"A man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief" Is. Iii. 3.
There is one great distinction between the productions of Heathen and of
Christian art. While the first exhibits the perfection of physical form
and of intellectual beauty, the latter expresses, also, the majesty
of sorrow, the grandeur of endurance, the idea of triumph refined from
agony. In all those shapes of old there is nothing like the glory of the
martyr; the sublimity of patience and resignation; the dignity of the
thorn-crowned Jesus.
It is easy to account for this. In that heathen age the soul had
received no higher inspiration. It was only after the advent of Christ
that men realized the greatness of sorrow and endurance. It was not
until the history of the Garden, the Judgment-Hall, and the Cross had
been developed, that genius caught nobler conceptions of the beautiful.
This fact is, therefore, a powerful witness to the prophecy in the text,
and to the truth of Christianity. Christ's personality, as delineated
in the Gospels, is not only demonstrated by a change of dynasties,--an
entire new movement in the world,--a breaking up of the its ancient
order; but the moral ideal which now leads human action,--which has
wrought this enthusiasm, and propelled man thus strangely forward,--has
entered the subjective realities of the soul,--breathed new inspiration
upon it,--opened up to it a new conception; and, lo! The statue dilates
with a diviner expression;--lo! The picture wears a more lustrous and
spiritual beauty.
The Christ of the text, then,--"A man of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief,"-has verily lived, for his image has been reflected in the minds
of men, and has fastened itself there among their most intimate and
vivid conceptions. Sorrow, as illustrated in Christ's life, and as
interpreted in his scheme of religion, has assumed a new aspect and
yields a new meaning. Its garments of heaviness have become transfigured
to robes of light, its crown of thorns to a diadem of glory; and
often, for some one whom the rich and joyful of this world pity,--some
suffering, struggling, over-shadowed soul,--there comes a voice from
heaven, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."
I remark, however, that Christianity does not accomplish this result by
denying the character of sorrow. It does not refuse to render homage to
grief. The stoic is as far from its ideal of virtue as the epicurean.
The heart of the true saint quivers at pain, and his eyes are filled
with tears. Whatever mortifications he may deem necessary as to the
passions of this poor flesh, if he imitates the example of Christ he
cannot deny those better affections which link us even to God; he
cannot harden those sensitive fibres which are the springs of our
best action,--which if callus we become inhuman. He realizes pain; he
recognises sorrow as sorrow. Its cup is bitter, and to be resisted with
prayer.
There is nothing more wonderful in the history of Jesus than his keen
sense of sorrow, and the scope which he allows it. In the tenderness of
his compassion he soothed the overflowing spirit, but he never rebuked
its tears. On the contrary, in a most memorable instance, he recognized
its right to grieve. It was on the way to his own crucifixion, when
crowned with insult, and lacerated with his own sorrows. "Daughters of
Jerusalem," said he, to the sympathizing women, "weep not for me, but
weep for yourselves and for your children." As though he had said, "You
have a right to weep; weep, then, in that great catastrophe which is
coming, when barbed affliction shall pierce your hearts, and the dearest
ties shall be cut in sunder. Those ties are tender; those hearts are
sacred. Therefore, weep!"
But Christ did more than sanction tears in others. He wept himself.
Closest in our consciousness, because they will be most vivid to us
in our darkest and our last hours, are those incidents by the grave of
Lazarus, and over against Jerusalem; the sadness of Gethsemane, and
the divine pathos of the last supper. Never can we fully realize what
a tribute to sorrow is rendered by the tears of Jesus, and the dignity
which has descended upon those who mourn, because he had not where to
lay his head, was despised and rejected of men, and cried out in bitter
agony from the cross. He could not have been our exemplar by despising
sorrow-by treating it with contempt; but only by shrinking from its
pain, and becoming intimate with its anguish,--only as "a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief."
But, on the other hand, Christianity does not over-estimate sorrow.
While it pronounces a benediction upon the mourner, it does not declare
it best that man should always mourn. It would not have us deny the
good that is in the universe. Nay, I apprehend that sorrow itself is
a testimony to that good,--is the anguish and shrinking of the severed
ties that have bound us to it; that it clings closest in hearts of the
widest and most various sympathies; that only souls which have loved
much and enjoyed much can feel its intensity or know its discipline. In
the language of another, "Sorrow is not an independent state of mind,
standing unconnected with all others...It is the effect, and, under
the present conditions of our being, the inevitable effect, of strong
affections. Nay, it is not so much their result, as a certain attitude
of those affections themselves. It not simply flows from the love of
excellence, of wisdom, of sympathy, but it is that very love, when
conscious that excellence, that wisdom, that sympathy have departed."
They, then, who deem it necessary for man's spiritual welfare that he
should constantly feel the pressure of chastisement, and be engirt with
the mist of tears, do not reason well. Jeremy Taylor reasons thus, when
he says in allusion to certain lamps which burned for many ages in a
tomb, but which expired when brought into open day: "So long as we are
in the retirements of sorrow, of want, of fear, of sickness, we are
burning and shining lamps; but when God lifts us up from the gates
of death and carries us abroad into the open air, to converse with
prosperity and temptations, we go out in darkness; and we cannot be
preserved in light and heat but by still dwelling in the regions of
sorrow." "There is beauty, and, to a certain extent, truth in this
figure," says a writer, in reply; "but it by no means follows that
continuous suffering would be good for man; on the contrary, it would
be as remote from producing the perfection of our moral nature as
unmitigated prosperity. It would be apt to produce a morbid and
ghastly piety; the 'bright lamps' of which Taylor speaks would still
be irradiating only a tomb." (Edinburgh Review No 141 The article on
Pascal) We may doubt whether there is more essential religiousness
in this seeking of sorrow as a mortification,--in this monastic
self-laceration and exclusion,--than in the morbid misery of the
hypochondriac. Neither comprehends the whole of life, nor is adapted to
its realities. Christ was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;"
but he was also full of sympathy with all good, and enjoyed the charm
of friendship, and the light of existence. Around that great Life gather
many amenities. Below that face of agony beats a heart familiar with the
best affections of human nature; otherwise, we may believe, the agony
would not appear. The sadness of that last supper indicates the breaking
up of many joyful communions and the history which closes in the shadow
of the cross mingles with the festival of Cana, and lingers around the
home at Bethany.
But I remark, once more, that while Christianity neither despises nor
affects to desire sorrow, it clearly recognizes its great and beneficial
mission. In one word, it shows its disciplinary character, and thus
practically interprets the mystery of evil. It regards man as a
spiritual being, thrown upon the theatre of this mortal life not merely
for enjoyment, but for training,--for the development of spiritual
affinities, and the attainment of spiritual ends. It thus reveals a
weaning, subduing, elevating power, in sorrow.
The origin of evil may puzzle us;--its use no Christian can deny. A
sensual philosophy may shrink from it, in all its aspects, and retreat
into a morbid skepticism or a timid submission. If we predicate mere
happiness as "our being's end and aim," there is no explanation of evil.
From this point of view, there is an ambiguity in nature,--a duality in
every object, which we cannot solve. The throne of infinite light and
love casts over the face of creation an inexplicable shadow. If we were
made merely to be happy, why this hostility all around us? Why these
sharp oppositions of pain and difficulty? Why these writhing
nerves, these aching hearts, and over-laden eyes? Why the chill of
disappointment, the shudder of remorse, the crush and blight of hope?
Why athwart the horizon flicker so many shapes of misery and sin?
Why appear these sad spectacles of painful dying chambers, and weary
sick-beds?--these countless tomb-stones, too-ghastly witness to death
and tears? Explain for me those abrupt inequalities,--the long train of
necessities, poverty and its kindred woes, those fearful realities that
lie in the abysses of every city,--that hideous, compressed mass which
welters in the awful baptism of sensuality and ignorance,--the groans of
inarticulate woe, the spectacle of oppression, the shameless cruelty of
war, the pestilence that shakes its comet-sword over nations, and famine
that peers with skeleton face through the corn-sheaves of plenty. Upon
this theory of mere happiness no metaphysical subtlety can solve
the fact of evil;--the coiled enigma constantly returns upon itself,
inexplicable as ever.
But when we take the Christian view of life, we discover that not
happiness merely, but virtue, holiness, is the great end of man; though
happiness comes in as an inevitable consequence and accompaniment of
this result. And in the light reflected from this view, evil assumes
a powerful, and, I may say, a most beautiful office. It is just as
necessary for the attainment of virtue as prosperity, or any blessing.
Nay, in this aspect, it is itself a great blessing, and
"Every cloud that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love."
It is evident that, without the contact of sin and the pressure of
temptation, there might be innocence, but not virtue. Equally evident
does it seem that, without an acquaintance with grief, there would soon
be but little of that uplifting tendency-that softening of the heart,
and sanctifying of the affections-which fit us for the dissolution of
our earthly ties, and for the communions of the spirit world. Beautiful
is this weaning efficacy of sorrow. By the ordinance of God, youth is
made to be content with this outward and palpable life. The sunshine and
the air-the flow of animal pleasures, encircled mysteriously with the
guardianship of parents, and the love of friends-are sufficient for the
child. But as we grow in years, there springs up a dissatisfaction, a
restlessness, of which we may be only half conscious, and still less
know how to cure. With some, this may subside into merely a fearful
and worldly discontent; others may heed the prophecy and lay hold on
a celestial hope, an immortal possession as the only remedy. In this
secret sense of want, which neither nature nor man can fill they will
hear already that low, divine voice,--"Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But generally another
and more emphatic missionary is necessary. It is the veiled angel of
sorrow, who plucks away one thing and another that bound us here in ease
and security, and in the vanishing of these dear objects indicates the
true home of our affections and our peace. Thus, by rupture and loss we
become weaned from earth, and the dissatisfaction and discontent which
sorrow thus induces are as kind and providential as the carelessness of
youth.
Who does not see that it is so,--that as we journey on in life there
are made in our behalf preparations for another state of
being,--unmistakable premonitions of that fact which the author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews so eloquently states, that "here have we no
continuing city"? The gloss of objects in which we delighted is worn off
by attrition,--is sicklied o'er by care; the vanity of earthly things
startles us suddenly, like a new truth; the friends we love drop away
from our side into silence; desire fails; the grasshopper becomes
a burden; until, at length, we feel that our only love is not here
below,--until these tendrils of earth aspire to a better climate, and
the weight that has been laid upon us makes us stoop wearily to the
grave as a rest and a deliverance. We have, even through our tears,
admired that discipline which sometimes prepares the young to die;
which, by sharp trials of anguish, and long days of weariness, weans
them from that keen sense of mortal enjoyment which is so naturally
theirs; which, through the attenuation of the body, illuminates the
soul, and, as it steals the bloom from the cheek, kindles the lustre of
faith in the eye, and makes even that young spirit look, unfaltering,
across the dark river, and, putting aside its earthly loves and its
reasonable expectations, exclaim, "Now I am ready!" But it would appear
that equal preparation, though in different forms, is provided for most
of us, in the various experiences of sorrow which we are called upon to
know, and which, if we would but heed them, have a celestial mission,
seeking to draw us up from this lower state, to induce us to lay up our
treasure where neither moth nor rust corrupts. And in the Christian view
of man as an heir of the spiritual word, does not sorrow, in this its
weaning tendency, receive a most beautiful explanation?
And, because it accomplishes this work, may be the reason why sorrow
always wears a kind of supernatural character. It is true that
blessings, equally with afflictions, come from Heaven; but this truth is
not so generally felt. A sharp disappointment will suddenly drive us to
God. The mariner of life sails, unthinking, over its prosperous seas,
but a flaw of storm will bring him to his prayers. And religion, reason
as we will, is peculiarly associated with affliction. And does not
sorrow possess this supernatural air, not merely because it interrupts
the usual order of things, but because, more than joy, it has a weaning
and spiritual tendency,--is sent, as it were, more directly from God
for this specific purpose? At least, after the sanctifying experience of
sorrow, we hold our joys more religiously.
There are other tendencies of sorrow akin to this, upon which I might
dwell, and which show the explanation that it receives in the Christian
light. The humbling effect that it has upon the proud and hard-hearted;
the equalizing result which it works, making the rich and poor, the
obscure and the great, stand upon the level of the common humanity,--the
common liability and dependence. I might, expanding the topic already
touched upon, speak of the influence which sorrow sheds abroad,
chastening the light, at tempering the draught of joy, and thus keeping
our hearts better balanced than otherwise. But I have sufficiently
illustrated its mission. I have shown its use, even its beauty, in
the Christian view. I have shown why Christianity, as the universal
religion, is rightly styled the "religion of sorrow," and why Christ, as
the perfect teacher and example, was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted
with grief."
Let us all, then, recognize the fact that life itself is a discipline.
That for each of us sorrow is mingled with joy in order that this
discipline may be accomplished. No one reaches the noon of life without
some grief, some disappointment, some sharp trial, which assures him, if
he will but heed it, that life is already declining, and that his
spirit should train itself for a higher and more permanent state. In the
failure of mortal excellence let him recognize the proof of an immortal
good, and from the bitterness that mingles with these earthly waters,
turn to drink of the celestial fountain. Of all things, let us not
receive sorrow indifferently, or without reflection. Its mission is
for discipline, but we feel it to be discipline only by recognizing
its source and its meaning; "it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of
righteousness" only "to them that are exercised thereby." Otherwise,
it may come and go as the storm that rends the oak, or the drenching
tempest that glides off as it falls. It may startle us for a moment,--it
may hurt us with a sense of pain and loss,--it may awe us with its
mystery; but unless it rouses us to solemn thought upon the meaning
of life, to self-communion and prayer, to higher and holier action, it
availeth little. It should not smite the heart's chords to wring from
them a mere shriek of distress, but to inspire it with a deeper and more
elevated tone, and by the element of sadness which it infuses make a
more liquid and exquisite melody.
But while we are thus taught to chasten our views of life, and to hold
even our joys with seriousness, and with wise forethought, let us not
look upon things with any morbid vision, or cast over them a monotonous
hue. Let us not live in gloom and bitterness. The Christian, of all
others, is the best fitted for a cheerful and proper enjoyment of
life, because he wisely recognizes the use of things, understands their
evanescent nature, and sees the infinite goodness that has so ordained
it. He is not surprised by sudden terrors. He is prepared for sorrow,
and thus can rest in peace with the good that he has; while those who
bury heart and soul in the present enjoyment, and know nothing but
sensual good, are broken down by calamity. The sudden change, like a
thunder-gust, puts out their light, and darkens all their life; and it
is they who are apt to fall from the summit of delight into a morbid
gloom; while the Christian, with his balanced soul, inhabits neither
extreme.
Finally, let us remember that it is not the object of sorrow to
overcome, but to elevate; not to conquer us, but that we, by it, should
conquer. It converts the thorns that wound us into a crown. It makes
us strong by the baptism of tears. The saint is always a hero. This
explains that grand distinction between Heathen and Christian art, of
which I spoke in the commencement; that expression of power blended with
agony,--of celestial beatitude refining itself upon the face of grief.
Christianity has made martyrdom sublime, and sorrow triumphant. Christ
is "the Captain of our salvation,"-the leader of "many sons unto glory;"
for he was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."