“The days of your mourning shall be ended.” —Isaiah 60:20
Christ’s people are a weeping band, though there be much in this lovely world to make them joyous and happy. Yet when they think of sin—their own sin, and the unblushing sins of a world in which their God is dishonored—need we wonder at their tears?—that they should be called “Mourners,” and their pilgrimage home a “Valley of Tears?” Bereavement, and sickness, and poverty and death following the track of sin, add to their mourning experience; and with many of God’s best beloved, one tear is scarce dried when another is ready to flow!
Mourners! rejoice! When the reaping time comes, the weeping time ends! When the white robe and the golden harp are bestowed, every remnant of the sackcloth attire is removed. The moment the pilgrim, whose forehead is here furrowed with woe, bathes it in the crystal river of life—that moment the pangs of a lifetime of sorrow are eternally forgotten! Reader! if you are one of these careworn ones, the days of your mourning are numbered! A few more throbbings of this aching heart, and then the angel who proclaims “time,” shall proclaim also, sorrow, and sighing, and mourning, to “be no longer!” Seek now to mourn your sins more than your sorrows; reserve your bitterest tears for forgetfulness of your dear Lord. The saddest and sorest of all bereavements, is when the sins which have separated you from Him, evoke the anguish-cry, “Where is my God?”
AN END OF WEEPING by John MacDuff