There are two kinds of sorrow, then. There is godly sorrow and there is the sorrow of the world. Look first at the latter.
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The Sorkow of the World.
1. There are various kinds of sorrow in the world, some of which work death, suoh as the bitter vexation, the utter despond- ency, the fierce disappointment which are occasioned by the loss of some prized object, or by being thwarted in some cherished scheme. These sometimes wear out the life or lead to self-
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destruction. It is not, however, any sorrow of this kind that St. Paul intends here by " sorrow of the world," but, as the context shows, a sorrow that has some relation to sin. The world has its sorrow on account of sin, after its own way, and from its own standpoint ; and it must be some sorrow of this kind that is here alluded to, else the point of the contrast between it and godly sorrow would be lost. For instance, there is the sorrow occasioned by the shame, exposure, infamy, loss, a man may have brought upon himself by some transgression. Of this kind was the sorrow of Saul when he said to Samuel, who had just predicted the loss of his kingdom for his disobedience, "I have sinned, yet honour me now before the elders of the people." This sorrow becomes sometimes a fierce exasperation imder the pressure of the con- sequences of sin. Such was the sorrow of Cain when, in the passion of his resentment at God's sentence upon him, he cried, " My sin is greater than I can bear." Or it passes into a gloomy, desponding hopeless remorse, into the very abandonment of de- spair. Such was the sorrow of Judas.
For sorrow is, in itself, a thing neither good nor bad; its value depends upon the spirit of the person on whom it falls. Fire will inflame straw, soften iron, or harden clay; its effects are determined by the object with which it comes in contact. Warmth develops the energies of life, or helps the progress of decay. It is a great power in the hot-house, a great power also in the coffin ; it expands the leaf, matures the fruit, adds precocious vigour to vegetable life : and warmth, too, develops with ten- fold rapidity the weltering process of dissolution. So too with sorrow. There are spirits in which it develops the seminal principle of life ; there are others in which it prematurely hastens the consummation of irreparable decay.
^ When Dante descends to the Fifth Circle of the Inferno he finds there a black and loathsome marsh, made by the swarthy waters of the Stygian stream pouring down into it, dreary and turbid, through the cleft which they have worn out for them- selves. And there, in the putrid fen, he sees the souls of those whom anger has ruined ; and they are smiting and tearing and maiming one another in ceaseless, senseless rage. But there are others there, his master tells him, whom he cannot see, whose sobs make those bubbles that he may mark ever rising to the surface of the pool — others, plunged further into the filthy swamp.
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And what is the sin that has thrust them down into that utter- most wretchedness ? " Fixed in the slime, they say, ' Gloomy were we in the sweet air, that is gladdened by the sun, carrying sullen, lazy, smoke within our hearts ; now lie we gloomy here in the black mire.' This hymn they gurgle in their throats, for they cannot speak it in full words." Surely it is a tremendous and relentless picture of unbroken sullenness — of wilful gloom that has for ever shut out light and love; of that death which the sorrow of the world worketh.^
2. The sorrow of the world is not a sorrow for sin as such, but rather for its consequences, whether immediate or ultimate. Loss of reputation or of health may have ensued ; this occasions regret, but no real shame or grief for the cause of it is felt. Or the hand of death may be laid on the man, and then the spirit shivers and shudders at the dread hereafter, yet with no compunction or brokenness of heart for the sin. This kind of sorrow is followed by no real or permanent reformation. Mere dread of consequences, however acute or strong, while it may repress the outbreak of evil to some extent, touches not in the smallest degree the root of the thing, because it neither eradicates nor counteracts the love of sin. That remains in all its potency. Hence he who woke in the morning to all the miserable suffering of the previous night's excess repeats that excess as soon as the reaction has passed away. And worse still, he who cried to God to have mercy on him and vowed amendment, thinking himself dying, has on his recovery gone back to all his vileness. Why ? Because his sorrow was no contrition for sin, nor was the love of sin mortified in his heart.
^ Without energy, repentance is disease. He who can find nothing to do but weep for his sins will end by weeping because he has nothing to eat. Like Mackellar, Stevenson " knows nothing less respectable than the tears of drunkenness, and turns his back impatiently on this poor sight." He is not afraid of the application of his principles to individual cases, and says plainly of Eobert Bums: "He was still not perhaps devoted to religion, but haunted by it: and at a touch of sickness prostrated himself before God in what I can only call unmanly penitence." ^