heedest not their sighs, He marks them all, for He has sighed like
them; though there be no pity in thee, there is in Him the pity of a
man, ay, and the indignation of a God! He treasures up their tears;
He understands their sorrows; His judgment of their guilt is not like
thine, thou Pharisee! He is their Lord, who said, that to those to
whom little was given, of them shall little be required. Generation
after generation, they are being made perfect by sufferings, as their
Saviour was before them; and then, woe to thee! For even as He led
Israel out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and a stretched-out arm, and
signs and wonders, great and terrible, so shall He lead the poor out
of their misery, and make them households like a flock of sheep; even
as He led Israel through the wilderness, tender, forbearing, knowing
whereof they were made, having mercy on all their brutalities, and
idolatries, murmurings, and backslidings, afflicted in all their
afflictions--even while He was punishing them outwardly, as He is
punishing the poor man now--even so shall He lead this people out in
His good time, into a good land and large, a land of wheat and wine,
of milk and honey; a rest which He has prepared for His poor, such as
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart
of man to conceive. He can do it; for the Almighty Deliverer is His
name. He will do it; for His name is Love. He knows how to do it;
for He has borne the griefs, and carried the sorrows of the poor.

Oh, sad hearts and suffering! Anxious and weary ones! Look to the
cross this day! There hung your king! The King of sorrowing souls,
and more, the King of sorrows. Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and
desertion, death and hell, He has faced them one and all, and tried
their strength, and taught them His, and conquered them right
royally! And, since He hung upon that torturing cross, sorrow is
divine, god-like, as joy itself. All that man's fallen nature dreads