The
story is too painful to be repeated in these pages. In his sore
distress, the father, a godly man, a man of strong faith and noble
wisdom, cries out: "What is the comfort even of Christ and the Bible
for me? How can I roll this burden of mine upon God?"
In answer to these questions it must be remembered that there are some
things which even the richest, divinest comfort cannot do. For one
thing, it cannot take away the pain of grief or sorrow. Our first
thought of comfort usually is that it shall lift off our burden. We
soon learn, however, that it is not in this way that comfort ordinarily
comes. It does not make the grief any less. It does not make our
hearts any less sensitive to anguish. "Consolation implies rather an
augmentation of the power of bearing than a diminution of the burden."
In this case, it cannot lift off the loving father's heart the burden
of disappointment and anguish which he experiences in seeing his son
swept away in the currents of temptation. No possible comfort can do
this. The perfect peace in which God promises to keep those whose
minds are stayed on him, is not a painless peace in any case of
suffering. The crushed father cannot expect a comfort which will make
him forget his wandering, sinning child, or which will cause him to
feel no longer the poignant anguish which the boy's course causes in
his heart. Father-love must be destroyed to make such comforting
possible, and that would be a sorer calamity than any sorrow.
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