, when they get out of
health, or when their brain is overworked, and the pleasant feelings go,
they are terrified and disheartened, and complain of spiritual dryness,
and cry out that God's Spirit has deserted them, and are afraid that God
is angry with them, or even that they have committed the unpardonable
sin: not knowing that God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of
man that He should repent; that God is as near them in the darkness as in
the light; that whatever their own health, or their own feelings may be,
yet still in God they live, and move, and have their being; that to God's
Spirit they owe all which raises them above the dumb animals; that
nothing can separate them from the love of Him who promised that He would
not leave us comfortless, but send to us His Holy Ghost to comfort us,
and exalt us to the same place whither He has gone before.

Now, why do I say all this? To take away comfort from you? To make you
fear and dread the Spirit of God? God forbid! Who am I, to take away
comfort from any human being! I say it to give yon true comfort, to make
you trust and love the Holy Spirit utterly, to know Him--His strength and
His wisdom as well as His tenderness and gentleness.

You know that afflictions do come--terrible bereavements, sorrows sad and
strange. My sermon does not make them come. There they are, God help us
all, and too many of them, in this world. But from whom do they come?
Who is Lord of life and death? Who is Lord of joy and sorrow? Is not
that the question of all questions? And is not the answer the most
essential of all answers? It is the Holy Spirit of God; the Spirit who
proceedeth from the Father and the Son; the Spirit of the Father who so
loved the world that He spared not His only begotten Son; the Spirit of
the Son who so loved the world, that He stooped to die for it upon the
Cross; the Spirit who is promised to lead you into all truth, that you
may know God, and in the knowledge of Him find everlasting life; the
Spirit who is the Comforter, and says, I have seen thy ways and will heal
thee, I will lead thee also, and restore comforts to thee and to thy
mourners. I speak peace to him that is near, and to him that is far off,
saith the Lord; and I will heal him. Is it not the most blessed news,
that He who takes away, is the very same as He who gives? That He who
afflicts is the very same as He who comforts? That He of whom i