p. 180 | Battle Creek, Mich by Eliza H. Morton

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 21, 1882

Battle Creek, Mich

By Eliza H. Morton

Sorrow.

BY ELIZA H. MORTON.

Poets have mourned over the sorrows of life, and sung sad songs of woe. Artists have illustrated the dark side of human existence, and painted heart-rending scenes. Historians have recorded thrilling tales of human suffering, and we all have felt the sharp arrows of grief; still, few of us have drained the bitter cup, or felt the wild crushing weight of despair that sometimes bears upon the human soul.

Dispositions differ; some people forget their troubles, others bury them amid the confusion of life, and still others seem devoid of feelings of natural affection.

Human love varies, like the vegetation in the forest. Some hearts stand alone and independent, while others cling to near companions, and twine the very fibers of their souls around loving hearts. When these sensitive clinging natures hear the “shuddering sound of coffin-echoes smothered under ground,” the agony is so intense that they are almost “choked with tears that never come.” To them, “that which is gone, is gone, and no one else can fit into the hollow that separation or death hath made.” No thought of earth can banish the terrible loneliness, or fill up the blank within; no arm of flesh can uphold the sinking heart. In this terrible hour, God only can give relief, and such natures Heaven alone can comfort.

We should deal gently with sorrowing hearts, and not condemn too harshly sad countenances, for we know not the depth of the wound, but rather sing of the re-union and the joy, point the mourning one to Him whose heart is one great fountain of love, and who will eventually wipe away all tears, fill every aching soul, and give a sweet fullness to yearning souls.