the struggle of
life a hard one. One pew was filled with mourners who, during the
latest week, had stood around an open grave. There were Christian
workers to whom recent days had brought disappointments and
weariness--labourers in the vineyard who had much to try their faith,
for religious work in the villages has many difficulties in these days
when the great towns attract so many of our most hopeful young people
from the lanes to the streets. The widow was there, the orphan, the
poor, the man who had failed in life. Ah! those people had come
together bringing with them to the sanctuary much doubt and care and
perplexity and fear. It was good to watch them as the preacher went
on; good to feel that these hearts were losing their loads, these minds
their anxieties. "Not a great discourse," the critic would have said.
Perhaps not--from some standpoints. Having reached the end of fifty
years of preaching, this white-haired patriarch had long given up the
idea of great discourses. To him the Master had said, "Comfort ye,
comfort ye My people," and he had walked long, long miles up the
mountain side to do it. _Pace_ the critic! This preaching was _the
very thing_ for those needy folk this wintry afternoon.

And now, in recollection of that blessed sermon, and under its gracious
influence, we are strengthened to assert that it is an essential of the
message that it contain good cheer for those who need it. The preacher
is more than the accuser of men in Christ's stead; more, even, than the
mouthpiece of a divine invitation. His task is not completed in the
edifying of churches, in the building up of individual souls in faith
and doctrine and righteousness. Jesus saw the sorrow of the world,
anticipated the afflictions through which men would have to pass and
the burdens they would have to bear. "He was touched with the feeling
of our infirmities," He drank of our bitter cup. Our griefs were in
His mind when He sent His preachers forth. To be the agents of a great
purpose of consolation, ministers of cheer and encouragement to
hard-pressed and burdened men and women to the end of time were they
sent!

And for this work of consolation He not only gave a commission but He
furnished, as well, an example to all who should ever preach His word.
Surely one great secret of the wondrous effectiveness of that brief
ministry lay in the fact that while, as we have seen, it spoke to the
consciences of men, bringing ho