out into a common hope.  In the former of them we have the dark stream—­’through patience and comfort,’ which implies affliction and effort.  The issue and outcome of all difficulty, trial, sorrow, ought to be hope.  And in the other verse we have the other valley, down which the light stream comes:  ’The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope.’

So both halves of the possible human experience are meant to end in the same blessed result; and whether you go round on the one side of the sphere of human life, or whether you take the other hemisphere, you come to the same point, if you have travelled with God’s hand in yours, and with Him for your Guide.

Let us look, then, at these two contrasted origins of the same blessed gift, the Christian hope.

I. We have, first of all, the hope that is the child of the night, and born in the dark.

‘Whatsoever things,’ says the Apostle, ’were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we, through patience,’—­or rather the brave perseverance—­’and consolation’—­or rather perhaps encouragement—­’of the Scriptures might have hope.’  The written word is conceived as the source of patient endurance which acts as well as suffers.  This grace Scripture works in us through the encouragement which it ministers in manifold ways, and the result of both is hope.

So, you see, our sorrows and difficulties are not connected with, nor do they issue in, bright hopefulness, except by reason of this connecting link.  There is nothing in a man’s troubles to make him hopeful.  Sometimes, rather, they drive him into despair; but at all events, they seldom drive him to hopefulness, except where this link comes in.  We cannot pass from the black frowning cliffs on one side of the gorge to the sunny tablelands on the other without a bridge—­and the bridge for a poor soul from the blackness of sorrow, and the sharp grim rocks of despair, to the smiling pastures of hope, with all their half-open blossoms, is builded in that Book, which tells us the meaning and purpose of them all; and is full of the histories of those who have fought and overcome, have hoped and not been ashamed.

Scripture is given for this among other reasons, that it may encourage us, and so may produce in us this great grace of active patience, if we may call it so.

The first thing to notice is, how Scripture gives encouragement—­for such rather than consolation is the meaning of the word.  It is much to dry tears, but it is more to stir the heart as with a trumpet call.  Consolation is precious, but we need more for well-being than only to be comforted.  And, surely, the whole tone of Scripture in its dealing with the great mystery of pain and sorrow, has a loftier scope than even to minister assuagement to grief, and to stay our weeping.  It seeks to make us strong and brave to face and to master our sorrows, and to