "You shall wipe away all tears from all faces!"

 

Chapter 1. Tears of TRUE CONTRITION

"All the people wept when they heard the words of the law." Nehemiah 8:9

"A woman stood at His feet behind Him weeping." Luke 7:38

There are tears of true contrition. These are very precious to the angels (Luke 15:10), and still more precious to Jesus. They affect the heart of Him who is "touched with a feeling of our infirmities." Yes, the Son of Righteousness shines forth, and reflects His own glory in the tearful eyes of His weeping penitents. For there is nothing that affects the heart of Him whose "blood cleanses from all sin" more deeply than the sight of a single tear glistening in the eye of "one sinner who repents."

The tears of a contrite heart are often shed in secret, and are wiped away by the hand that trembles in godly fear. They may fall in night's dark hour, when the shadows of eventide conceal the evidence of the heart's contrition. Or the contrite one, covered with self-loathing, may retire at mid-day to some upper room, and shed there, in secret, the tokens and the evidence of that "repentance that needs not to be repented of." But though he should retire to some private shade, where no eye casts its glance of sympathy, or derision—yet even there, those tears could not fall "without your Father." His eye is there—His loving eye, so full of sympathy, "Strikes through the shadows of night."

Poor contrite sinner! your tears are all sacred to Jesus. They are a treasure to Him who wept at Bethany, and through faith, and reliance on Jesus' sufferings and "He puts them into His bottle." Let this cheer you. They are His tears, as well as yours, for He caused them. They came from your eyes; but He first pressed them from your heart. Repose on His great sacrifice, and trust Him. Let your wounded heart shed its tears of sorrow over guilt and sin, and there shall be "joy among the angels of God over one sinner who repents!"

Read and ponder over Psalm 51:1-11. Let contrite hearts "weep between the porch and the altar," and shed their tears where Mercy speaks her pardon; for Jesus can wipe the tears away, even here. He can and will speak peace and joy to His poor penitent weepers, even here.

Come then to JESUS, all you self-condemned contrite ones. His kind and loving hand will dry the weeping eyes, and pour oil on the wounded hearts. Do not wipe the tears away yourself. Let no human hand dry the eyes which He has moistened.

He caused them, not so much to distress you, as to save you, and to glorify Himself. And if your poor sinful heart, wounded and bleeding, and casting its burden on the Crucified One, should express its penitence through the tear-drops of your eyes—then stand and weep at the grave of your sins, buried in the grave of your Substitute, and rejoice that they shall have no resurrection!

Oh, let the fact that your pardon and your peace are sealed "fill you with all joy and peace in believing," and bless God that you have ever felt and shed the tears of true contrition. Let this contrition lead to holy decision and entire consecration to JESUS.

Oh! poor sorrowing one, God will not overlook the trembling of an eyelid, much less the falling of a tear. He will not despise the first compunctions of the heart, much less now its deeper throes. He who is waiting to be gracious, will not lose this great opportunity of being gracious. He who is on the look-out for returning prodigals, will not fail to see this one, while yet a great way off.

The silent falling of a penitential tear makes more noise in Heaven than the rushing of all the earth's mightiest cataracts, or the beating of all the ocean's wildest waves. If the two sparrows which are sold for a farthing cannot fall to the ground without the knowledge of the Lord, and if the very hairs of the head are all numbered—then how certain may we feel that these tears are known and numbered—every one!

"We may indeed be sure that the penitent's tear does not fall unnoticed to the ground. That penitent may be some forlorn creature, battered and bruised by the ill-usage of the victorious, and spurned out from the bosom of society by the visibly virtuous; none think the tear worth catching that falls from the swollen eyelid; none care to track its progress as it trickles along those furrowed lines, the watercourses which have been worn in the cheek by disease, remorse, and poverty. Where are the scented handkerchiefs of elegant charity? Are they afraid that their fine cambric will be scorched through by this burning drop? Or do they think that such a tear would stain them, so that they would be fit for a jeweled hand no more? Where is the rough hand of a father to brush away this bitter brine? Where is the trembling lip of a mother to kiss it off? Father and mother are gone—her death broke their yearning hearts. Genteel charity has sent a message, 'I ask that you have me excused,' and has sat down in her easy-chair to do some fancy work for a bazaar.

"Our penitent is an outcast, loathed, scorned, and despised; but hang a stone, if you like, around her neck, sink her in the deepest chasm in the sea; and if, down in that salt flood there is the still saltier drop of a penitential tear, there will be the great Father's hand to catch it, and the bottle in which He keeps the soul's tears to store it. He would take that tear with Him in Heaven, while He left unnoticed in the ocean's depth pearls of the rarest worth." Phillip B. Power

Why, O my soul! why weep thou?
Tell me from whence arise
Those briny tears that often flow,
Those groans that pierce the skies.

"Is sin the cause of your complaint,
Or the chastening rod?
Do you an evil heart lament,
And mourn an absent God?

"LORD, let me weep for naught but sin!
And after none but Thee!
And then I would—Oh, that I might
A constant weeper be!"

 

Chapter 2. Tears of Social and Spiritual Vicissitude.

"Then they kissed each other and wept together—but David wept the most." 1 Samuel 20:41

THESE tears are often shed in secret, "where there is no eye to pity." The subjects of this sorrow shed more tears than are ever known. But who are those who have these sorrows? Why do they weep? Why do their hearts bleed? Ah, touching question! Causes, many causes, too numerous to be mentioned, contribute to yield this sorrow. Perhaps the cause is too delicate to be told; or, perhaps, the poor, timid, and agitated sufferer has not courage to disclose and reveal the secret in the presence of one whose heart is a deep well-spring of human sympathy. These tears are often shed both in the palace and in the cottage.

There is some poor wife, whose heart is wounded and bleeding through the coldness and estrangement of a husband's first love! Those fervid expectations, raised in her mind on that bright and sunny morning when he took her "as a chaste virgin" unto himself, have been withered and blasted by his treachery; and her devoted faithfulness has been requited by the cold chill of his alienated love. Ah, there is sorrow. And she weeps in secret, rather than expose him who has violated his sacred vow. Yet Jesus knows! Cast all this care on Him.

Or perhaps, some poor widowed mother, grey, and wrinkled by the hand of time, is sinking in poverty and want, while the offspring she has nourished with a mother's care, and "trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," are "dressed in purple and fine linen, and are faring sumptuously every day," forgetful of a mother's tender love—forgetful of a mother's care. There is this sorrow. And she is saying in her weeping solitude, "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have forsaken me." See how she lifts her imploring eyes to Him who is the "Husband of the widow!" And while they are reveling in the midst of their worldly thoughtlessness and unpardonable ingratitude, she is saying, "Oh, that Ishmael might live before you!" These are the tears of a mother's wounded heart. This Jesus knows.

Reader! are you a son? Comfort that mother's heart.

Or, it may be, some amiable daughter, the "pride" of the father, the joy of the mother, the "rose of the family," the hope of the church, and the paragon of all that is chaste, loving, and holy—has become, in some evil hour, the victim of a vile deceiver, whose religious profession, and seductive song have decoyed that child of beauty from "the right ways of the Lord," and cast her, a poor hopeless victim, upon the cold charity of a sinful world—lost to home, to self, to the church! Oh, is it so? Yet Jesus knows.

Ask not if there is sorrow there! Picture that home! Think of the sorrowing heart there. Think of the tears flowing there. Think of the agonizing grief of that father, of that mother, of that family! And think of the deep sorrow of that poor ruined child! Who shall describe it? Oh, "the shame and confusion of face!" Oh, the accusations of conscience! Oh, the tide of sorrow that rolls through her restless heart! Yet Jesus knows!

Again, there is some poor guilty prodigal, who has said to a loving and devoted father, "Give me the portion of goods that falls to me;" and the too indulgent parent, from the overflowings of his paternal love, has responded to the rash and unwise solicitations, or imperious demand, of his wayward son; and he has "gone into a far country, spent his life with harlots, wasted his substance in riotous living," and has now began to be in want!

Years have rolled by, and the merry Christmas has returned again and again, and the circle has been complete, except the empty chair of the prodigal son! But where is he? The empty chair excites the question, and the question asked excites a sigh; and the sigh and the reflection open afresh the wound, until the tide of sorrow rolls like a mighty river through the soul; and the tears flow apace as the poor parental heart thinks of the long lost Absalom! Yet Jesus knows. Cast this burden on the Lord Jesus, and "He will sustain you!"

Or, perhaps, there is some poor pilgrim, journeying along the road to Heaven, who once "walked all day in the light of His countenance;" sat at noon under "the palms of Elim;" and in the "sultry places," drank of "that river, the streams whereof make glad the city of our God" until he could say, in the ecstasy of a full heart, "My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness!"

But now the dark evening-cloud has cast its gloomy shadow, so that life seems but one long and darkened pathway. All the former brightness has departed. The day that dawned with so much glory on his soul, and "the day-star" that rose and inspired him with so many hopes, and the calm serenity that once pervaded his spirit, like the morning of the spring, have departed as the early dew; and he is now saying, "Oh, that it were with me as in months that are past, when the candle of the Lord shone round about me, and when by His light I walked through darkness."

Hope's young bud has been nipped by the cold and chilling frost of some winter-night! Hope's once bright and shining lamp, if not entirely extinguished, is at least casting but a very feeble radiance—so feeble that, like the glimmering light of the glow-worm, it sheds no ray across the darkened path. Day has turned to night. Joy has turned to sorrow. Elim is exchanged for Marah, and without the mystic tree, too. The roses that once edged his path are withered and emit no fragrance. Faith sees nothing but an empty bottle, a dried-up brook, a failing cruse, and a wasting barrel; and she flings herself down under the fruitless juniper tree, in her heart's despondency, and cries, "It is enough! Now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers."

Oh, is not this sorrow? And will not this bring sympathy from Him who will not break "the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax"?

There are no tears more bitter than those that flow from the eyes of those who are walking under the cloud of SPIRITUAL DESERTION. The loneliness and the darkness bring the sadness. And there are many who have to "walk in darkness and have no light for a season." There are many who have to pass through the valley of myrtle trees, feel its gloom, and shed their tears in silence and alone.

But let those weary ones remember that their "sorrow shall be turned into joy," their "mourning into dancing," and their "spirit of heaviness" shall have the "garment of praise;" for there is "a Man among the myrtle trees, down in the bottom" (Zechariah 1:8). And that Man is He who "is touched with the feeling of our infirmities." He, even our precious Jesus, says, "Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart."

Let your poor heart then, O secret weeper, cease its sorrow. Stay those flowing tears. Hold up your weary head, O pilgrim, and look towards Him, and you shall hear His voice—Oh, so soft and gentle, "Lo, I am with you!" "Fear not, worm Jacob!" "My presence shall go with you." And these precious promises will dry the tears that wet the mourner's eye. Jesus knows.

Reader! are you walking in the darksome shades? Has the orient morning seemed to be followed by a dark sunset in your experience? Has the jubilant gladness of conversion's morning evaporated, or diminished into the dull monotony of formal worship and religious routine? Are "the ways of the Lord" less cheerful, less inviting, less attractive? Does religion seem to fail to yield that "peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" it did when you first came to Jesus, and received His sweet kiss of pardon? And is your poor heart sad, and sorrowful, and wounded? Do tears stand in your eyes? Tears that speak your heart's deep grief?

Oh, then, come again to Jesus. It may be you have been" following Him afar off." It may be you have been looking into the world, and you have lost sight of Him. He has gone forward, and you have failed to follow Him closely. He has turned some corner in the long pilgrimage, and you have lost sight of Him: hence your heart-sorrow—hence your tears.

"You go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but you cannot find Him." "Still, He is near at hand, and not afar off." Seek Him yet again, and "He will be found by you." He may rebuke you for averting your eyes, and charge you to follow Him more closely; still, He will wipe the tears away which your own inconsistency have produced. Oh, "cleave to Him with full purpose of heart," and you will have less heart-sorrow arising from this cause. You will have less of those tears that are so bitter in their feeling, and so shameful as an evidence.

Oh, pilgrims of the Lord! Cleave close to Jesus, if you would have, in this respect, bright and tearless eyes. Tears there will be in the journey; but let there be none caused by your lukewarmness. Look to Jesus. Cleave close to Jesus. Oh, endeavor to say with David, "My soul follows hard after You." Never leave hold of His arm. Grasp that, however dark and starless the night. Then, let the day be gloomy, the night darkness itself, and the fogs so dense that no telescope can pierce the "mists of the wilderness," yet, if you are "going up," and "leaning upon your Beloved," all is well—there will be neither spiritual desertion, nor the tears that flow therefrom.

"He puts our tears into His bottle" (Psalm 56:8). Each one is counted—drop by drop—tear by tear; they are sacred things among the treasures of God.

"I am detained," said one, in the midst of prolonged pain and sickness, "to learn more and more of my Savior's love to me, and the fellowship of His sufferings. It may enhance my happiness, perhaps, to all eternity."

"Tried believer! The iron may have entered into your soul! Cast this burden on the Lord Jesus, and "He will sustain you!"

 

Chapter 3. Tears of POVERTY

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." Psalm 30:5

"She weeps sore in the night, her tears are on her cheeks."

There may be some whose eyes have never known these tears. Their pathway has been so smooth, regular, pleasant, and sunny, that no storm has ever crossed it.

The Sabeans have never fallen upon their cattle, and cut off their flocks and herds! No destructive fire, all raging to devour, has consumed their "all." No Chaldeans have stolen their camels and taken away all their goods. No fire of God has fallen from Heaven and burned up their sheep."

Their brook has never dried up. They have never sat by a diminishing Brook Cherith, whose bright and crystalline stream daily evaporated, until its shallow bed was as dry as the arid desert sand.

They have never had to cast their empty bottle away, like poor Hagar, and, wringing their hands in despair, to utter the plaintive moan, "O God You see me!"

They have never sat down, like poor Naomi, deploring a blasted fortune, and exclaiming, "I went out full, but the Lord brought me home again empty."

No, these are strange things to them; they know nothing of these sad and painful losses. Their hearts have never been oppressed with this load, nor their eyes suffused with these tears. Their "barns have ever been filled with plenty; their presses have burst with new wine." They have "dipped their foot in oil." "The lines have fallen unto them in pleasant places." "Their paths have dropped fatness." "No Moabites have invaded their land at the coming in of their year;" nor has "the canker worm, nor the palmer worm, visited their fields, and destroyed their vineyards." Nor have they had to say, "Catch the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines;" but the Lord has blessed them in all their store.

They have not only had, like Achsah, "a southland," but they have also had "springs of water" "the upper and the nether springs." They have been "full," like Naphtali, "with the blessings of the Lord," and their fullness has suffered no loss, and they have never had reason to shed a single tear over a blasted fortune." "They have been rich, and increased with goods, and have had need of nothing." "Their fields have brought forth plentifully," and they have, under the necessity of their increased plenitude, been compelled to "pull down their barns and build greater ones," and they have had much goods laid up for many years. Why, then, should they shed a tear?

Ah, but these are privileged ones indeed, if all their earthly plenitude has not impaired and impoverished their spiritual life. But many of earth's poor pilgrims have had to see their worldly possessions prove "a deceitful brook."

God has had a thousand Jobs. Many who were supposed to have been beyond the reach of possible poverty, have been glad for "the crumbs that have fallen from some rich man's table." The world is full of memorials of human reverses. Even the known and recorded instances of human reverses and exhausted fortunes are legion. But the unknown are still more numerous.

Up in some lofty garret sits, sad and solitary, some poor old man clad in beggary and rags, and whose hoary head and trembling limbs wallow in squalid misery—the earlier days of whose life were spent in affluence. Unknown and uncared for, forgotten and lost sight of—he sheds his tears of temporal loss in silence, and alone. No eye is there to pity. It is known that he is poor, but who, or where he came from, no one knows, nor cares.

The busy bustle of commercial life moves on, and heeds him not. Once, or it may be twice, a week, he hobbles down the old staircase, to fetch a pennyworth of bread, or beg a penny from some sympathizing heart. Yet his stooping form, trembling gait, and hoary locks, flowing in the winter's wind, attract no attention. He may, perchance, see among the busy throng, a face he knew in former days, whose most familiar associate was himself; yet now he is forgotten and unknown.

He then returns to his home of poverty, and thinks of other times, reflects upon the days of his prosperity, and weeps awhile. Yet Jesus knows.

Poor man, your home is sad and dark, and the exigency of your poverty ill accords with your careworn strength! Yet "hope in God." For if "He is your refuge and strength," your tears of pinching poverty shall yet be sanctified. Your solitude and loneliness shall draw you nearer to your God. And the very tears, shed so profusely over the grave of former wealth, and joys, and hopes—shall mingle with tears of thankfulness and gratitude that, while the earthly "riches have taken to themselves wings and flown away," yet the "sure mercies of David" are still your portion forever and ever. All things are yours, for you are Christ's and Christ is God's.

Oh, poor aged man! Let the tears of your lonely poverty mingle with the tears of your heart's gratitude, remembering that sanctified poverty is far better than unhallowed wealth. Look at the Nazarene!

But this is only one instance. The world is full of these, though circumstantially diversified; yet a veil covers most. These poor victims shed their tears alone; for they are reluctant to reveal their poverty. An excusable pride, connected with a natural shyness and modesty, which not even the most extreme exigency of the deepest poverty can conquer, is often found in the cellar and garret residents.

Oh, the meager forms of the "respectable" and "genteel" that are found in some dark back rooms in our Metropolis tell sad tales of woe! Some, perhaps, have been the victims of their own folly and self-indulgence, and have been reduced to their present poverty and want through habits of early prodigality and unpardonable extravagance. But there are tens of thousands still, and of the most godly sort, too, who "fear God," and "trust in the name of the Lord," who are hidden in the shadows of their unavoidable poverty. Some of these stood once among the well-to-do people, and received the cordial congratulations of their compeers in the Church of Christ, who are now far removed from the Bethlehem of their prosperity, and dwell in some Moab of poverty, moistening the well-worn robes of former years with the tears of their bitter and lonely life. Yet Jesus knows!

But there is this consolation to those who fear God: Jesus knows all His "hidden ones!" Oh, there is no dark veil that can possibly conceal your poverty from Him, O poor weeping, solitary pilgrim. He knows where your "expectations are cut off." He knows where His Jobs are standing amid life's reverses, and with tearful eyes and heavy hearts, are exclaiming in pious resignation, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."

There is no cottage, cellar, or garret, where lives the poor, careworn pilgrim, with hopes and prospects blasted, where He is not "a very present help in trouble." Oh, yes, He is there, where "all is gone." He is there, where the poor broken-hearted pilgrim is "sitting in sackcloth and ashes," and pondering over his ruined hopes; and, like a peevish child, fretting over the shattered portions of some fragile toy, sits and sighs amid the tattered rags, which once covered him as "purple and fine linen" in the days of his sunny life; yes, Jesus is there too.

Child of poverty! Weep not for the loss of "those things that perish with the using." Weep not over those things which "moth and rust corrupt," and "which thieves break through and steal," so long as you have His presence, which is more than a recompense, and His blessing, which is better than life! He sees those tears of yours, shed as they are in the closet of your poverty, and unseen by any human sympathetic eye.

Dote not on the things of time; grieve not over the silver and the gold that you have lost; they have only changed hands, and they who have them must soon lose them. "Wisdom is better than gold." And if you have Him in your earthly pilgrimage "who is made unto us wisdom," you are "an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ." Look therefore quite away from life's broken toys. Look right away from all the withered gourds. Look far away from all that earth calls good and great up to Him "whose are all our ways." A look upward will often dry the tears of poverty. A look upward will lead the soul to think over the goodly heritage it has, and the mansion in the skies!

Thus the eye, so red and swollen with the tears of earthly loss, shall grow light and glistening with a lively hope. Look upward, oh "bruised reed," to Him who can give you bread in the wilderness and water in the desert. A sense of Jesus' presence, will sanctify the deepest poverty. It can make the cottage, happier than the mansion. It can make the man of tattered rags, have less of heaviness and tears than he who dwells in the "ivory palaces." Let Him be your strength and your song. Drink all your waters from the upper fountain. Ever remember that in your darkest shadows, and in your deepest poverty, O child of poverty and want, that Jesus has "the cordial of your care." Ever remember, and utter it with courage, confidence and hope, "My Jesus knows it all!" Yes, He does. And He feels all His child's deep sorrows, and the fountain of His loving heart overflows with the kindest sympathy. He has the bread and the water at His command. "The cattle upon a thousand hills are His." He can "send you help from the sanctuary, and strengthen you out of Zion."

And if it is for your good and His glory, He can make your brooks to flow again "like the streams of the south." He can turn the empty valleys into green pastures, and make the ravens spare themselves, to feed His hungering child.

But it may be that He has a high and holy purpose in your poverty and tears! He would empty your "nether springs" that you may come more frequently to the "upper springs." He takes away "the whole staff of bread," and makes you "to sit in sackcloth," that you may be brought to live more entirely upon "the living bread that comes down from Heaven," and receive more readily that "change of clothing" that will prove "the garment of praise."

Oh, then, child of poverty, look up to Jesus, dry your tears, and smile again!

The children had now gathered all the straw. Two of the youngest (not including the last comer) lay huddled in one corner; and the third, a fine girl of seven, kneeled down on the rags beside her bed of straw, clasped her hands and closed her eyes, her chemise dropping from her little shoulders to her arms. And O! what a prayer did that child offer up to God! The moment she began praying, I pulled off my hat, and bowed down my head. The deep emotions that passed through my heart can never be expressed. I have heard thousands of prayers, and many of them from God's most gifted servants, but none ever affected me like the prayer of that little child. She repeated "The Lord's Prayer," asked the Lord to bless her father, mother, sisters, brother, and the little baby; finishing with these words: "O God, our Heavenly Father! You are good to us; we would love You and serve You. We have sinned and done wrong many times, but Jesus Christ has died on the cross for us. Forgive us our sins for Jesus' sake. May the Holy Spirit change our hearts, and make us to love You! And when we die, may we go to Heaven."

To see the poor child kneeling on the damp rags beside her bed of straw, and hear her faint clear voice thanking God for His goodness, and praying for the Holy Spirit to change her heart; and this under such circumstances, melted me down to tears. I felt as if some angel of mercy, as in the case of Daniel, would come down and tell the little thing that her prayer was heard. That moment was to me a moment of unspeakable joy, and amply repaid me for all I had done.

I wiped the tears from my eyes, sat down be side the mother's bed, and asked her if she had heard the prayer. "Yes," was her quiet answer, and I felt it too. "The prayers of my children have often lightened my load of sorrow. They are always new to me, though I taught them. But, Oh sir, just before you came into this house last night, when I lay on the floor, and knew in what state I was—nothing to lie down upon, no food for my poor sobbing children, my poor husband seeking work, and, I knew, almost beside himself, in a strange place, and without friends—I thought God's mercy was clean gone. It was a dark hour indeed! I tried to look at the promises, but there was not one for me. One promise that has cheered me many times, and that I had often repeated, I could not call to mind; but it has come back now: "Those who trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion that cannot be moved." Yes, I have it now; but it was a dark hour indeed." -The Dark Hour

"O LORD, my best desire fulfill,
And help me to resign
Life, health, and comfort, to Your will,
And make Your pleasure mine.

"Why should I shrink at Your command,
Whose love forbids my fears?
Or tremble at the gracious hand
That wipes away my tears?"

 

Chapter 4. Tears of BEREAVEMENT

"Jesus wept." John 11:35

"Mary stood at the sepulcher weeping." John 20:11

And is there one who has never known these tears? Is there one who has never stood for the last time beside the bed of a dying relative? Who has walked the path of life without seeing a single coffin enter his house? Or seeing a single grave open to receive one of his "olive plants"? Or it may be, "the delight of his eyes"?

Oh, if so, he has been spared one of the deepest sorrows that belong to our poor fallen humanity; if there is one, there are not many. Few pass long without being called to visit an open grave; and to heave a sad and heavy sigh over departed worth. And those who have, may not be the better for the exemption. For even the relative bereavements of our life have often a very sacred and sanctified influence over our heart; and our spiritual life becomes mellowed thereby. The vacuum created by the death of a long loved one meets us at every turn, and makes us reflect. And these reflections, occasioned by what has so deeply and painfully affected and afflicted us, become, by God's grace, "spiritual promotions," and wean us from the things of this world, and make us think more frequently and soberly of "the world to come, and the life everlasting."

And the tears we have sometimes shed on the cold, pale face of the departed, or on the hand of her who once grasped ours in responsive love, not only touch the face or hand that feels no more; but our own tears affect our own heart. They mellow, soften, and wean it; they make it, through the influence of God's grace, more tender, less earthly, and more sympathetic.

Oh, yes! the very tears we have dropped into the grave, opened to receive the "mortal remains" of a beloved wife or child, father or mother, have never been forgotten. "They were a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men." Men witnessed them flowing; angels saw them fall; and God "put them into His bottle," and now they are "treasured tears."

And these mourning drops are seen on every hand. There is no city, no town, no rural village, where they are not seen. From London down to the most retired country village churchyard, "men go to their long homes, and the mourners go about the streets," and the tears of sad and sorrowing ones wet the ground with their briny dew. Oh, there is no nook, no corner, no hamlet, quiet and retired though it be, and however sparse its population, where there is not now and then a mournful cavalcade, moving sadly and slowly to the silent tomb.

But the tears of bereavement do not cease with those which are dropped, new and fresh, into the new made grave. No! "after many days" the tears may flow again. Ah, even when the moss has grown thick and deep over a mother's grave, loving children will again repair to the sacred spot, and there, beneath the willows waving branch, under the dark shade of the mournful cypress—the eyes, which a few years ago shed their sorrowful flood upon the bright coffin lid of a sainted and pious mother, again drop their tears in grateful memory over her grave whose maternal sympathies they felt in life's first dawn.

Ah, you may see there, walking amid the tombs in yonder cemetery, a lonely man, with a little girl clinging to his hand, robed in the black of death! See him, pale and sad, walking up and down amid the heaps of dust that cover the mansions of the dead! Now he stands gazing at one of those heaps, surmounted by a little unpretending stone, with a simple epitaph attached: THE MEMORY OF THE JUST IS BLESSED.

And as he looks upon that monument, a tribute of his own bereaved affections, he sheds his tears again. Weeping memory calls up the loving past. And while he thinks of her he once took to "the altar of the Lord" with whom he often "walked to the house of God in company;" then looks upon that little orphan girl, walking in her child-like simplicity by his side, thoughtless and unreflective of the past, and in whose young eyes he sees the image of the one he loved, he weeps again; and tries with holy resignation to utter those words of Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Brother, sorrow not as those who have no hope. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and He who has the keys of Hades and of death, says, They shall rise again!"

Nor is this a solitary instance. There is the home of a widow, where once dwelt all the peace and joyous plenty of her marital life; but it is now the house of mourning; and she weeps over the loss of one who was once the partner of her days, of her joys and sorrows. He is now no more. "He is not, for God took him." And though she does not "mourn as those who have no hope," feeling assured that he is "absent from the body, but present with the Lord," "where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest;" yet she feels the deep loss she has sustained the irretrievable loss. And when she reflects upon her slender and almost exhausted resources, her feeble health, her helplessness to procure a subsistence for her poor, sickly, orphan children, her spirit sinks within her, and she "Wets her couch with tears."

True, very true, the Lord is her portion, "He is her Refuge and Strength, a very present help in trouble." And she has found Him so; and is willing and forward to make the confession, and to give a noble testimony to the praise of the glory of His grace. Yet she feels, oh, so deeply, so painfully, the weight of this bereavement. None but the Lord knows the heavy weight of her cross.

He does, and that is her comfort. And in the "night watches," she thinks upon Him who so kindly says, "Leave your fatherless children, and I will preserve them alive. Let your widows trust in Me." And this is her comfort in her affliction. It is the healing balm of her wounds. It is the cordial of her care. She sheds her tears; but they sparkle in the sun-light of God. And Jesus wipes her poor weeping eyes in the dark hours of her widowhood, by giving her some sweet promise that is as "the oil of joy for mourning." And under the sweet and loving influence of this, she exclaims, "I will trust, and not be afraid," for "Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."

And from the days when Abraham and Isaac wept at the cave of Machpelah, over the mortal remains of the beloved Sarah, down to this day, the tears of bereavement have marked the pathway of God's pilgrims. Over the graves of the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the high and the low, they are shed. 'Tis nature's mode of showing her deep heart-grief for losses she has sustained. And none should stay these tears; it would be unkind; it would be unnatural. "Jesus Wept!" John 11:35

Let nature weep over her ruptured ties, over her heavy losses; only let them be sanctified. Let us see to it, that, whether our mourning be for "an only son," for "a wife of youth," or for a father or a mother—the tears we shed affect our heart, as well as our face. If they wean us from the things of this world, then they will do us good.

If, therefore, we are called to shed tears, let us aim to have them sanctified to us. And they will be, if we look through them to the promises of Jesus. If our bereavements lead us to "the God of all comfort," "who comforts us in all our tribulations," they will do us more good than harm. Our losses, then, will be our gains. Our tear-drops, then, will be like morning dew-drops that precede and foretell a sunny day.

O, poor bereaved one, is it so with you? Are you indeed bereaved? Is the deep gash which death has made wide open still? Is the wound still bleeding? Is the active, busy memory still calling up a long train of departed joys and pleasures you have had with those who are now no more? Well, there is One, so full of pity and of love, that He hears your every sigh, and sees the tears of your bereavement rolling from your eyes, big and swollen with their long "night of weeping."

"JESUS WEPT." And if you, poor bereaved one, are sighing and crying in your desolation; and sobbing as you look on your loneliness, look up to Jesus. He visited the sisters of Bethany, and He will visit you. He has lost none of His sympathy by the elevation to which He is raised. "He is the same yesterday, today, and forever."

He looks through the windows of Heaven, and sees His Marys and His Marthas, His Rachels and His Davids, weeping over "their fathers' sepulchers;" and He feels all a brother's love and pity. Look up, poor disconsolate one—look through your weeping eyes up to Him who wipes away the tear, "That secret wets the widow's eye."

There is comfort there. Poor weeping pilgrim, you are His. He called you to follow Him. He made you a widow, or a widower, or an orphan. He knows, too, how much you need His tenderest sympathy. Look up, then, to Him. A view of Him will dry the moistened eyes. A look from Jesus will pour oil upon the troubled waters of the bereaved soul. He may not weep now, though He wept at the grave of Lazarus; yet, He "Feels what every member bears."

Or if you are a poor orphan child, cast upon the cold charity of a selfish world, and shivering in the chilling winds of earth's stern winter, "without father, without mother," a homeless wanderer left on the world's highway—yet, if you are looking up to Jesus in faith and patience, He will speak words of comfort to you. He will say to you, "Come, poor child," "in all your ways acknowledge Me, and I will direct your steps." Oh, poor orphan boy, pensive and sad, are you singing "I never knew a mother's love"? Look up to Him, and say, "My Father, be the Guide of my youth," and He will respond, oh, so kindly and gently, "I will guide you, My child, with My eye." "I will guide you with My counsel, and afterward receive you to glory."

Or, are you a poor aged mourner? Have you been again and again to the open grave, through a long and chequered life—all, one by one, all gone, and you left alone in the winter of your life, to stoop under the weight of loaded years? Oh, are you crying, "I am a lonely wanderer here"?

Yet, be not dismayed; He says, "I am your God." He says, "Lo, I am with you always!" Look up, then, to Him whose interest is yours. "All your springs are in Him." He opened the fountain of your tears; and He can close it. "He kills, and He makes alive. He wounds, and He heals." He means your good by His providence, as well as by His grace. He took what you valued, and so made you weep. He was the occasion of all your tears. And He would have you say, "It is well." And it is well, too. His "holy covenant" is "In all things ordered well." Oh, "sing of mercy and of judgment," poor bereaved one. Look up to your Father who is in Heaven, and He will speak so gently, and so kindly, that your tears shall be turned into smiles, and your sorrows into joys.

"The Lord may gather His roses at whatever season of the year He pleases. The children have but changed a bed in the garden, and are planted up higher, nearer the sun, where they shall thrive better than in this out-field moorground. Let us go on, and faint not; something of ours is in Heaven besides our exalted Savior; and we go on after our own. Time's thread is shorter, by some inches, than it was; and our Captain, who leads us on, is more than a conqueror, and makes us partakers of His conquest and victories." Rutherford's Letters

"My times of sorrow and of joy,
Great God, are in Your hand;
My choicest comforts come from Thee,
And go at Your command.

"If You should take them all away,
Yet would I not repine;
Before they were possessed by me,
They were entirely Thine.

"Nor would I drop a murmuring word,
Though the whole world were gone,
But seek enduring happiness
In You, and You alone!

"Here perfect bliss can never be found,
The honey's mixed with gall:
Midst changing scenes and dying friends,
O be my All-in-All."
   Beddome

 

Chapter 5. Tears of HOLY GRATITUDE.

"And the father said with tears, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!" Mark 9:24

The tears of gratitude are less frequent than they should be. The kind offices of self-denying benevolence and beneficence are not always rewarded by seeing the eyes of their recipients suffused with tears. Too often, all the reward and recompense the devoted and self-denying philanthropists get in return for their kind, self-sacrificing and Christ-like services, is the absence of those whom they have supported! For, often, in this cold and ungrateful world, all the generous-hearted philanthropist will receive will be the cold indifference of ingratitude, prompting the reluctant interrogation, "Where are the nine?"

Yet this too prevalent ingratitude is not universal. There are some, yes, many, who are so deeply affected by the prompt, ready, and generous offices of their noble benefactors, that their thankful hearts, filled to the brim with emotion, flood the eyes with tears; and the very sight of these is as oil to the lamp of benevolence. They feed the kind and generous heart; and the heart of the benefactor, though not seeking the discovery of these tears, yet upon seeing them will be quickened in its works of faith and labors of love. His kind and loving heart will be enlarged. The tears of gratitude, seen in the eyes of that poor lonely orphan child, will make him still more active to promote its welfare. The tears in the eyes of that poor aged widow, whose full heart of thankfulness is rushing down her cheeks in briny drops, touching the chords of human sympathy in the heart of her benefactor, will make him persevere in doing "good unto all men, but especially unto those who are of the household of faith."

But it is the tears of HOLY gratitude that we most admire; the hearts overflowing with gratitude for the divine mercy that has followed them. And there are thousands who are so filled with this holy emotion, so filled with an overpowering sense of the divine goodness and mercy to them in the midst of so much, and so many, imperfections, that they weep for gratitude. The writer of the 103rd Psalm meant something like this when he uttered that beautiful, grateful, and touching soliloquy, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name."

And who that reads this page has not as much reason as David to utter this same language? If he could say, "Behold, I was born in sin and shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me," so can we. We belong to the same stock; and if here, we have been "born again," it was by the same grace, and therefore we are equally "Debtors to mercy alone." Nothing so well befits us as gratitude to Him for "all His benefits;" and especially for the distinguishing benefit of His adopting us into His family.

He having "Taken us from the dunghill and put us among princes, even the princes of His people;" and having made us "fellow-heirs in the grace of life," with those, who "through faith and patience are now inheriting the promises," we should be prompted by the most spontaneous emotions of gratitude to exclaim, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus!" How full of gratitude was he who penned those words! And how much reason had he to be so!

But what of daily mercies? What shall we say when we are compelled to acknowledge that "all our springs are in Him!" What should be our position when we remember that "In Him we live, and move, and have our being!" Think, reader, there is not a breath you draw, not a crumb you eat, not a cup of cold water that wets your parched lips, but is His gift. Mercies are new every morning, and fresh every evening. "His compassions fail not!" Oh, surprising mercy! Grace upon grace! Awake, unthankful soul! Arise from the indolence of your ingratitude! Think of your daily mercies! How much greater than your miseries!

Try and count up the mercies of one single hour! Oh, if we are Christians, our whole life is made up of mercies; and if we were what we ought to be, we would be as full of gratitude for the mercies of the Lord, as David was for the kind and liberal hospitality of Barzillai the old Gileadite. Our hearts would ponder over all the way in which the Lord has led us these many years in the wilderness; and we would be prone to take a grateful survey of the immeasurable grace and boundless love of Jehovah towards us. We should call to remembrance, not only the state of alienation in which we were, and the grace by which we have been brought near; but we should endeavor to see cause for devoutest gratitude in everything that transpires in connection with our life.

Oh, if we were more on the watch-tower, and stood more often on Carmel's height, to look for the clouds of blessing, we would see them coming in the distance. We would then see our prayers answered, and "hear the sound of abundance of rain." We would see that every cloud contains a blessing, and even the things that excite a cold and murmuring spirit are among the all things which "work together for good to them who love God and are the called according to His purpose."

We would be ready, and without the very least reluctance too, to exclaim, "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to those who keep His covenant, and His testimony." We would then see that there was mercy and goodness, favor and love, in all the dispensations of the Almighty. Yes, we would then see, if we "considered the works of the Lord," that all His ways are right. Our poor fainting heart, so prone to misgiving in the day of our adversity, would then exclaim, "I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right, and that You in faithfulness have afflicted me."

Yes, if this were our course, we should see that all was well, and that there was "goodness and mercy following us all the days of our life." "Not one thing fails of all the Lord has promised."

Then, if this is so—if "He feeds us all our life long"—if He leads us and guides us into green pastures, and beside the still waters—if He is our Shepherd, and we can venture to affirm that "we shall not want," but that "He will supply all our needs out of His fullness in glory by Christ Jesus,"—Oh, then, surely there is not only reason, abundant reason, for the most expressive gratitude; but we deserve from Him a severe rebuke, if we are not ready to exclaim, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits." Life's desires would be one circle of praise. We would be ready to say with the poet:

"My days of praise shall never be past,
 While life, or health, or being last,
 Or immoryality endures."

Reader, think over your mercies! Think over their number, their magnitude, their preciousness, and let your full heart pour forth its rich libation of praise. Let your eye be a fountain of tears to express the deep well-spring of gratitude which you feel for all "the riches of His grace." And if you should begin from this present hour; and resolve, under the bond of a holy vow, which should never be violated, that you would express your gratitude to the Father of all our mercies with the most devoted and unwavering promptitude; yet the measure of your gratitude could never be at all adequate or commensurate with the grace, mercy and peace, which you have received at His hands! Think of this, and see if there is no room for such a degree of gratitude as should melt the eyes to tears.

But tears of gratitude cannot be put onto the eyes. They must come from within. The tears of the crocodile are all put on drops of the Nile. But if we would have the tears of gratitude, and stand before God as poor unworthy recipients of His mercy, we must feel the dependence of our life and our all upon Him. See how rich and how precious His gifts are! See how constant His supplies are! See how, notwithstanding all the waywardness, and perverseness, and untowardness of our life—He grants us "every good and every perfect gift!"

Our coldness in His service; our diminished zeal in His cause; our too weak and staggering faith; and our frequent displays of perverse irritation and impatience, so dishonoring and insulting to Him—do not alter the stream of His favors! He does not dry up our brook Cherith; nor exhaust our stores; nor make the heavens as brass; nor cut us off in His hot displeasure. No! "His compassions fail not." He says, "I am the Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed."

Come then, my soul, stand here and weep for sorrow, that you have not wept for your ingratitude. Weep here at the foot of this all-gracious and heart-cheering Promiser, that you have not wept for your unthankfulness over mercies as countless as the sand."

Oh, try and look at each mercy, singly and apart. Stretch forth the hand of faith; and take each favor, and weigh it in the scales of the sanctuary. Ask how much it cost your precious Lord Jesus, and then see if your eyes do not melt into gratitude as you view it coming through the cross of your dear Savior. View every blessing as related to the cross—as procured and purchased by the sufferings of the cross; and it will endear every mercy to you. The mercy will remind you of the cross, and the cross will tell of the agony and bloody sweat of Him who procured our mercies by "bearing our sins in His own body on the tree." And there, beneath its sacred shadow, stand and weep the tears of gratitude and thankfulness, that you are blessed with all spiritual and temporal blessings, through the stream, the purple stream of Calvary.

In and by that cross, flows life, and health, and peace. There is nothing which comes to us, poor unworthy rebels, that is not the result and consequence of "His agony and bloody sweat, His cross and passion." And this fact should not only endear Jesus to us, and make every mercy that comes through it appear more precious and valuable, but it should give birth to gratitude, and nourish it when born.

Look then at all you are, all you have, and all you hope to be, in the light of the bloody tree. Let the light that shines from the cross be reflected in every mercy; so that your gratitude may stand like a poor dependent recipient, adoring the Crucified One with tearful thankfulness! Oh, look at each blessing of your life, and say, before you use it: "This was the fruit of my Savior's agony. This mercy must be used with wisdom and thankfulness, for it cost His heart a painful groan."

If life is thus spent, and each and every mercy is so viewed, the tear of gratitude will often start spontaneous from the eye. Nor will the blessings of God lose their sweetness by being thus looked at in relation to the cross. But rather, they will be enhanced in their value to us. We shall see Jesus crucified in all our mercies. We shall see Jesus as the spring of all our blessings. And as all things have come to us through so costly a medium, we should never forget the Giver of every good and perfect gift, and constrain Him to say, "Where are the other nine?" But we should, with the deepest emotions of gratitude, regard every mercy as a blood-bought favor. And if we can look at all our mercies as procured to us, "not without blood," and that too, "the precious blood of Christ," we shall be disposed and constrained to cry," Thanks be unto God for this unspeakable gift."

Oh, believer, if you would be grateful, if you would feel as you should feel, and be as you ought to be, view all your mercies as related to "the blood of His cross." It will excite, foster, and cultivate the habit of holy gratitude; and fill you with the deepest emotions of gratitude; and cause you to feel overwhelmed with thankfulness to Jesus, leading you to weep beneath His cross, until you shall exclaim,

"Here, Lord, I give myself away,
 'Tis all that I can do!"

 

Chapter 6. Tears of the BACKSLIDER

"Peter went out and wept bitterly!" Matthew 26:75

So long as there are backsliders in the world there will be these tears. It is a sad fact that the Church has to record any. It is her sorrow and her grief that she has to expostulate with "any brother that walks disorderly." Yet there is the painful fact. And distressing as it may, and must be, to "the household of faith," of which he forms a part, and grieving as it may be to a devoted and faithful minister of Christ, yet it is the cause of a still greater degree of sorrow to the poor backslider when "he comes to himself." Oh, then it is that those words of the prophet are illustrated, where Jehovah is represented as overhearing backsliding Ephraim, "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus: You have chastised me and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn me, and I shall be turned, for You are the Lord my God" (Jeremiah 30.18).

Here we have but an illustration of the state and condition of every backslider "from the right ways of the Lord." The fulfillment of the divine warning and prophecy is true to the letter: "Be sure your sins will find you out." And these sad "bemoanings" and tearful eyes declare it. Every wandering and wayward Ephraim will find, sooner or later, that, like poor Peter, "The way of transgressors is hard." It ever has, and ever must be. For unless "conscience is seared as with a hot iron," and so disqualified for the discharge of its important office, it, will not fail to smite the guilty wanderer in every moment of calm and quiet reflection. It will give him no rest, pointing its finger to the guilty sin-spots that have tarnished the life and character; and holding up to his view his wanderings and his backslidings, until he is "covered with shame and confusion of face;" and "bemoans himself," "repenting in sackcloth and ashes."

And, not uncommonly, the case of the backslider is most distressing. He seems often to have gone so far as not to be able to retrace his steps: he has got over into "By-path meadow," and the mists of darkness have gathered around him: his compass is lost, and he is at his wit's end; and for a time it is as true of him, as it was of Esau, "He found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears."

Ah, it is easy to backslide, but it is very hard to return. And most have tears enough without increasing their number with backsliding. For, as self-sought trials are the heaviest, so self-procured tears are the bitterest. And oh, if those who have, up to this time, "kept their garments unspotted from the world," only knew half the sorrow and distress of mind that follows the backslider, and like some dark enchanting specter under the shades of night, scares the poor, guilty, agitated mind—he would never "draw back," but hold on his way; and having clean hands, he would "wax stronger and stronger."

Oh, if all poor Peter felt and experienced were left on record—if he had inscribed on paper, and left it as a testimony for "generations to come," we would have seen how deep the sorrow and distress of those who "follow the Lord afar off," and dishonor "that worthy name by which we are called."

But we have it condensed in six words, "He went out, and wept bitterly." And those tears were the drippings of a heart rent with inward agony. Oh, how his poor guilty conscience would smite him, and accuse him of those deeds and words of Gabbatha! Oh, how the scene of that judgment hall would rise before him, and haunt and disturb every trace of peace and repose! His heart was like "the troubled sea, that cannot rest, whose waters stir up mire and dirt." He knew too well, painfully well, the meaning of those inspired words, "There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked." For the peace lost by the backslider in his wanderings can never be restored to him until his poor sinful "heart is sprinkled from an evil conscience." There will be nothing but distress and sorrow, and fears and tears, until his "iniquity is purged," and "he has received of the Lord's hand double for all his sins." Tears will be his food day and night, until he cries unto the Lord, "Surely after I was turned, I repented; and after I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth" (Jeremiah 31:19).

And when Jesus, who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, hears our poor "bemoanings," He will say to His poor Ephraim, as He did to Hezekiah, "I have seen your tears." Oh, yes! He will say, "Is Ephraim My dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still: therefore My affections are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord." This will wipe the stain from his heart, and the tears from his eyes. For though the word of the Lord, spoken as a rebuke, is "quick, and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart;" yet the words of peace and pardon which Jesus speaks to poor returning backsliders is O so sweet, so kind, so gentle, that it is like the dew upon the tender herb, or the loving words of the prodigal's father.

That very gentleness and meekness of Christ, so full of mysterious power, melts the heart of His wayward prodigal into tears. For thus does He speak: "Return, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married unto you." And with that call and invitation—that touching invitation to return, He also gives a gracious promise of a cordial reception, a full forgiveness and unalienated love: "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely: for My anger is turned away from him."

And if any words, uttered under any circumstances, have the power to melt the heart to tears, these have. They are full of inimitable tenderness, spoken as they were under such aggravated circumstances, and expressed as they were by One so grievously dishonored.

We are astonished at the softness and gentleness of the terms. And yet it is just this feature that brings the penitential tear; and this is the method which Jesus adopts in bringing back His poor wandering prodigals. Wounded love, and insulted dignity, saying to the rebellious children, Return unto Me!

Oh, dear reader, have you backslidden? Have you fallen by your iniquity? Have you for a time run well, and then in time of temptation fallen away? Have you still the marks of the fall upon your white robes? Has your "fine gold become dim?" Were you a fair child of hope and promise on that bright morning when you first started in the new and living way? And have you since "made shipwreck of faith, and of a good conscience?" Have you disappointed the expectations of a lively hope? Have you made a pastor's heart to bleed, and a pastor's eyes to weep? Is he who "received you in the Lord with all gladness, and gave you the right hand of fellowship, into the communion of saints, compelled to say, when hearing of your backsliding state, "I write unto you with many tears." (2 Corinthians 2:4).

Oh, is it so? Then "return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon you, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." "Cover the altar of the Lord with your tears." Come unto Him with weeping and with supplication. Go, cover your face with the mantle of your shame, and "stand behind Him, weeping." And then your tears, oh, poor backslider, will fall at His feet, and the drops flowing from your broken and contrite heart will be treasured by Him "who wills not the death of a sinner, but would rather that he turn from his wickedness and live." The light falling from His sunny face will dry up those tears, and your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

Or, is the reader of this page the promise and hope of a mother's love? And have you greyed her hair, once black as a raven's wing? and wrinkled her face, once fair in virgin form, by your long and guilty wanderings? Did your pious mother watch and pray until she saw you as a green olive tree in the temple of the Lord"? or as "a pillar in His house"? and did she then make her boast in the Lord, and with all a mother's love, and pious gratitude, exclaim with exulting delight, "I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in the truth!"

And, oh, have you blasted that fair bud of hope in her kind, gentle, and loving bosom? Oh, are you, poor wandering child, "bringing down her grey hairs with sorrow to the grave?" Return, O backsliding child, you are sinning against a mother's love; you are sinning against a Savior's blood! Oh, return for her sake—return for your sake—return for Christ's sake. Think, dear reader, of those tears she has shed over your apostasy, and go and shed your's into her wounded heart. They will heal the wounds your sins have made. Nothing else will heal those wounds but the tear-drops of her backsliding, yet repenting child. Go, while she is "covering the altar of the Lord with her tears" for your wanderings, and pleading before Jesus for your return. Go, poor child of guilt, and mingle your tears with her's, and her sad and tearful face shall brighten amid the joys of a prodigal returned.

Or, are you a father, whose wandering child has gone in the way of Cain," and "forsaken the fountain of Living Waters," spurning your counsel and your love? and does your heart feel sorrowful as you think over all the kind care and fond indulgence you have expended on that "thankless child"? Still, be tender-hearted. Is he an Absalom? Oh, then, be a David, and say, "Deal gently for my sake, with the young man, even with Absalom." He is still your child; and though he has wounded your heart, and spurned a father's sage advice, disgraced his Christian profession, and dishonored the God of all grace, he is still your child. Oh, say still, with all a father's love, "Is Ephraim my dear son? I do earnestly remember him still." Break his heart with kindness; melt him to tears with your love. A very gentle touch will open the fountain that holds the tear. And if your hand is not gentle enough to touch it, ask Jesus to touch it who has all power,

"To melt his heart to tenderness,
 His eyes to flowing tears."

But if you are no backslider, but are standing fast in the liberty with which Christ has made His people free," rejoice with trembling, and regard the all-important injunction, "Let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall." If you have never shed the tear of the backslider, thank God and take courage.

Still, watch unto prayer. For backslidings first begin in the heart; and Jehovah-Jesus says that, "backsliders in heart shall be filled with their own ways." Now is the time for the utmost vigilance, if you would avoid the tears. While you are strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, don't forget that there is " a strong man armed, who goes up and down in the earth." "Be not ignorant of his devices." Watch against "the wiles of the devil." He carries poisoned arrows; and his quiver is full of them; but he has no balm, He can create tears, though he sheds none. It is easy to yield; but it will require all your strength to stand fast. "Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth." Let it be said of you that "His sling was in His hand." "Prevention is better than cure." You may rejoice, and have a tearless eye, while you are steadfast in the faith; but only yield, and you are undone; yield, and your strength is gone; let Delilah clip your locks, and you may shake yourself in vain. Think well of all the consequences of yielding to any of the overtures presented by "the world, the flesh, or the devil." The viper may be in a bundle of sticks at Malta, or in a basket of flowers in Egypt. And if it should cling to your hand, you may not be quite so successful as Paul to "cast it into the fire and feel no hurt." Be sure that sin has a sting, and it never loses it, "no, not for an hour." And many a poor backslider has felt its venom burning in his heart, and flowing through his eyes.

A Lady at Huddersfield relates her own case. "Once I was in the right way. I drew him again into the world, and I am now the most miserable of beings. When I lie down I fear I shall wake in Hell. When I go out full dressed, and seem to have all the world can give me I am ready to sink under the terrors of my own mind. What greatly increases my misery is the remembrance of the dying speech of my own sister, who told me she had stifled convictions, and obstinately fought against light to enjoy the company of the world. 'Sister,' said she, 'I die without hope. Beware this is not your case!' "But, indeed, I fear it will be."

Now, if we would avoid these terrible heart-breakings, and sad and distressing reflections, and the tears—the unavailing tears that follow, let us "cleave unto Him with full purpose of heart." Let the heart be established with grace, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Cleave close to Jesus, who is the refuge of the weary, and the support of the tempted. He can wipe away the tears of the backslider, but it will be better for him never to shed them. They leave deeper marks than any other. They accompany sorrow more bitterly and more lasting than any other.

Cleave close to Jesus then, and you shall never shed them. They are never shed at the feet of Jesus, except by those who have first "followed Him afar off." Oh, let your heart be under His care. Walk with Him. Always be "near to Him." Keep your eye fixed on Him; and whether you are poor or rich, if He is your constant Guide and Companion, you will never know the tears of the backslider; but your path shall be one, not perhaps without its dark shades, yet it will be one of "peace and joy in believing."

Foolishness is bound up in the heart even of those made wise unto salvation, and the rod of correction is essential to its dislodgment. This rod our heavenly Father holds righteously, and lovingly employs. It is in His hand. He may use the creature to inflict it, but it falls not heavier, or with one stroke more than He wills. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens. As many as I love I rebuke and chasten. And for what end? Oh, the greatest, the grandest, that the mind of God can contemplate—our holiness! 'By this therefore shall the iniquity of Israel be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin.' When, by His rod of correction, He purges us of our cherished sin—this is the fruit, the blessed fruit, to take away sin, so making us partakers of His holiness. Yes! every altar must be broken, every idol must be dislodged, that God may be All-in-all.

The chief and most hideous of all idols is self-will, and the most sinful and degrading of all idolatry is self-idolatry. To prevent this in the experience of the apostle Paul, when he descended from the third Heaven, and came back laden with the glorious revelations of the invisible world, God pierced him with the thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure. Be not surprised if seasons of close communion with God should be followed by the discipline that lays you in the dust. It is God's holy will that His saints should lie low in a low place. The sweet fertilizing springs of His grace run among the valleys, and the soul whose dwelling-place is there, shall bloom and blossom the rose. Then, 'as God wills' be the discipline of His love, if such the fruit and flowers it yields.

Oh, holy and blessed correction, that chastens and calms my will, hushing my rebellious and agitated spirit to the quiet repose of the child weaned of his mother. Smite, Lord! the rod is in my Father's hand. Smite! if Your correction subdues but one sin of my heart. Smite! if my truant affections but return to You. Smite! if Jesus but becomes more endeared to my soul. Smite! if, reproved, humbled, and sanctified, I am brought nearer to You, my God, willing to be just where and what You will approve. Smite! I welcome, I kiss the rod."

"Let Your will, not mine, be done;
 Let Your will and mine be one."

"Jesus! let Your pitying eye
Call back a wandering sheep;
False to You, like Peter, I
Would gladly, like Peter, weep;
Let me be by grace restored,
On me be all its freeness shown;
Turn and look upon me, Lord!
And break my heart of stone."
   Octavius Winslow

 

Chapter 7. Tears of CHRISTIAN JOY

"Break forth into joy and sing together." Isaiah 52:9

The tears of joy and of gladness blend with the smiles of the human countenance. When some dark and lowering storm-cloud has been, to all human appearance, about to discharge its contents upon some poor, crushed and bruised child of sorrow, but by some mysterious providence, it has "passed away like the morning cloud and the early dew"—it has made that poor, desponding heart, weep for joy. Tears have started from that saddened face; not, indeed, tears of sorrow and inward grief, but the brighter tears of bounding joy and gladness. Then, the heart, just now crushed like a bruised reed, and timorous with the apprehension of impending danger and trial—is now all life, buoyancy, and gratitude for the discovery of delivering mercy, and is ready to exclaim, in the ecstasy of his present deliverance, "I will sing of mercy and of judgment; to You, O Lord, will I sing."

Or, you may see the tears of joy in that poor pilgrim who has been walking through darkness and having no light. The journey, through "the pathway of safety" and "the right road to the city of habitation," is yet so dark that there is no "rent in the cloud"—no "light beyond"—no "daybreak," and "stars that gild the morn." No. All is dark—one vast, all-pervading darkness.

Jesus, "the Sun of Righteousness," who once arose upon his dark and sinful soul as the day dawn, and "with healing in His wings," seems to have sunk behind some western cloud, and left no bright rays of His presence and glory behind Him!

Tis midnight with his soul. "All, all is darkness." "Neither sun nor stars for many days appear," and perhaps "no small tempest lay on him," and "all hope that he will be saved is taken away;" but, just at the point of the deepest and darkest hour, and when, like Abraham, a horror of great darkness has fallen on him—oh, just then, the "day breaks, and the shadows flee away," and the poor pilgrim is then led to know how true it is that "sorrow may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." When he was in great heaviness through manifold temptations, it was "a night of weeping" with him, and his poor soul, all alone in its darkness, exclaimed in heaviness and gloom, "Oh that it were as in months that are past, as in the days when God preserved me; when His candle shined upon my head, when by His light I walked through darkness!" But now the day has dawned again, and Jesus, the Day-Star, has risen in his heart, and he has said, "I will sing of Your mercy in the morning."

Sorrow now has departed with the shades of night, and joy has come in with the wings of the morning. And the once lost, but now restored peace and confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ, fills the soul with such ecstasy and delight as makes him exclaim, "My voice shall You hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto You, and will look up." Then is the Lord's promise fulfilled, "Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your health shall spring forth speedily: and your righteousness shall go before you; and the glory of the Lord shall be your reward."

And if this restored light, and peace, and confidence, shall lead to a life of holy diligence in some works of faith, and labors of love; then, also, shall this promise he realized, after your long night of darkness and sorrow, "And if you draw out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall your light rise in obscurity, and your darkness be as the noonday."

And then, oh, then, there is joy and peace indeed. Tears of joy fill the eyes that have been made red with sorrow over the absence of Him who is "the joy and the rejoicing of your heart." For a fresh discovery of Christ to the soul of the believer, after the hidings of His face have been so long experienced, "fills the heart with more joy and gladness, than in the time when their wine and oil increase." Only let Christ come again in the same freshness and power, as when He first kindled the flame of first love on the altar of our hearts—and then will flow through the channels of the soul something analogous to "the river, the streams whereof make glad the city of our God—the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High."

Blessed state! joyous privilege! Whose eye does not fill with very joy, and whose heart is not filled with gladness, when He comes again "as the light of the morning, when the sun arises, even a morning without clouds!" Oh, 'tis then the heart is made like an Eden and the soul like a Paradise. It is then our sorrow is turned into joy. Here is the joy of the presence of Jesus!

And is it so with you, dear reader? Are you now restless in the night watches? Has that poor soul of yours been like the affrighted disciples? Is Jesus gone from you? Are you seeking Him sorrowing? Are you looking for Him in the highways, and crying, "Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?" Oh, then, look up, for Jesus "comes forth to meet you." He is even now on His way. His distant footsteps may be heard by the listening ear. Hark! Hark! "It is the voice of your beloved! behold He comes, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." He is drawing nearer and nearer, poor child of sorrow! He is even here, now, down in the valley with you—with you in this very darkness—with you to turn your darkness into noon-day. Hark! He is speaking to you, "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away!"

Now is the mourning turned into dancing. And the tears that were, awhile ago, but the expression of the heart's sorrow, are now the flowing streams of that full and exuberant joy which follow upon a new discovery of Jesus to the soul.

Now go and "rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory." He is with you. Cleave close to Him; for tears of joy, as well as tears of sorrow, may be shed at His feet. For here in a qualified, as well as there in an unqualified sense, it may be said, "In His presence there is fullness of joy!"

But the tears of joy may also be seen in the poor sinful prodigal.

Oh, look! see that poor wayward child of sin, brought to sit on the stool of penitence, not now to sigh over a broken and a contrite heart, but to "rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory." Oh, there is no sight that can fill the soul with greater pleasure than to see the tears of holy joy sparkling in the eyes of a child of sin; when the heart passes from a state of deep and painful contrition into a state of peace and joy in believing. When the poor contrite heart is called to put off the sackcloth of sorrow, and "the spirit of heaviness" for "the oil of joy," "and the garment of praise." Oh, then, there are tears of joy and gladness indeed; and, like raindrops on the windows on an April day, that shine and sparkle in the sunbeams—so the tears of joy that stand on the saddened faces of God's poor prodigals and penitents shine under the splendor of the Sun of righteousness.

Oh, is there one poor sinner reading this who has the tears of joy? Is there one who has pardon sealed, -peace found,-faith in action, and hope realized? Then have you good reason for the tear of joy. And if angels can weep, they weep with you. Oh, if angelic spirits can shed celestial tears, they will mingle theirs with yours; for "there is joy among the angels of God over one sinner that repents."

Joy follows upon spiritual sorrow, smiles follow tears more quickly than we suppose. When there are many trials we think that we must go through a lengthened process before we can emerge from them; whereas the heaviness of the night may be ended suddenly, and the morning of joy dawn, without any long preliminary twilight.

"Reader! God may make all your tears glisten with brightness in a moment, just as the rain-drops do, when the sun bursts out suddenly from behind a cloud, and pendant jewels hang from every thorn, as well as from every spray and leaf."

Whenever a Christian man yields to a mournful, desponding spirit, under his trials; when he does not seek grace from God to battle manfully and cheerfully with trouble; when he does not ask his heavenly Father to give him strength and consolation whereby he may be enabled to rejoice in the Lord at all times, he dishonors the high and mighty, and noble principles of Christianity, which are fitted to bear a man up, and make him happy even in times of the deepest affliction. It is the boast of the Gospel that it lifts the heart above trouble; it is one of the glories of our religion that it makes us say, 'Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.'

When the almighty Comforter sheds His sweet influence on the soul, displays the all-sufficient sacrifice of a divine Redeemer, and witnesses with our spirits, that we are savingly interested in the Savior, and, by this means, are children of God; then what a pleasing change ensues! Former anxieties are remembered no more. Every uneasy apprehension vanishes. Soothing hope and delightful expectations succeed. The countenance drops its dejected deportment; the eyes brighten with a lively cheerfulness, while the lips express the heartfelt satisfaction in the language of thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. In this sense, merciful God, be as the dew unto your redeemed people! Pour upon them the continual dew of your blessing. And, O! let not my fleece be dry, while heavenly blessing descends upon all around.

"Not unto us, but You alone,
Blessed Lamb! be glory given;
Here shall Your praises be begun,
And carried on in Heaven.

"The hosts of spirits now with Thee
Eternal anthems sing:
To imitate them here, lo! we
Our hallelujahs bring.

"Until we the veil of flesh lay down,
Accept our weaker lays;
And, when we reach Your Father's throne,
We'll give You nobler praise!"

 

Chapter 8. Tears of SYMPATHY

"I wrote to you with many tears." 2 Corinthians 2:4

"I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears." Acts 20:31

"Oh that my eyes were a fountain of tears." Jeremiah 9:1

"He beheld the city, and wept over it." Luke 19:41

One says: "There is a sacredness in tears; they are not the marks of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love." And they often arise in us from the feeling or emotion of sympathy. This emotional quality of our nature, has been implanted by God our Creator, for some wise and good end. The sight of another's woes, unless our nature has become brutalized, excites within us a feeling of sympathy; this sympathy is intensified by the existence of some relationship, or long-cherished friendship. For, if the sufferer is one whom we have long known and loved, and for whose welfare and interest we have a special concern and regard, we feel so deeply affected, upon a discovery of his affliction or misfortune, that our sympathy can find no vent to express itself without tears.

Yet we would not affirm that sympathy cannot be expressed without tears; for there are many who deeply feel for the misfortunes of others, and exhibit and express their sympathy in the most practical manner, and Christ-like spirit, whose eyes are never wet with tears of sympathy. But nature is prone to express its sympathy, compassion, or commiseration, by these natural expressions of human feeling. And as a general rule, we look for them; we admire them; we love them. We take them as an unmistakable index of true, real, sincere fellow-feeling. All are not equally sensitive, and therefore all are not so easily excited to express their sympathy in this way. Even "Jesus wept!"

But, oh, how we love to see the great drops of sympathy rolling down the cheeks of a devoted and faithful friend, as he stoops and weeps over the sad misfortunes of his fellow! There is something angelic in the sight—something Christ-like in it. We feel prompted spontaneously to say, "Behold, how he loved him!" And, oh, how healing these tear-drops are to these crushed ones, who have fallen into some sad reverses in life! They seem like balm to the wounds. They affect the heart of the poor sufferer with the balm of sympathy. The sight of them soothes, for a moment, the agony of his pain. The poor bruised one looks at them as they flow from our eyes, and they relieve his cheerless heart. And if the mutual friendship is sanctified by piety on either side, those tears are then of priceless worth. For there is no sight beneath the sun that is so lovely, and so attractive, as the expression of tearful sympathy between two who are "friends in Christ"—"kindred in Christ." To have the kindly and friendly visits of one who is a "friend of the Bridegroom," in the hours of life's sorrows and misfortunes; to come and wipe the clammy face; shake the enfeebled hand; cheer the drooping heart; drop a tear or two at our feet; and wrestle with us, and for us, at the throne of the heavenly grace, is one of the greatest comforts on earth.

Oh, how we have cheered up, when some well-known face has appeared to us in such seasons, and spoken some kind promise, directed our eye to some sweet and precious portion of divine truth, and mingled his consoling and sympathetic greeting with tears of sympathy. Then we have felt a real reviving. The tenderness of the tones in speaking, the earnestness and importunity of the intercessory prayer, and the tears, have all united to impress us with a deep conviction of the reality of the friendship, and the sincerity of the sympathy.

But, oh, poor weary pilgrim! traversing earth's dreary waste, perhaps all sad and solitary, there is One, even Jesus—One above all others, who, though He weeps no more,—drops no more the tear of sympathy with, and over His poor pilgrims, yet He feels still "what every member bears."

If you are a poor friendless pilgrim—one of the world's outcasts, wending your lonely way through the deep prairies of this earthly wilderness, without one single eye to weep in sympathy over your misfortunes, to console you with his kindly words, yet you have one in Him. True! His sympathy is now tearless; but it is, nevertheless, real and actual. Yes, He feels for you; and were it possible, and needful, He would weep for you.

Is it thus with you? Do you seem to yourself to stand alone in a heartless world? Do you weep in solitude, and find no responsive tear? Are brethren in Christ ignorant of your woes, or unconcerned, or heartless? Do they see you crushed and bleeding by the wayside of life? And do they not act the "Good Samaritan?" Oh, do earthly friends "pass by on the other side?" Do they see your tears, and yet not weep with those who weep? And is your poor heart nearly broken for want of sympathy? Would the tears of some loving friend cheer your lonely hours? Oh, then, look up, for you are not friendless, There is Jesus—your Jesus—precious Jesus, full of pity, looking down upon you now. "He is mindful of your tears;" and were it possible, He would mingle them with His.

Therefore, though you should lack one on earth to weep in sympathy with you; though you should see every eye dry and unconcerned; yet He is not. Jesus cannot be an unconcerned spectator; because He has the deepest possible interest in you—an eternal interest! He knows how you feel the lack of human sympathy; He knows how even the tears of one who is "of like passions with yourself," would cheer and comfort your heart; and therefore, when others fail, when earthly streams dry up, and human friends forsake—He comes in and says, "Fear not, I am with you."

And is not His presence more than a recompense for the loss of every Elihu, and Bildad, and Eliphaz? Oh, yes, it is! He is our all, and in all. Though Jesus sheds no tears of loving, tender sympathy now; yet the bright radiance of His sunny countenance falls upon the tear-drops of sorrow that stand in the eyes of His pilgrims.

Learn then to know that tears are not essential to sympathy. None feel half so much for me as my precious Lord Jesus. None know half so much of me and my circumstances, as He does. He knows the number of my tears, and the causes of every one of them. And His sacred heart bleeds, as it were, tears of blood for me.

He looks upon me, a poor solitary one—unthought of, uncared for, unpitied, and therefore comes over to me like "The Good Samaritan." "He comes where I am"—just where I am—and He bends over me in all the deep heart-sympathy of "a Brother born for my adversity." Yes, He comes to me in the very gloom and darkness of my adversity; while "His head is filled with the dew, and His locks with the drops of the night."

He does not wait "until the day-breaks, and the shadows flee away," before He comes! His sympathy, though tearless, comes before "the eleventh hour." Others may, or may not, come—but Jesus is sure to come! While, therefore, we would not despise, but rather seek, and appreciate, the tearful sympathy of loving and tenderhearted earthly friends, let us set the highest possible estimate upon the true and abiding sympathy of Him who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever."

While here we are so thoroughly human that we are often most deeply affected by what comes to us through the human voice, the human hand, and the human eye. Hence, though all these are not equal to the realized presence of Him who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities; yet there is a charm, a solace, and a consolation in the human sympathy, which touches our hearts with peculiar force.

What a power there is in the tears of a looking up to the all gentle and sympathizing Jesus. Again and again we are told, "Cease from man, for whereof is he to be accounted of?" And all these failures of human sympathy should lead us nearer to Jesus. He is ever near at hand, and not afar off. And, oh, how much better to have His kind and loving smile, to hear His sweet and soul-cheering voice speaking even in the gentlest whisper, amid the storms of sorrow, than to be resting merely upon the tearful sympathy of our fellow creatures; however close the relationship; however steadfast their fidelity; and however tender and loving their deportment! It is, after all, but the sympathy of the creature.

When we are walking down through the deep dark "valley of tears," and "passing through the myrtle trees down in the bottom," how much better to have Him who is the Man of God's right hand—the Man Christ Jesus—standing with us, and looking upon our reverses, and saying, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age!" If He is with us, then our tears of adversity, though they cannot now elicit from Him the visible pledges of His sympathy, will not fail to secure His "very present help in our times of trouble."

And is it so now, poor weary one? Are you now looking for someone to sympathize—to pity—to mingle his tears with yours? Look up to Jesus! He is looking down upon you. He sees how you long for someone to feel with you, and for you; and He will do more and better than weep with you. He will pour His "oil of joy" into the wounds of your sorrow, and do infinitely more and better than you can either ask or think. Let Him be your Refuge.

Sympathy in Him is a perfection. Tears, though valued by us, are but the mere human appendages. We have all the sympathy and pity we can possibly need in Him. We may say with Paul, "I have all, and abound." And He is ALL to us.

Do we want sympathy? It is in Jesus!

Do we want grace? It is in Him!

Do we want strength? It is in Him!

Are you walking through the valley of sorrows? There is all Pity in Him! "For as a father pities His children, even so the Lord pities them that fear Him." Tried child of faith, Jesus is speaking these words to you!

"Often had Jesus turned to this city as a loving mother turns to a wayward child; but it spurned His embrace: as a hen spreads her wing over her brood, so would He have sheltered it from the coming storm, but it would not. The Son of David has come, but Jerusalem has no throne for Him; her prophet speaks, but she will not listen to His voice; she will give Him a cross; she will drive the nails; she will plait His crown, while her children exclaim, His blood be upon us and our children! This Jesus knew, and wept; but wept in love. How hard the hearts which made Him thus to weep! Many are the tears which fell o'er Jerusalem's woes, but none like His. Oh! hallowed scene! Approach with reverence, my soul, where Jesus weeps, and learn to feel. What! shall He weep alone? Have you no tear for those who pierce His heart, despise His scepter, and His Gospel spurn!" W.P. Balfern

 

Chapter 9. There Are No Tears in HEAVEN.

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Revelation 21:4

SWEET and precious thought to the believer—there are no tears in Heaven! No, not one! This world is well called "a valley of tears, and the valley of weeping." The title is true, and most appropriate. No term could better describe it. And truly it is so, for it is full of tears. There tears everywhere. There are the tears of weeping infants—the tears of petulant childhood—the tears of disappointed youth—the tears of anxious manhood, and the tears of hoary old age.

The world is full of tears. Were they all gathered together they would make one mighty stream. That deep river would never be like the brook Cherith that dried up—it would be an ever widening river, deepening in its progress, like that river Ezekiel saw in his vision, it would have the weeping willows on either side, and flow down through all the plains of time, and widen until it reached the eternal world, and then evaporate forever! For there are no tears in Heaven!

There, sorrow and sighing have forever fled away. A tear in Heaven! Impossible! A tear in Heaven! It would make an angel weep! It would stop the harps of Heaven with all their lofty and seraphic strains. A tear in Heaven! It would fill all other eyes with tears, until all Heaven would weep aloud.

Oh, no! there are no tears in Heaven. All their causes are found on this side of Jordan. All that can excite or contribute to tears, is found only in this world. Nothing that could give cause for weeping will be found "beyond the river." All the willows are on this side. There was a Bochim in the earthly Canaan, but there is none above.

"Here, amid the tents of strangers,
I my cross must carry still,
Where these saints once went through dangers
My appointed course fulfill.
Here, where oft my strength appears
Melting into feeble tears.

"So the wish grows deeper, fonder,
Friend of souls Your face to see,
In Your pleasant Salem, yonder,
Where no tear nor sigh may be:
And God's presence on the sight
Shines in pure, unshadowed light."

Such will be Heaven. A tearless place. And when we reflect upon the multiplied causes that give rise to the sorrows of this poor world, and think how impossible it is, with tearless eye, to pass through the dark valleys "on this side of Jordan," we are compelled to say with David, "My tears have been my food day and night." This revealed truth, therefore, should excite hope in the hearts of those whose life and path has been one of special trial and peculiar sadness. And if, through the heavy pressure of earth's toils and burdens, such have felt constrained to say with Job, "I would not live always!" let them still remember that there is a brighter day before them, and a clearer sky. A land where no cloud ever darkens, and no sorrow ever comes.

And the revelation of Heaven, as a place where "God shall wipe away all tears from off all faces," is given as consolation to those who water their couch with tears all night. Life's journey is rough and rugged, and most Christian pilgrims find it so.

But one of the most consoling comforts which the God of all grace has given to His wearied pilgrims is the promise, assurance, and prospect, of a tearless Heaven! A place where,

"Not a wave of trouble rolls
 Across the peaceful sea."

And this promise and prospect, so assured as it is by Jehovah's irrevocable and infallible promise, so rich and beautiful as it is in idea, description, and Scripture metaphor—is full of consolation to all who are going "from strength to strength until they appear in Zion before God!"

It would be well if we all could, writer as well as reader, draw closer to this word of consolation, and especially so in any of life's sorrowful seasons. Then, oh, then, to be able to look up and to say, "There are no tears in Heaven!" This will dry our tearful eye. It will melt our heart into the most submissive resignation, and make it feel, not only more ready to endure those things which are most trying, but it will make the soul feel willing to depart at any moment.

This feature in the future blessedness of Heaven will make the soul feel at times that it is even "better to depart," and to "be with Christ," than to water life's chequered pathway with the tear-drops of sorrow and bereavement. Such a view of Heaven, kept alive and vivid before the mind, will make the soul less earthly. For it will be led to see that amid all that earth can yield in the way of peace, and joy, and happiness, there is mingled with its sweetest joys, a bitterness and sorrow. It will be led to reflect, that, while Heaven is all joy, all sunny brightness and everlasting calm that knows no night—yet, here on earth, the most favored spot has its dark clouds and storms, and that now in this poor world, there is no tearless Eden where earth's weeping sons and daughters may go and find no teardrops.

No, it is Heaven alone, where the inhabitants "never say, I am sick."

It is Heaven alone, where there are no headaches—and no heart-aches!

It is Heaven alone, where there are no changing scenes and dying friends!

It is Heaven, where there is neither sorrow nor crying, but where the former things have passed away!

It is Heaven alone, where each morning is without clouds!

It is Heaven alone, where the poor pilgrim, so foot-sore, so weary and jaded, shall find no cause for tears.

Yes, Heaven is the place of victory! And if all are to be victors, "more than conquerors through Him who has loved us"—then, oh, where will there be any cause for tears? They who "shall have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," will be so full of the melody of "the new song" that they will even forget the tears they have shed, and sing more sweet, more loud, than they have ever sung in the valley of tears.

They who are "counted worthy" to go "in by the gates into the city," will have "palms in their hands." But who would shed a tear beneath a palm? They are to have crowns on their heads; but who would shed a tear beneath "a crown of glory that never fades away!"

Men cannot weep without some cause; but they all must weep when certain causes are in operation. But neither of these will be the case in Heaven. There will be no cause to weep. All that could give rise to the sorrowful emotions will have passed away. All that could make the heart sad and sorrowful will be among the things that have vanished. While all that can possibly contribute to excite and create joy and pleasure will be in eternal existence. Jesus, the sun of our earthly joys, and "the life of our delights," will be there, as Watts so beautifully sings,

"There the blessed Man, my Savior sits,
The God, how bright He shines!
And scatters infinite delights
O'er all those happy minds!"

Yes, Jesus is there. And that of itself is enough to make all Heaven tearless and happy. For if, even now, amid the pilgrim journey of life, he can sing,

"Sun of my soul, my Savior dear,

It is not night if You are near!"

What shall they say, who are where "they have no need of the candle, but where the Lamb is the light thereof?

But to the aged this feature of Heaven must have a very special charm. To those whose white and snowy heads, sunken eyes, wrinkled brow, and furrowed cheeks, declare that they have spent some fourscore winters and more, in "this waste and howling wilderness;" and whose tottering, trembling gait, tells us that they are getting near the valley of the Jordan, this subject must be very welcome. Their eyes, now dim and beclouded by the dusky eventide of life, have often shed the tear along the tedious pathway of their pilgrimage. Yes, they can look back and see many a Bochim. They can see back in the distance, the things that made them weep. They can remember "all the way;" and helpful memory brings up a long line of sorrows and trials, that made them sit in sackcloth and ashes.

But now, Home appears in view. Now, they desire to forget "the things that are behind, and press forward to those that are before, for the prize of their high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

The toilsome stages of your journey, end on the border of the better country. No sorrow, no crying, no pain are there! No anguish of temptation, no shrinkings of fear, no tears of penitence, no agony of prayer. The cross is lifted off. The bitter cup is taken from you. The trenching and the pruning are over, and on every branch of the tree which felt the knife, cluster "the peaceable fruits of righteousness," the pleasant grapes of the vineyard of God.

There we are past the preface and first pages of the covenant, which teach us what the discipline of the sonship is. We are now in the heart and core of its blessings, knowing how glorious are the privileges of sonship, how unspeakable are its joys. We shall cry out no more for sore bereavement or besetting sin. We shall watch no more against an enemy, nor see some evil shadow lurk in every pleasure, and feel it steal upon our sleep. Our Father's hand has wiped away our tears.

The Savior's voice says, "Weep not, the days of your mourning are ended!" And the thought of past grief and trouble will come to us, only to sweeten every moment of our rest, For sin, our deepest sorrow, comes not there. There, oh, Christian! 'the evil heart of unbelief' throbs no more, and the poisoned garment of the flesh has fallen from you forever."

Those who are "counted worthy" to go "in by the gates into the city," will have "palms in their hands." Who would shed a tear beneath a palm? They are to have crowns on their heads—who would shed a tear beneath "a crown of glory that fades not away!" Men cannot weep without some cause; but they all must weep when certain causes are in operation. But neither of these will be the case in Heaven. There will be no cause to weep. All that could give rise to sorrowful emotions will have passed away. All that could make the heart sad and sorrowful will be among the things that have vanished. While all that can possibly contribute to excite and create joy and pleasure, will be in eternal existence. Jesus, the sun of our earthly joys, and "the life of our delights," will be there, as Watts so beautifully sings,

"There the blessed Man, my Savior sits,
The God, how bright He shines!
And scatters infinite delights
O'er all those happy minds!"

Yes, Jesus is there! And that of itself is enough to make all Heaven tearless and happy. For if, even now, amid the pilgrim journey of life, he can sing,

"Sun of my soul, my Savior dear,
 It is not night if You are near!"

What shall they say, who are where "they have no need of the candle, but where the Lamb is the light thereof!"

But to the aged this feature of Heaven must have a very special charm. To those whose white and snowy heads, sunken eyes, wrinkled brow, and furrowed cheeks, declare that they have spent some fourscore winters and more, in "this waste and howling wilderness;" and whose tottering, trembling gait, tells us that they are getting near the valley of the Jordan, this subject must be very welcome. Their eyes, now dim and beclouded by the dusky eventide of life, have often shed the tear along the tedious pathway of their pilgrimage.

Yes, they can look back and see many a Bochim. They can see, back in the distance, the things that made them weep. They can remember "all the way," and helpful memory brings up a long line of sorrows and trials, that made them sit in sackcloth and ashes.

But, now, Home appears in view. Now, they desire to forget "the things that are behind, and press forward to those that are before, for the prize of their high calling of God in Christ Jesus." They are led to believe that "the time of their redemption draws near!"

For there Jehovah shines with heavenly ray,
There Jesus reigns, dispensing endless day!"