Comfort "where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings" (John Milton)

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

The Mourner's Comforter and Dark Memory

After a nightmare in the midst of mononucleosis sickness, I opened The Mourner's Comforter, and my eyes fell on a beautiful distraction--trees. The words said: 
"Trees frequently become marvels of grandeur... What a history is embodied in those gnarls and knots and twisted branches... How they tell of stormy nights and days of heavy snow! All over the bark and the boughs time has with his pencil written records of sunshine and tempest. Now, such is a Christian when God makes him rich in grace: if you could but know him and read him he is a mass of history. His virtues are the results of severe trial, and the records of sublime joys. All the lines of his face mean something; there is not a scar upon his soul, or a dark memory upon his spirit, or a bright recollection in his mind but what it redounds to the glory of God." 

What a contrast to the Pit of my nightmare.

Quote from The Mourner's Comforter, C H Spurgeon, Opine Publishing, p. 220. In Not All Roads Lead Home (second ed., p. 106; first ed.,pp. 127, 128), Jane Bullard. Bold font emphasis added.

(c) Jean Purcell 2010

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