ye, comfort ye, my people.”  Is the way long and through a desert?  “Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill shall be made low.”  Has slavery worn man’s strength to nothingness until he is as weak as the broken reed and the withered grass?  The spirit of the Lord will revive the grass, trampled down by the hoofs of war horses.  Soon the bruised root shall redden into the rose and the fluted stem climb into the tree.  And think you if God’s winds can transform a spray and twig into a trunk fit for foundation of house or mast of ship, that eternal arms can not equip with strength the hand of patriot?

Is the Shepherd and Leader of His little flock unequal to their guidance across the desert?  “Behold the Lord will come with a strong arm; he shall feed his flock like a shepherd and he shall gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom.”  What!  Man’s hand unequal to the task of rebuilding Jerusalem?  Hath not God pledged His strength to the worker, that God whose arm strikes out worlds as the smith strikes out sparks upon the anvil?  Is not man’s helper that God who dippeth up the seas in the hollow of His hand?  Who weighs the mountains with scales and the hills in the balance?  What!  Thine enemies too strong for thee?  Why, God looketh upon all the nations and enemies of the earth as but a drop in the bucket.  He sendeth forth His breath, and the tribes disappear as dust is blown from the balance.  Then the trumpet call shivered through these exiles.  “Hast thou not known?  Have the sons of the fathers never heard of the everlasting God, the Lord, Creator of the ends of the earth?  Fainteth not, neither is weary!” Heavy is the task, but the Eternal giveth power and strength.  Even tho young patriots and heroes faint and fall, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.  While fulfilling their task of rebuilding they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.  Oh, what a word is this!  What page in literature is comparable to it for comfort!  Wonderful the strength of the warrior!  Mighty the influence of the statesman!  All powerful seems the inventor, but greater still the poet who dwells above the clang and dust of time, with the world’s secret trembling on his lips.

  He needs no converse nor companionship,
  In cold starlight, whence thou can not come,
  The undelivered tidings in his breast,
  Will not let him rest. 
  He who looks down upon the immemorable throng,
  And binds the ages with a song. 
  And through the accents of our time,
  There throbs the message of eternity.

And so the unwearied God comforted the fainting strength of man.