The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 196

II. Tm!l TRUE THING MOUl!NWG SPEAKS 01!' TIIE PROBATION OF EARTH. Violent grief wailing, gnashing of teeth, are indeed revealoJ as characteristic of the place or state of future woe. But the true spirit of mourning, unknown in heaven, ungiven to hell, marks "the day of grace" that belongs to earth. It is one of the chiefest signs of earth's trial and education, and one of the chiefest symptoms of earth's hope. It sub-- serves highest and most intrinsic uses-uses not the sequel of God's displeasure only, but the arguments of his most gracious love, till such time as "the former things have passed away, and God wipe away all tears from the eye." What mercy lies ambushed in mourning I III. MOURNING m ITB VABIOUIJ KINDS lIAS ABSOLUTE AND VALUABLE USES. 1. There is the mourning of sympathy. The reaction of sympathy is of Divinest nse. Whatever it gives, it takes inevitably more. It opens the whole fulness of the spiritual eye, enlarges the heart, gives liberty and free action to each faculty for love, aud each limb for service. 2. '!'here is the mourning of pain. Paiu presses it forth, and it expresses pain. That very expression is relief. Even physical pain is a power in and through- out the whole world. It has a widely pervading usefulness, a deeply peuetrating service, in this world's stages of spiritual growth and spiritual immaturity. The mourning of pain, for infancy, childhood, youth, strong age, and old age, we cannot tell what it has not been the means, directly or indirectly, of sparing to flesh. blood, mind; what fever of body and soul it has not averted, adding endurance to patience, vigour to energy, length of days to life itself. 3. There is the mourning of a full heart, whether the heart that is full of sorrow or of joy. How often is it the safety of the heart surcharged with g1ief, or likely to be overbalanced with joy I So Hagar wept. So Joseph wept when he heard of his father, "the old man, yet alive." So wept the exile patriots "by the rivers of Babylon." So the overjoyed father, whose prayer had successfully wrestled, and who with tears cried out, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." And so was Mary's mourning, as she stood "without at the sepulchre," transmuted into an ever-springing well of joy. 4. There is the mourning of bereavement. Of all the heart's mourning, irrespective of that toward God in penitence, there is none more deep, more keen, more pitifully bowed down. Even when we sorrow as those with a good hope, the poet's verse is most true- " Oh I 'tis the pang severest That human hearts can know, To lay what we hold dearest, Thus, thus the dust below." Of this mourning, too, how truly it may be said, it is alike signally fruitless and fruitful-fruitless to reverse, or in the least to stay the unanswering and unanswer- able will of God, but fruitful to bring heaven nearer I Of brother and child, of wife and sister, of friend and second self, once slipped from our touch, it only remains to be said, with dreadest conviction of the truth of it, "he" or "she shall not return to me." The most undoubting trust is demanded in the darkest conflict; the most unsuspecting love in the blankest heart. Clinging, unaltering attachment is wrapt in bleeding, writhing affection. But to no mourning has Jesus come more deliberately to assuage it, with none has he more touchingly sympathized, none in the days of his flesh which seemed more to stir him to his mightiest works. Yes, blessed is this mourner, for he is already "comforted," in that those he loves so well are, though vanished from his sight, where for the first time no mourning can affect them. No recall can disturb their secure bliss. 6. Beyond the natural history of mourning there is that spiritual history of it, that sacred service belonging to it, infinitely removed from all mere sentiment, unfeignedly acknowledged by the strongest man, the tenderest woman, the frailest child-the mourning of penitence. 'l'his bas no merit<Yri(!IJs worth. Nor does it derive any consecration from our being able to say it was shared by Jesus. But it was sanctioned by him, looked on with most gracious approval by him, commended by him, as surely as those very differ_ent sho_uts _of trium1;>h and loud hosannas that echoed to the skies when once he was Journeying into the city of Jerusalen. Yet what a touchlna history belongs to the mourning of penitence I With what extraordinary experienc;s has it been allied I Upon what fears, darkness, struggles, au~uish, has it at l~t followed with its infinite peace I What workings iu the deepe11t •U1Seen of t.he  188 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [oH. v. 1-48,