“O Spirit of infinite kindness,
And gentleness passing all speech!
Forgive when we miss in our blindness
The comforting hand Thou dost reach.
Thou sendest the Spring on Thine errand
To soften the grief of the world;
For us is the calm of the mountain,
For us is the roseleaf uncurled!”
Gentleness is not weakness. There are men who are gentle — sympathetic, kind, tender, yet who are not strong. But that is not the kind of manliness we admire. The true man is always strong. Tourists sometimes find high up on the Alps, on some bald crag on the edge of the eternal snows, a sweet, lovely flower growing. That is gentleness — the mighty rock, immovable, unchanging, and on it growing the tender, fragrant bloom. Gentleness is essential to complete manliness, but gentleness is beautiful only when combined with strength.
Christ is gentle in dealing with sufferers. Skill in giving comfort is very rare. Many people are sure to speak the wrong word when they sit down beside those who are in pain or trouble. Job’s friends were “miserable comforters.” They tried to make Job believe that he had displeased God, and that this was why so much evil had come upon him. Many good people think that when they sit beside a sufferer or a mourner, they must talk about the trouble entering into all its details, and dwelling upon all that makes it painful and hard to endure. But the truest comforter is not the one who seems to sympathize the most deeply, going down into the depths with him who is in grief; but the one who, sympathizing with the suffers, yet brings cheer and uplifts, sets a vision of Christ before the mourning eyes, and sings of peace and hope.
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