A father tries to teach his little son self-restraint, but it is a long task. One day that father's pride and indignation are touched to the quick, and the boy looks on and sees the inward conflict, and that a strong hand is laid on the rising anger, and the evil conquered. He has learnt the lesson ; the father's sanctified suffering has taught what self-restraint is, when nothing else could. A mother tries in vain to make her child know what patience is. After a time she is in trouble, in which nothing is harder than to "^ stand still and see the salvation of God." But she does stand still, and in her trustful waiting she has taught what words could not. A teacher seeks in vain to make his scholars understand the worth of godliness; but in the way he endures the trials which God presently sends, he carries home the fact to their inmost heart. Sufferers little know how much they are doing for the Master and His world ! For myself I have learnt many of my best lessons in sick rooms where they thanked me for going, as though they were the gainers, and not I. " Bearing about in the body " — says St. Paul — " the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh."
24 COMFORT
It was a sufferer's face, says one ; men saw " as it had been the face of an angel." ^
^ There is one feature of Dr. Eainy's character in these years of which it is more easy to speak. That is the tenderness which more and more revealed itself in his words and acts as, indeed, on his very countenance. Many persons have spoken to me of this, and declared they can never forget his sympathy in times of sorrow, nor could they even tell of its sacredness. This was no new feature of Dr. Eainy's life; but in these later years, with a ripened Christian and human experience, and with the chastened sense that age must bring of the pathos of life, it seems more than ever to have been a deliberate part of his work to try to comfort and heal and sympathize. In these years his own family life was visited with a very sore sorrow. His third daughter, Annie, who was in many things his right hand, became ill and was sent with a friend to Algiers, where, soon after landing, she died on 9th March, 1903. She accepted with promptness and sweetness, when she realized it, the call to give up her young life, and her father in his sorrow wrote, " We have very great consolations — indeed every consolation we could have."^
^ Soon after I became a minister, and while I was still a very young man, a great loss fell on a family in my congregation. The husband died a year or two after marriage. I went to see the widow. Her anguish was of that silent, self-restrained sort which it is always most terrible to witness. . . . Her grief was dumb. I was oppressed by it ; I could say nothing. The sorrow seemed beyond the reach of comfort ; and after sitting for a few minutes I rose in some agitation and went away without saying a word. After I had left the house, and when I had recovered self- possession, I felt humiliated and distressed that I had not spoken ; I thought that perhaps it would have been better not to have gone at all. I do not feel so now. Sometimes the only consolation we can offer our friends is to let them know that we feel that their sorrow is too great for any consolation of ours."
Do you long to bring rehef For the burden of a grief
Even Hope has barely stirred ? You may compass this, perchance, By the sunbeam of a glance,
Through the music of a word.
* C. New, Sermons, 90.
* P. Carnegie Simpson, The Life of Principal Rainy, ii. 292.
* R. W. Dale, The Laws of Christ in Common Life, 133.
2 COR. I. 3, 4 25
Is the casket of a heart Double-locked, and set apart
With its treasure all untold? Did you only understand, In the hollow of your hand
Lies the master-key of gold.
Do you hesitate to seek
For the souls who never speak
Of their sorrow, nor their sin? Hasten forth to them, and wait, Standing humbly at their gate,
Till they beckon you within.^ * M, Bartleet, in Sunday Magazine, 1905, p. 792.
The Yea and the Amen.
Literature.
Chadwick (G. A.), Pilate's Gift, 84.
Cox (S.), Expositions, iii. 97.
Mackenzie (R.), The Loom of Providence, 227.
Maclaren (A.), The Unchanging Christ, 82.
„ „ Expositions : 1 and 2 Corinthians, 268. Moule (H. C. G.), Christ is All, 97. Somerville (A. N.), Precious Seed, 233.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xlvi. (1900), No. 2657. Stewart (J.), Outlines of Discourses, 317. Temple (F.), Rugby Sermons, i. 235. Christian World Pulpit, Ixiviii. 236 (L. Richard). Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd. Ser., i. 283 (G. A. Chadwick). Clerical Library : Outlines of Sermons for Special Occasions, 218 (J.