The book of comfort

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DR. J . R . MILLER'S BOOKS

A Heart Garden Beauty of Every Day Beauty of Self-Control Bethlehem to Olivet Book of Comfort Building of Character Come ye Apart Dr. Miller's Year Book Evening Thoughts Every Day of Life Finding the Way For the Best Things Gate Beautiful Glimpses through Life's

Windows Go Forward Golden Gate of Prayer Hidden Life

Joy of Service Joy of the Lord Learning to Love Lesson of Love Making the Most of Life Ministry of Comfort ]\IoRNiNG Thoughts Personal Friendships of

Jesus Silent Times Story of a Busy Life Strength and Beauty Things to Live For Upper Currents When the Song Begins Wider Life Young People's Problems

BOOKLETS

Beauty of Kindness Blessing of Cheerfulness By the Still Waters Christmas Making Cure for Care Face of the Master Gentle Heart Girls : Faults and Ideals Glimpses of the Heavenly

Life How? When? Where?

In Perfect Peace Inner Life Loving my Neighbor

Marriage Altar Mary of Bethany Masters Friendships Secret of Gladness Secrets of Happy Home

Life Summer Gathering To-day and To-morrow Transfigured Life Turning Northward Unto the Hills Young Men: Faults and

Ideals

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

2?oob of Comfort

BY

J. R. MILLER

AUTHOR OF

'silent TIMES," "upper CURRENTS," "a HEART GARDEN,

"the BEAUTY OF SELF-CONTROL," ETC.

NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

ASTOR. LENOX AND riLDEN FOUNDATIONS R 1919 L

COPYRIGHT, 1912,

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY.

Published October. 1912.

Foreword

The manuscript of *'The Book of Comforf* was nearly ready for the press when Dr. Miller was called to his reward, July 2, 1912. He was busy revising some of the chapters not long before his death; the original manuscript is filled with interlineations and corrections in his trembling handwriting; to the last he wished to u^e his failing strength in perfecting the messages that would make his readers better acquainted with the Friend to whom his life was given.

Every chapter gives hints of the ripening for heaven of a life that had always been so like the life of the Master that a friend said of him: *^The sweetness of his presence in our home was just like what I think the presence of Jesus must have been in the home of Mary and Martha.'^ Thus the chapter *'When We Are Laid Aside'* was written when [v]

iporetoorb the infirmities of years kept him from many of the activities in which he had always delighted; while *'The Christian View of Death^' was the expression of his own attitude as he waited for the summons of the King.

It has been a labor of love to complete the preparation for the press of this year's volume in the series of Dr. Miller's marvelously helpful devotional books.

John T. Faris.

Philadelphia, August 6, 1912.

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TITLES OF CHAPTERS

I. Speak Ye Comfortably Page 1

II. The Ministry of Comfort 13

III. How Christ Comforts His Friends 23

IV. Be of Good Cheer 35 V. Does God Care ? 45

VI. "You Will Not Mind the Roughness" 57 VII. * ' Why Does No One Ever See God ? " 67 VIII. The One Who Stands By 77 IX. After Bereavement— What ? 87 X. Comfort through Personal Helpfulness 95 XI. Christ and I Are Friends 105 XII. More than Conquerors 117

XIII. Reaching for the Mountain Splen-

dors 133

XIV. Life's Open Doors 145 XV. Some Lessons on Spiritual Growth 155

XVI. The Thanksgiving Lesson 165 [vii]

Cities of Cijapters;

XVII. The Indispensable Christ Page 173

XVIII. In That Which is Least 183

XIX. The Master and the Children 193

XX. Portions for Those Who Lack 203

XXI. Slow and Steady Advance the

Best 211

XXII. What to do with our Unequal

Chance 219

XXIIL " If Two OF You Shall Agree " 227

XXIV. When We are Laid Aside 237

XXV. Face to Face with One's Own Life 249

XXVI. The Meaning of Immortality 257

XXVII. The Christian View of Death 269

[ viii ]

^pcafe W Comfortablp

Remember, three things come not back;

The arrow sent upon its track —

It will not swerve, it will not stay

Its speed, it flies to wound or slay;

The spoken word, so soon forgot

By thee, but it has perished not;

In other hearts 'tis living still.

And doing work for good or ill;

And the lost opportunity

That cometh back no more to thee —

In vain thou weepest, in vain dost yearn,

Those three will nevermore return.

From the Arabic.

Chapter I

i^peafe ge Comfortalilp

HERE is need always for comfortable words. Always there is sorrow. Everywhere hearts are breaking. There is no one who is not made happier by gentle speech. Yet there is in the world a dearth of comfortable words. Some people scarcely ever speak them. Their tones are harsh. There seems no kindness in their hearts. They are gruff, severe, querulous. Even in the presence of suffering and sorrow they evince no tenderness.

"Speak ye comfortably" is a divine exhortation. That is the way God wants us to speak to each other. That is the way God himself ever speaks to his children. The Bible is full of comfortable words. We would say that in view of the wickedness of men, their ingratitude, the base return they make for God's goodness, the way they stain the earth with sin, God would be angry with them every

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day. But instead of anger, only love is shown. He is ever speaking in words of loving kindness. He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth the rain on the just and the unjust. Every message he sends is love. All his thoughts toward his children are peace. The most wonderful expression of his heart toward the world was in the giving of Christ. He was the Word, the revealer of the heart of God. He never spoke so comfortably to men as when he sent his Son.

Who can measure the comfort that was given to the world in Jesus Christ? Never an unkind word fell from his lips, never a frown was seen on his brow. Think of the comfortable words he spoke in his mother's home. He was a sinless child, never giving way to angry words or violent tempers. His youth and manhood were without a trace of unlovingness. Then we know what he was during his public ministry — having all power, but gentle as a woman; able to call legions of angels to defend himself, but without re- [4]

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sentment, returning only gracious love for cruelty and bitter hate.

Think of the comfortable words he spoke to the sick who w^ere brought to him for healing, to the mourners sitting beside their dead, to the weary ones who came to him to find the warmth of love in his presence. The ministry of his gracious words as they were uttered by his lips and fell into sad and discouraged hearts was marvelous in its influence.

In his life Christ set an example for us. He wants us ever to be speaking comfortable words. We shall not meet a man to-morrow in our going about who will not need the comfortable word that we are able to speak. The gift of speech is marvelous in its possibilities. Man is the only one of God's creatures to whom this gift is given. This is one of the qualities that makes him Godlike. It is never meant to be perverted — it was intended always to be beautiful and pleasing. Dumbness is very sad — when one cannot speak. But would not one better be dumb than use his divine gift of speech in anger [5]

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to hurt others ? Yet how many are those who never speak but to give pain ? The hurt that is done any fairest day by words is incalculable. War is terrible. Who can describe the ruin wrought by shot and shell rained upon a city of homes, leaving devastation everywhere. Words may not lacerate, mangle like the missiles of war, but they may be almost as deadly in the cruel work they do. God wants us to use our speech to speak only and ever comfortably.

When this message was first given to the prophets, it had a definite meaning. The people were in sore straits. They were suffering. They were in sorrow because of the judgments visited upon the land and upon the holy city. "Jerusalem lay in ruins, a city through whose breached walls all the winds of heaven blew mournfully across her forsaken floors. And the heart of Jerusalem, which was with her people in exile, was like the city — broken and defenseless. In that far-off, uns5'mpathetic land it lay open to the alien; tyrants forced their idols upon it. the [6]

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people tortured it with their jests." It was to these people in sorrow and distress that God bade his heralds go with divine comfort. The words were remarkable for their tenderness. The heralds were to go to carry comfort to these broken-hearted ones.

The words, "Speak ye comfortably," have in them therefore a divine sobbing of love. God cares that men and women and children about us are sad. He knows their distress and pities them. He would have us go out to them in his name, carrying in our hearts and upon our lips the echo of his compassion and yearning. It is our privilege to represent God himself in our relations with people about us. How can the gentleness of God be passed to those who are being hurt by the world's cruelty and unkindness, if not through us, God's children? Who will carry God's sympathy and impart God's comfort to those who are sorrowing and broken-hearted if we do not.'' God needs us to be his messengers, his interpreters. If we do not faithfully and. truly represent him, how will people in their [7]

suffering and distress know his gracious interest in them and his compassionate feeling toward them? If we fail in showing kindness to those who are in need, if we treat them with coldness, withholding our hands from the ministries of love which we might have performed for them, we are not only robbing them of the blessing which we ought to have given them, but we are also failing to be true to God, are misrepresenting him, giving men false conceptions of his character and his disposition toward them. Men learn what God is and what his attitude toward them is only when his own friends are faithful to all their duties and responsibilities.

When one in trouble receives no kindness, no help, when one in sorrow receives no sympathy and comfort, it is not because God does not care, but because some child of God neglects his duty. A story is told of a child sitting sadly one day on a door-step when a kindly man was passing by. "Are j^ou God ?" the child asked. The man was struck by the strange question. "No," he answered. "I [8]

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am not God, but God sent me here, I think." "Weren't you a long time coming?" the boy asked. Then he told the passer-by that when his mother had died a little while ago, she told him that God would care for him. The boy had been watching for God to come. Too often not God, but those he sends are long in coming to speak for God or to bring the relief or comfort God sends by them. People in distress, who have learned to believe that God will provide for them, are ofttimes compelled to wait long, until their hearts grow almost faint before the blessing comes. Sometimes they begin to wonder whether after all God really hears prayers and keeps his promises while the delay is not with God, but with us who are so long coming.

"Speak ye comfortably." We need to train ourselves to remember that we are God's messengers, that it is ours to be attent to any bidding of our Master and to go quickly with any message of relief or cheer, or comfort he gives us to carry. We must not linger or

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loiter. Tlic need may be urgent. The person nicay be near death. Or the distress may be so keen that it cannot be endured a moment longer. What if the sufferer should die before we reach him.'' We are sent to give comfort to one who is in the anguish of bereavement. We hesitate and shrink from carrjang our message. INIeanwhile the bereft one has come back from the grave to the desolated home and the emptiness and silence. God's heart is full of compassion and he has blessed comfort for his child, but there is no one to go with the message. There are Bibles in the sad home, but there is no human messenger to speak the comfortable words. It needs a gentle heart to bring in tender and loving words and in warm, throbbing touch the comfort that is needed. We fail God while we do not hasten on his errand to our friend who sits uncomforted in the shadows. We try to excuse ourselves by saying that we ought not to break in on our friend's sorrow, that we should make our condolences formal, that it would be rude and could only add to [10]

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the pain if we were to try to speak of the sorrow. This may be true of the world of people in general, but there is always one to whom God gives the message, "Go and speak comfortably," one who will fail God if he does not carry the message, leaving the heart to break when God wanted it to be relieved and comforted.

<^t HSinfetrp of Comfort

I am so weak I hardly dare to pray

That my small light may bless yet farther still; That weary ones, the lone, the far away

Even I may help to show thy love and will.

And yet I know the weak are strong in thee,

And knowing this I would, in thy dear name, The greatest of all blessings that can be.

This precious gift, this crown of blessings, claim- To be a blessing in this world of woe.

"And thou shalt be a blessing" — 'twas thy word. This is the greatest gift thou canst bestow;

Give it, I pray, to me, even me, O Lord.

CHAPTER II ^fje ItSiniStrp of Comfort

DISTINGUISHED clergyman said, in reviewing his ministry at its close, that if he were to begin over again, he would preach more comfortingly. There always are in any company of people many who have sorrow, many at least who need uplifting and cheer. There is always a place for the comforter. And there are few who really understand the art of giving comfort. Many who seem to think they do and who are ready on every occasion to seek to console others who are in trouble fail in their efforts. Job said that the friends who came to him in his calamity and spoke to him so volubly concerning his afflictions were only miserable comforters. Those who have passed through experiences of trouble and have had their friends and neighbors come and sit with them and give them what they considered words of consolation have found

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ofttimes that they gave but small help. The burden of sorrow was not lighter after they had gone. No new light broke through the clouds upon those who sorrowed as they listened to the words of their friends. Their hearts were not quieted. They had learned no new song of joy.

It is worth our while to learn what true comfort is and how we can speak comfortably to others. No ministry is more needed or finds more frequent opportunity for exercise. No men, in any community, become so highly esteemed and loved while the years go by as those who are wise in giving comfort to others. The sad and weary turn to them for cheer and help. They always have a word to give which imparts strength.

Those who would be wise in comforting must be sympathetic. They must be patient with even the smallest griefs of others. It is not easy for the strong to sympathize w^lth the weak. They cannot understand how little sufferings and troubles, such as those which seem so hard for others to bear, should really [16]

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cause any distress. They are disposed to laugh at the complaints of those who seem to have so little of which to complain. No doubt there are many people who make altogether too much of very small cares and difficulties. They fret over every imaginable inconvenience or discomfort. No matter how well they are, they imagine they have many ills and can never talk to any one without speaking of their ailments. They magnify the minutest sufferings and sorrows. It seems to be their natural disposition to think themselves particularly unfortunate. They find their chief pleasure apparently in having others commiserate them and sympathize with them.

It is not easy for persons of strong, wholesome spirit, used to look with contempt on little trials and sufferings in their own life, to have patience with those who are really weak and unable to endure, or with those who so magnify their little ills and troubles. But if the strong would become real helpers of the weak, they must learn to be patient with [17]

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every phase of their weakness and to condescend to it. Indeed, weakness of this kind needs comfort that will cure it and transform it into manly strength. Sympathy, to be truly rich and adequate, in its helpfulness, must be able to enter into ever}^ form of suffering, even the smallest, and to listen to every kind of complaining and discontent, to every fear and anxiety, however needless. It was thus that Christ condescended to all human fraility. He never treated any one's trouble, however small, or any one's worry, however groundless, with lightness, as if it were unimportant. He bade to come to him all who were weary, receiving graciously every one who came. He was infinitely strong, but his strength was infinitely gentle to the weakest. Nothing in this world is more beautiful than the sight of a strong man giving his strength to one who is weak, that he may help him also to grow strong.

Another class who find it hard to sympathize with sorrow are those who never have any sorrow of their own. They have been [18]

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reared in sheltered homes, with love and tenderness all about them. They have never had a want unmet. They have never known hardship. They have never watched by the death-bed of a loved one and there has been no break in their home circle. They have never had a bitter disappointment in their life. What do they know of the experiences of suffering, of pain, of anguish, of struggle, of want, which comes to such multitudes in some form or other in life? These cannot sympathize with their fellows in their trials, in the things that make their life so hard. They do not understand what these experiences mean.

An artist has painted a picture which represents the scene of the crucifixion after it was all over. The crowd has gone. The cross is empty. The thorn-crown is lying on a rock, and an angel is looking at it, with his finger touching one of its sharp thorns wonderingly. He is trying to learn what pain is. He had beheld the anguish of the Son of God on the cross, and could not understand the mj'stery. The angels cannot understand our suffering, for they have never suffered. Nor can men who have never had pain or sorrow understand these experiences in us. They may pity us when they see us enduring our sufferings, but they cannot sympathize with us. Before we can be true comforters of others, we must know in our own lives the meaning of the things that give us pain or distress. If we do not, wx cannot help them by any words we may say to them. There is nothing in our experience to interpret to us what they are suffering. If we would help those who are in trouble, we must know what comfort really is. Many people do not. Many think that if they weep with those who weep they have comforted them. There is a measure of help in this. It does us good when we are suffering to know that another feels with us. It brings another life into fellowship with ours. We are not alone — somebody cares. This makes us stronger to endure. We can bear our pain better if a friend holds our hand.

CJje Mini&tvp of Comfort

This is the only way some people think of giving comfort. They sit down beside us and listen to our recital of grief. They let us tell it out in all its details. They encourage us to dwell on the painful incidents. They give expression to their pity, entering with us into our suffering as if it were their own. They dwell on the bitterness of our trial, emphasizing its sharpness and poignancy, thus adding to our pain and distress. Then they rise and go their way, leaving us just where they found us when they came in. They have shown their interest in us, their sympathy with us. But they have not given us the best comfort.

The word "comfort" is from a root that means to strengthen. In our modern use of the word we have almost dropped this thought of its original sense. But we would better recall it. To comfort is to strengthen. When we would give comfort to others, we are not merely to let them know we are their friends and are sorry for them. We are not just to try in some way to alleviate their pain. [21]

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It is not enough that we in some measure relieve their distress. We are to seek to have them grow strong so that they can endure the trouble and rejoice in it.

This should be our aim in our ministry of comfort to others. We have not finished our work w4th them, therefore, until we have brought them some divine truth which will cast light on their sorrows, which will inspire them with hope and courage.

The comforter needs gentleness, for a harsh word would make the sorrow deeper. He needs patience, for grief yields slowly even to most faithful love. He needs tenderness like a mother's. God says to his afflicted ones, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort thee." A father's comfort is different from a mother's, and if we w^ould be like God we must learn from mothers how^ to comfort. He who would give comfort must have faith. He must believe in God, must know him, must be sure of God's love. Then he will know how to sustain with words him that is weary.

^o\3J Cftrist Comforts C^is iFrtenbs

Not so in haste, my heart!

Have faith in God and wait.

Although he lingers long,

He never comes too late.

He never comes too late,

He knoweth what is best; Vex not thyself in vain;

Until he cometh, rest.

Until he cometh, rest,

Nor grudge the hours that roll; The feet that wait for God

Are soonest at the goal.

Are soonest at the goal

That is not gained by speed; Then hold thee still, Tuy heart.

For I shall wait his lead.

Bradford Torrey.

CHAPTER III J^oto Cfjris^t Comforts; ^ii iFrientrg

HE little Twenty-third Psalm is the most familiar portion of the Bible and is oftenest read. It has comforted more sorrow than any other composition the world possesses. Next to it the Fourteenth Chapter of John is the best known of all the Scriptures. It is a chapter of comfort. How many tears it has dried ! To how many sorrowing hearts has it brought peace ! Its words were first spoken to a company of broken-hearted friends who thought they never could be comforted. It is well to study how Jesus, the truest comforter the world ever has known, consoled his friends.

Look at the way Jesus comforts his disciples. First of all, in that saddest of all hours he bade them not to be troubled. Yet they were about to lose their best friend. How [25]

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could they but be troubled? He comes to his friends to-day in their bereavement with the same word: "Let not your heart be troubled." This is not mere professional consolation. As Jesus saw it that night, there was no reason why the disciples should be troubled. As Jesus sees it, there is no reason why you should be troubled, even though you are watching your dearest friend pass away in what you call death. It is only the earth side of the event that you see, and it seems terrible to you. The friends of Jesus thought they were losing him and for ever. He had been a wonderful friend. He had a rich nature, a noble personality, power to love deeply, capacit}^ for unselfish friendship, and was able to inspire us to all worthy life. The disciples thought they were about to lose all that.

You think you are losing all friendship's best in the departure of your friend. Yet Jesus, looking upon his disciples and looking upon you, bids you not to be troubled. Death is not an experience which harms the believing one who passes through it. The Christian [26]

mother who died this afternoon is not troubled and in sorrow where she is to-night. Dying has not disturbed her happiness — she never was happier than she is now. Leaving her children behind has not broken her heart nor filled her with distress and anxiety concerning them. As she looks upon them from her new point of view, on death's other side, there is no cause for grief or fear. They are in the divine care which is so loving, so wise, so gentle, and so far-reaching, that she has not a shadow of uncertainty regarding them. The children are in distress because they have lost their mother who has been so much to them. They cannot endure the thought of going on without their mother's love and tenderness, her guidance and shelter. Yet the Master says to them : "Do not be troubled." He means that if they understood all that has taken place as he understands it, if they knew what dying has meant to their mother, and what the divine love will mean to them in the days to come, they would not be troubled. What seems to them calamity would appear [27]

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perfect good if thej could see it from the heavenly side.

Jesus told his disciples what they should do. "Believe in God, believe also in me." They could not understand that hour why all was well, why nothing w^as going wrong, why good would be the outcome of all the things that then seemed so terrible. They could not see how their loss Avould become gain when it was all wrought out to the end, how what appeared the destruction of their hopes would prove to be the glorious fulfilling of those hopes. Yet they were to believe. That is, they were to commit all the broken things of their hearts that night into God's hands, trust him, and have no fear, no anxiety, no doubt. They themselves could not bring good out of all this evil, but God could, and faith was committing the w^hole matter to him.

"Believe in God." Jesus had taught them a new name for God. He was their Father. A whole world of love-thoughts was in that name. The very hairs of their heads were numbered. Not a sparrow could fall to the [28]

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ground without their Father, which meant that the divine care took in all the events of their lives, all the smallest incidents of their affairs. We are to believe absolutely in the love of God, and trust him though we cannot see. We do not need to understand, we do not have to know— the eternal God is caring for us and nothing can ever go wrong in his hands. "Believe in God."

"Believe also in me." They had been believing in Jesus Christ, thinking that he was their Messiah. "Thou art the Christ," Peter had confessed. But they were now in danger of losing faith in him when they saw him sent to the cross. He called them to keep their faith through the terrible hours just before them. We are always in danger of losing faith in Christ in time of great sorrow or of trouble that sweeps away our hopes. Again and again Christian people in grief and loss are heard asking, "Why does Christ let me suffer thus? If he loves me, how is it that he allows me to be thus troubled?" The trouble is that our vision is short-sighted. [29]

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We are impatient and cannot wait. The going away of their Master left the disciples in despair. They thought they were losing him. They did not know that his going away was part of his love for them, its highest expression, that none of the things about him they had believed had failed. We need to continue to believe in Christ though everything seems to have gone from us. His way is always right. One comfort comes through abiding trust in him.