Words of Consolation

Endeavor to possess your soul in patience, and gather support and
consolation from the thought, that the Lord has a gracious and merciful
object in all His dealings with you; and then call to mind that
encouraging declaration, "No chastening for the present seems to be
joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit
of righteousness unto those who are exercised thereby."
A young man who had long been confined to his home with a diseased
limb and was near death — was attended by a friend who requested that
the wound might be uncovered. This being done, the young man said,
"There it is, and a precious treasure it has been to me! It has saved me
from the folly and vanity of youth. It has made me cleave to God as my
only portion, and to eternal glory as my only hope — and I think it has
now brought me very near my Father's home."
Thus death loses its terror, to the soul that trusts in Jesus.
Such a trust brings a fullness of grace in the soul, showing itself in holy
constancy, and in a calm, restful spirit, which says, "We know that if the
earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an
eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands!" 2 Corinthians 5:1
As the late Professor Hope was lying on his dying bed, and just before
he breathed his last, after saying, 'My work is done — the pins of the
tabernacle are taken out,' he began to repeat the lines —
'A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
On Your kind arms I fall,'
when his power of utterance seemed to fail. His sorrow-stricken wife
finished the stanza thus —
'O be my strength and righteousness, My Jesus, and my all.'
Thus the believer rests on his Savior, and finds comfort in His presence
while passing through the dark valley of the shadow of death.
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