The Meaning of Sorrow
By Rev. W. D. Capers, Rector St. Peter’s Church, Columbia, Tenn.
“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy word.” (Ps. 119: 67.)
From one point of view there is no mystery so impenetrable as that involved in the suffering and sorrow which exists in every department and sphere of life. The suffering of humanity, the fact that “the world groaneth and travaileth in pain until now” presented to the sensitive mind of Dr. John Hall the supreme difficulty with which he struggled during a great part of his remarkable ministry, until courage, faith and experience taught him to understand and to recognize suffering as having its mission in life and in the development of character, just as happiness has its place, each acting as one of the two great interpreters of moral and spiritual development. It is impossible to have a creed or to form an adequate philosophy of life and overlook the really essential and universal place suffering, in one form or another, occupies therein. Just try and think, if you can, of a world in which there is no suffering, no sorrow, no pain; a world in which there are no tears, no bitterness, no woe. The thing is unthinkable, it is simply inconceivable, and as a condition of life, utterly and eternally impossible. Why? Because pleasure and pain are relative. Suffering and joy face each other in a blessed contrast. There has to be a standard of comparison by which we are to make the proper estimate of these things, otherwise we would be unable to distinguish between them; otherwise happiness would have no reality to it, no vitality in it, and neither strength nor power of growth, while life would be without an essential variety of emotions, and therefore necessarily become “stale, flat and unprofitable” indeed. A remarkable description of hell’s severest punishment, though very fanciful, is that, wherein the victims are made to do that which they most loved to do here in this life, incessantly, continuously and strenuously. The suggestion to my mind is very significant and teaches that the most tortuous and horrible suffering is just that which comes through uninterrupted monotony. To dance your life away, to drink your life away, to play and fritter your life away in purposeless amusement and never to suffer a reverse or be conscious of a struggle, never to know a pang of pain or experience a momentary disappointment, may seem to those who have just sipped an occasional drop from the cup of pleasure and mirth an enviable existence, a consummation in life devoutly to be wished. But to dance or play or laugh or sing through endless eons of time and to experience not one inspiring struggle which brings moral and spiritual strengthening, to have to live through eternity would be misery indeed. Suffering then, in the first place, heightens and intensifies our joys, it helps develop the power of enjoyment, and it makes a larger and a more real happiness possible. To illustrate: There was unspeakable joy in the home of the prodigal, as the aged father rushed out to meet and greet his wayward boy, for to the old man his son had been dead, and behold he was alive again, he had been lost and was found. It was the suffering of the separation which alone made possible the intense and glorified happiness of their reunion. And how often it happens that not only are “troubled times praying times,” but that “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” Thus suffering often brings a man to his senses and makes him conscious of his dependence upon God. As we read, it was only when the prodigal “came to himself” that he concluded to arise and go to his father, and we must conclude that it was the suffering, sorrow and bitterness of privation and disappointed hopes that drove him to a realization of his true condition, and in the end brought to him a real and lasting happiness. In this and in similar acts of conduct history neverfails to repeat itself in every age, in every epoch, in every generation, as well as yearly, daily and hourly in the life of individuals and of nations. Opulence, ease, prosperity and an unwholesome peace have repeatedly rushed peoples and principalities to a shameful and untimely ruin, wherein men have lost their reason and nations drunk with a sense of power have reeled and staggered to and fro like a drunken man and then lay prostrate in the dust. In support of this I appeal to history. In support of this Mr. Kipling appeals to history when in his recessional poem he said:
“Far called our navies melt away—On dune and headland sinks the fire—Lo, all our pomp of yesterdayIs one with Nineveh and Tyre.Judge of the nations, spare us yetLest we forget—lest we forget.”
“Far called our navies melt away—On dune and headland sinks the fire—Lo, all our pomp of yesterdayIs one with Nineveh and Tyre.Judge of the nations, spare us yetLest we forget—lest we forget.”
“Far called our navies melt away—On dune and headland sinks the fire—Lo, all our pomp of yesterdayIs one with Nineveh and Tyre.Judge of the nations, spare us yetLest we forget—lest we forget.”
“Far called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.
Judge of the nations, spare us yet
Lest we forget—lest we forget.”
Suffering then, often serves to give us a fuller, freer, wiser and wider view of life. It was only when through suffering that the prodigal “came to himself,” and when he received this self-revelation, then he “arose and went to his father,” and in like manner when man “comes to himself” he goes to God. But mark you, self-revelation seldom if ever comes to one while sailing the seas of glory and sounding all the depths and shoals of mere worldly splendor and prosperity. “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept my word,” said the Psalmist, and when Job came to himself through the trial of his faith and patience, he ceased to question the ways of Providence, he reverently placed his hand upon his mouth and would “speak no further,” for fear he now no longer knew God “by the hearing of the ear,” but by the “seeing of the eye,” and he went to his knees in supplication, “and the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.”
Again, we are to notice that suffering brings us courage and broadens and deepens and intensifies our sympathies. “Pity makes the whole world akin,” and so quickens our consciousness of brotherliness. “At sea when the ship is in great peril the passengers crowd together, not because they can escape peril by facing it in company, but because they can gain courage by companionship. The sense of human kinship grows fresh and keen when men stand together in the face of a common danger.” It is therefore through suffering that men gain courage through a vivid realization of the brotherhood of man and the solidarity of the race. It often is as Dr. Mabie has said: “Through sorrowful ways men have climbed to the heights from which they now look into the heavens and over the landscape of life.”
And this brings us to our final thought which is that suffering in some of its manifold forms gives that variety to life which is essential to the proper development of all the faculties of heart, soul, mind and body. By way of illustration, let us suppose that you could take from the public and private libraries of the world every book that contained a poem, a reference or a treatise touching the theme of sorrow, and what a dull, dead, gloomy monotony of uninspired literature would remain, while, in rather figurative language, the world itself could not contain the books thus mutilated and cast away. Apply the same test to art, and the galleries of the world would be destroyed, miles upon miles of bare walls would greet us at every turn as we made our heart-sick pilgrimage from gallery to gallery. Apply the same test to music, and you will never again hear the singing of a song with genius and power in it strong enough to stir the heart’s deepest emotions or to cause the soul to glow with a conscious ecstacy of faith and hope and the brain to burn with the fire of a high and holy resolution. The organ’s rich peal, the ring of stringed instruments, the wailing of the lute would lose the voice of melody, while “The Marseillaise,” “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Dixie Land” and similar martial airs would never have found voice to speak for patriotic devotion or to chant the glory of a martyrdom for home or for country, had not the spirit of sacrifice and suffering pervaded them and given to them immortality.
No, suffering is a vital part and condition of life, and from the right use of it we gather strength and grow beautiful in moral and spiritual stature, whilewe gain the only happiness that maintains and has power to bless mankind, happiness which is the child of conscious strength acquired on the battlefield of conflict and in the vale of tears. How then are you going to use the sorrows, the afflictions, the disappointments and the trials that must come inevitably into your life? The late Maltby Babcock has a fine passage in this connection: “Byron eagerly coveted a place among the immortals, yet accepted his club feet with cursings and bitterness; while St. Paul accepted his ‘thorn in the flesh’ with sweetness and was thereby exalted and transfigured. The poet wishes to become a hero for the public while privately tasting of the sweets of profligacy. Sinning against his finer feelings his art steadily declines, until at thirty-five it has passed into the sear and yellow leaf.” Let us strive to emulate the example of St. Paul, and when having no power to expel from our life that which brings pain and suffering, let us endeavor to accept such sorrow as an opportunity to develop character, and thereby be exalted and made strong, remembering always that since “The Man of Sorrows” hung upon the cross, transfigured sorrow is that which has blessed humanity most, and brought men nearest to the heart and mind of the Master. And train yourself to believe that.
“Sometime, when all life’s lessons have been learned,And sun and stars forevermore have set,The things which one weak judgment here has spurned,The things o’er which we grieved, with lashes wet,Will flash before us out of life’s dark night,As stars shine best in deepest tints of blue;And we shall see how all God’s plans were right,And that which seemed reproof was love most true.”
“Sometime, when all life’s lessons have been learned,And sun and stars forevermore have set,The things which one weak judgment here has spurned,The things o’er which we grieved, with lashes wet,Will flash before us out of life’s dark night,As stars shine best in deepest tints of blue;And we shall see how all God’s plans were right,And that which seemed reproof was love most true.”
“Sometime, when all life’s lessons have been learned,And sun and stars forevermore have set,The things which one weak judgment here has spurned,The things o’er which we grieved, with lashes wet,Will flash before us out of life’s dark night,As stars shine best in deepest tints of blue;And we shall see how all God’s plans were right,And that which seemed reproof was love most true.”
“Sometime, when all life’s lessons have been learned,
And sun and stars forevermore have set,
The things which one weak judgment here has spurned,
The things o’er which we grieved, with lashes wet,
Will flash before us out of life’s dark night,
As stars shine best in deepest tints of blue;
And we shall see how all God’s plans were right,
And that which seemed reproof was love most true.”
OUR STAR
(In memory of Mrs. Annie Horne Fry, who died August 13, 1905.)
Sunset and Sorrow’s tide,Over the bar—Sunset, and daylight diedSeeing a Star.Twilight, and Hope had fled,Fled from afar.Twilight, and Hope lay dead,Holding a Star.Midnight and mourning loudCometh to mar.Midnight, yet o’er her shroudShineth the Star.Morning, and from the mist—Sweet Avatar—Hope-crowned and Sorrow-kissedStandeth our Star.JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE.
Sunset and Sorrow’s tide,Over the bar—Sunset, and daylight diedSeeing a Star.Twilight, and Hope had fled,Fled from afar.Twilight, and Hope lay dead,Holding a Star.Midnight and mourning loudCometh to mar.Midnight, yet o’er her shroudShineth the Star.Morning, and from the mist—Sweet Avatar—Hope-crowned and Sorrow-kissedStandeth our Star.JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE.
Sunset and Sorrow’s tide,Over the bar—Sunset, and daylight diedSeeing a Star.
Sunset and Sorrow’s tide,
Over the bar—
Sunset, and daylight died
Seeing a Star.
Twilight, and Hope had fled,Fled from afar.Twilight, and Hope lay dead,Holding a Star.
Twilight, and Hope had fled,
Fled from afar.
Twilight, and Hope lay dead,
Holding a Star.
Midnight and mourning loudCometh to mar.Midnight, yet o’er her shroudShineth the Star.
Midnight and mourning loud
Cometh to mar.
Midnight, yet o’er her shroud
Shineth the Star.
Morning, and from the mist—Sweet Avatar—Hope-crowned and Sorrow-kissedStandeth our Star.JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE.
Morning, and from the mist—
Sweet Avatar—
Hope-crowned and Sorrow-kissed
Standeth our Star.
JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE.