“For she is kinder than all others are,
And weak things, sad things, gather where she dwells,
To reach and taste her strength, and drink of her,
As thirsty creatures of clear water-wells.”
There are some people who seem to be specially anointed to the office of comforter and consoler. The sorrowing and troubled are attracted to them as steel filings to a magnet, or as thirsty ones to a spring of water. The paths to their doors are worn by the passing feet of many weary ones. No office among men is more sacred, or fuller of blessing; for in no other field can wider opportunity be found for rendering helpful service to humanity. It was to this service, in an eminent degree, that Christ was set apart. He said of himself, that the Spirit had sent him “to heal the broken-hearted.” His whole ministry was one of consolation to the sorrowing. The weary and the heart-sore came to him with their burdens; the penitent crept to his feet with their confessions; mourners sought his sympathy: and, wherever he went, he carried cheer, light, and inspiration. No one who came to him with a trouble went away uncomforted. His deep and ready sympathy and his gentle, uplifting help made him pre-eminently a consoler.
Those who would follow in Christ’s footsteps, and repeat in their human measure his ministry of love and beneficence in this world, must strive to be sons of consolation. There is always need for this sacred ministry. Wherever one may live, there is no other human experience that one is so sure of meeting as sorrow. In other respects men differ, — in race, in color, in worldly condition, in culture, in degrees of refinement, in customs and modes of life, — but in one respect all are alike: all have sorrow. There are many languages spoken on the earth, and the traveler ofttimes finds himself unable to understand the world that falls upon his ear; but there is one language that he finds the same in all zones, in all conditions, — the language of grief. Everywhere there are tears telling of sadness. There is no circle in which there is not some heavy heart. We pass no day in which we do not meet with those who are oppressed with some open or secret grief. An old clergyman once said to a company of students he was addressing, that they ought never to conduct a religious service without some word of comfort for the troubled, for they would always have some troubled ones in their audience. Wherever we go, we come upon those who long for sympathy, and whose hearts are crying out for comfort.
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