_SORROW THE PLEDGE OF JOY._

'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.'--_Matthew_
v. 4.


Grief, then, sorrow, pain of heart, mourning, is no partition-wall
between man and God. So far is it from opposing any obstacle to the
passage of God's light into man's soul, that the Lord congratulates them
that mourn. There is no evil in sorrow. True, it is not an essential
good, a good in itself, like love; but it will mingle with any good
thing, and is even so allied to good that it will open the door of the
heart for any good. More of sorrowful than of joyful men are always
standing about the everlasting doors that open into the presence of the
Most High. It is true also that joy is in its nature more divine than
sorrow; for, although man must sorrow, and God share in his sorrow, yet
in himself God is not sorrowful, and the 'glad creator' never made man
for sorrow: it is but a stormy strait through which he must pass to his
ocean of peace. He 'makes the joy the last in every song.' Still, I
repeat, a man in sorrow is in general far nearer God than a man in joy.
Gladness may make a man forget his thanksgiving; misery drives him to
his prayers. For we _are_ not yet, we are only _becoming_. The endless
day will at length dawn whose every throbbing moment will heave our
hearts Godward; we shall scarce need to lift them up: now, there are two
door-keepers to the house of prayer, and Sorrow is more on the alert to
open than her grandson Joy.