. I know your sorrows, John Macduff,
the faithful promiser. I will not leave you comfortless,
I will come to you. John 14, 18. Blessed Jesus, how your present
sanctified trial takes loneliness from the chamber of sickness
and the sting from the chamber of death. Bright and morning
star, precious at all times, you are never so precious as
in the dark and cloudy day. The bitterness of sorrow is well
worth enduring, To have your promised consolations. How well
qualified, man of sorrows, To be my comforter! how well fitted
to dry my tears, You who shed so many yourself! What are my
tears, my sorrows, my crosses, my losses, compared with yours,
who shed first your tears, and then your blood for me? Mine
are all deserved, and infinitely more than deserved. How different,
O spotless Lamb of God, are those pangs which rent your guiltless
bosom! How sweet those comforts you
have promised to the comfortless, when I think of them as flowing
from an almighty fellow-sufferer, a brother born for adversity,
the friend that sticks closer than any brother, one who can
say, with all the refined sympathies of a wholly exalted human nature,
I know your sorrows. my soul, calm your griefs. There is not a sorrow you can
experience, but Jesus, in the treasury of grace, has an exact
corresponding solace. In the multitude of the sorrows
I have in my heart, your comforts delight my soul."