p. 7 | The Dark Days by Burlington Hawkeye

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 16, 1912

The Dark Days

By Burlington Hawkeye

It is so human to cry out in dismay when we are frightened by the blackness that settles over our lives as the clouds of trouble and of pain are passing over them. Human to believe for a time that they are too dense ever to break away and let the sunshine through. So human to try to find some one else at fault, and not our own mistakes, our sins, or our almost inexcusable ignorance. So human to forget that we have been Christ-warned again and again of the way that is pain-haunted, where the ghosts of our wrong thinking and careless living stand guard, and will not allow us to forget how much we have lost of joy and gathered of sorrow that need never have been.

These memories are so large a part of our every-day life that they can not be separated from the “every-day sorrows.” The heaviest sorrow that has ever been borne by human heart has not been because God willed it, but because somehow it grew out of sinfulness or ignorance, and instead of being classed as an unusual one, it belongs alone to the one soul and God, who sorrows with it.

There is always strength for what God puts in our way, always the Comforter to share the natural, unavoidable griefs of our every-day lives. God never wills us any condition that needs to crush out all joy in life. His compensations are commensurate to every trial that comes to us through unavoidable causes or natural processes. It is only when we pass away beyond, and defy his will by going our own foolish way, that we find the bottomless abyss of pain, the full meaning of uncomforted sorrow. We must keep close, with our eyes on him while we walk the waves, or, like Peter, we shall find ourselves sinking beyond our depth. But even on the stormiest sea we may always be safe if we are going toward the Christ’s outstretched hand. Remember you need only to hold fast to that hand to bear your ‘every-day sorrow,’ for he knows all about it. He has wept with other mourners, then comforted them, and helped them to bear, and so he will help you if you will give him the chance Peter gave him on the sea; but of how many of his doubting, distressed children he can say, “How often would I, but ye would not!”

“The way is long, my child, but it shall be Not one step longer than is best for thee; And thou shalt know at last, when thou shalt stand Close to the gate, how I did take thy hand, And quick and straight led thee to heaven’s gate, my child!” — Burlington Hawkeye.