owever, some of these questions may
be at least partially answered, and grief's poignancy in some slight
measure alleviated. And surely no smallest gleam of comfort should be
withheld from the world that needs comfort so sorely, and cries out so
hungrily for it.

Human hearts are the same everywhere. Sorrow's experiences, while
strangely diverse, are yet alike in their general features. Wherever
we listen to the suppressed voices of grief, we hear the same
questions. What has been answer to one, will therefore be answer to
thousands more. Recently, in one day, two letters came to me from
sorrowing ones, with questions. Whether any comfort was given in the
private answers or not, it may be that the mere stating of the
questions, with a few sentences concerning each, may be helpful to
others who are carrying like burdens.

One of these letters is from a Christian man whose only son has been
led into sinful courses, swiftly descending to the saddest depths. The
story is too painful to be repeated in these pages. In his sore
distress, the father, a godly man, a man of strong faith and noble
wisdom, cries out: "What is the comfort even of Christ and the Bible
for me? How can I roll this burden of mine upon God?"

In answer to these questions it must be remembered that there are some
things which even the richest, divinest comfort cannot do. For one
thing, it cannot take away the pain of grief or sorrow. Our first
thought of comfort usually is that it shall lift off our burden. We
soon learn, however, that it is not in this way that comfort ordinarily
comes. It does not make the grief any less. It does not make our
hearts any less sensitive to anguish. "Consolation implies rather an
augmentation of the power of bearing than a diminution of the burden."
In this case, it cannot lift off the loving father's heart the burden
of disappointment and anguish which he experiences in seeing his son
swept away in the currents of temptation. No possible comfort can do
this. The perfect peace in which God promises to keep those whose
minds are stayed on him, is not a painless peace in any case of
suffering. The crushed father cannot expect a comfort which will make
him forget his wandering, sinning child, or which will cause him to
feel no longer the poignant anguish which the boy's course causes in
his heart. Father-love must be destroyed to make such comforting
possible, and that would be a sorer calamity than any