There are times to the merriest soul when the heart is dark. The hour of sorrow will come sooner or later--sorrow for earthly losses and disappointments, grief for the misspent years, anguish for our or others sins and misfortunes; the grave will open at our feet and rob us, the house will be hung in black, the mourners will go through the streets, the clods will fall upon the coffin, and we shall return to the home that has been despoiled, and cover our faces against the light of day, and sit in loneliness and gloom with our own darkened hearts. {117} Speak not to us now, nor smile upon us when our hearts are dark. Leave us alone. Alone with what? Alone with my own wretchedness and comfortless thoughts, says the unbeliever. Leave me alone, says the Christian, with my God. Yes, the Christian has his God to go to in his darkest hour. He has always abiding with him that other Comforter, the Light of every heart. Sinner! now contrite and sorry for the bitter past, who, weeping with the penitent Psalmist, say, "My heart hath expected reproach and misery. I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none; and for one that would comfort me, but I found none" [Footnote 36]--you have a Comforter to go to. Raise your drooping head, and cry--__Veni, lumen cordium!__ Come, O Light of every contrite heart! and the seeds of the grace of contrition, which He has already planted in your soul, will spring up, and bear the sweetest fruits of peace and pardon. Go to thy God, and confess thy sins to Him, and when the Holy Ghost shall give thee the grace of absolution, thou shalt return lighter of footstep and comforted in spirit. [Footnote 36: Ps. lxviii. 21.] {118} Christian mourner and sufferer, I know that the brightest days are obscured by the clouds of sorrow which hang over your bereaved head, and the nights are oppressed with a thicker darkness than comes when the sun goes down; but a Light is shining ever in heaven, behind the dark clouds which hover over this world--the comforting Light of every sad heart. Call to Him--__Veni, Sancte Spiritus! Veni, lumen cordium!__--and though the tears cease not to flow, yet comfort will steal in upon you, and the spirit of holy resignation to that higher and better will in which you trust will descend, and abide with you for ever.