IF " When I feel myself in my heart of hearts a sinner," I once heard Dr, Parker say, " a trespasser against God's law and God's love ; when I feel that a thought may overwhelm me in destruc- tion, that a secret, unexpressed desire may shut me out of heaven and make me glad to go to hell to be away from the face of Plim that sitteth upon the throne — then when I am told that Jesus Christ was wounded for my transgressions, that upon Him was laid the chastisement of my peace, I press my way through all
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the difficulties and say : If I perish I will pray and perish at the Cross ; for if this be not sufficient, it hath not entered into the heart of man to solve the problem of human depravity, and the human consciousness of sin." ^
iii The Way He tore His Sorrows.
1. He spoke very little about them. Though we are con- stantly meeting with events in His life which might have caused Him much sorrow, yet only two instances are recorded of His speaking of His sorrow. " Now is My soul troubled ; and what shall I say ? Father, save Me from this hour : but for this cause came I unto this hour." The other instance is when He exclaimed, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death."
If Dr. Arnold had a sister who suffered for twenty years from a disease which prevented her from ever changing her position. He said of her, " I never saw a more perfect instance of the power of love and of a sound mind. For twenty years she adhered to her early formed resolution of never talking about herself." She bore her painful indisposition without ever talking about it. The biographer of the late Lady Georgina Fullerton alludes to this great virtue in that saintly lady's character. " The gaiety and serenity of her countenance told little of the suffering she under- went from time to time ; for her disease was rather hidden than inactive. But she never complained or spoke of her health." ^
2. Sorrow did not rob His life of its joys. Sorrow often causes people to take a gloomy view of life ; to indulge in the utterance of morbid sentiments ; to speak of life as " a vale of tears " ; to regard everything as " vanity," as though God had withdrawn all brightness, and joy, and beauty from the world, and had left nothing in it but dismal shadows to fall upon the path of man. Our Saviour's sorrow had not this effect. None can discern a spirit of morbidness in Him. We see in Him no disposition to take a dismal view of life. Whatever sorrows reigned within. He never allowed them to impart their sombre colouring to the world without.
After the " Man of Sorrows," perhaps no one had so much sorrow as St. Paul ; and yet we fail to recognise a morbid spirit in any of his writings. You search in vain for dismal views of
^ A. Shepherd, Men in the Malcing, p. 205, ^ H. G. Youard,
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life in any of his epistles. In one of those epistles, that to the Corinthians, we find him saying, " I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation." There may be solemn and stern views of life and duty set forth in his writings ; there may be much that he says which gives us the impression that St. Paul was a distinctly serious man; but there is nothing which conveys the impression that he took gloomy views of life. He was an apostle of hope, joy, and brightness, notwithstanding that he was ever passing through the deepest currents of troubled waters.
1[ Bishop Jeremy Taylor had this rare virtue of refusing to take a gloomy view of life when passing through trouble. Alluding to one of the great troubles of his life, he wrote, "They have taken all from me. What now ? They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me ; and I can still discourse, and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience ; they still have left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too ; and still I eat and drink, I sleep and digest, I read and meditate ; I can walk in my neighbour's pleasant fields, and delight in all that in which God delights." ^
3. He was not impatient to be rid of them. " Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour : but for this cause came I unto this hour." Even in Gethsemane, when His sorrows reached their climax, and assumed the form of an agony inconceivable to us. He added to His supplication for deliverance a "nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done " ; which showed that, though wishful to be delivered, if possible. He was not impatient to be delivered.