The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-11-14
THE MINISTRY OF SORROW.
BY EDWARD BOURNE.

THERE are many who believe in
gospel of hope and gladness that do
not understand why such sad books
as those of Job, Ruth and Ecclesias-
tes have found a place in the sacred
canon.
But life, like the shield of Achilles,
has two.faces, and gospel or Bible
that did not show in it's record the
whole scale of human JOY and human
sorrow. would be too small and con-
tracted for the needs of the human
race. In times of great trials or ad-
versities of any sort we naturally turn
for encouragement and hope not to
the sunny and glad who have never
known sorrow, but to those who have
been tried as by fire and have come
forth chastened and purified. The
Bible sweeps both the major and the
minor chords of life's grand music
and there is place for the abound
ing gladness ofthe Songs of Solomon,
the dismal comforters of Job. the sad
story of Ruth and the glorious burst
of the Gloria in Excelsis which opened
the gates of the new dispensation of
gladness and joy. 1t shows the world
as God made it and also as man has
perverted it. To have omitted either
would have marred the symmetry of
the whole. AS Henry Ward Beecher
once said, "Trouble does not disclose
its true meaning. Only by exper-
fence do men find out what trouble
means. 1t does not perform the
same office for everybody; it slays
some. it restores some; it blights like
frost in some cases; it ripens in
others as the frost doss many fruits.
For the present it is painful, but
fterwards, how long afterwards no.
body knows, differing according to
the nature of the recipient,-it yield
eth the peaceable fruit of righteous
ness unto them that are exercised
thereby"
Storms and tempests serve to puri-
fy the air. Night with its stars has a
radiance and divine mission of its
own and in turn adds by way of con-
trast to the splendor of the glowing
dawn looking over the eastern hills
and making the earth glad in the re-
turning light of day. How sublime
and beautiful the mission even of the
Book of Job, with all it's sorrows and
Affections and dismal comforters
may be, Carlyle has told us in words
that pierce to the heart of it's sorrow,
its doubt, its returning dawn and
glorious reward of constancy. The
words are poem, though written in
the measure of prose, and illustrate
so fully and nobly the idea we have
been endeavoring to convey, that we
cannot do better than reproduce
them: II call the Book of Job, apart
from all theories about it, one of the
grandest things ever written with a
pen. A noble book All mems book
1t is our first, oldest statement of the
never-ending problem, mans des-
tiny, and Gods ways with him here
on earth. And all in such free, flow
ing outlines; grand in it's simplicity,
and its epic melody, and repose of
reconcilement. There is the seeing
eye, the mildly understanding heart.
So true everywaY; true eyesight and
vision for all things, material things
no less than spiritual. Such living
likenesses were never since drawn.
Sublime sorrow, sublime reconcilia-
tion; oldest choral melody as of the
heart of mankind; SO soft and great;
as the summer night, as the world
with it's seas and starsl There is no.
thing written, think, in the Bible or
out of it, of equal literary merit"