Nor are we fully satisfied with the plea that sorrow is but "for a moment" and that we can be thankful for its brevity. There is comfort here, to be sure, but it has no final quality. Paul knew that, and so he gave the idea an incidental part of a sentence, and then went on to the deeper consolation. One poet puts it: Since the scope Must widen early, is it well to droop For a few days consumed in loss and taint? O pusillanimous heart! be comforted; And like a cheerful traveler, take the road, Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod To meet the flints? At least it may be said, "Because the way is short, I thank thee, God." The truth is that there is real comfort in all this only when pain's brevity contributes something to the good of the years and even to eternity. Thus the Bible does not give much space to the slight comforts of either comparison or brevity. These have their function, but they are the small helpers of the larger consolations. The Bible likewise gives as one of the comforts of sorrow that sorrow prepares us to console others' sorrows. Saint Paul uses this in his message to the Corinthians: "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." Here we are pushed back to the deepest sources of comfort. God comforts the sorrowful in order that other sorrowful ones may have comfort. The consolers are delegated by the great Consoler. It requires this reach clear back to the heart of God to rescue this suggestion from the superficial. One man has sorrow. He consoles others who have sorrow. Then you have two sorrows in your problem. In this way you would keep playing off sorrow against sorrow, without any fundamental explanation of any sorrow. The question is, Why any sorrow at all? If one of the by-products of sorrow is the power to comfort the sorrowing, we must still find some main product that will put the two sorrows together in a meaning of good. The God of comfort must preside over both sorrows ere either sorrow shall yield its contribution to the sufferer. Paul saw this, and so he related our power to comfort others to the fact that we had gotten our comfort from the Father of all consolation. It is thus clear that the Scriptures give place to all the minor elements in the ministry of sorrow. Its comparative lightness, its sure brevity, and its tuition for sympathy have their part in the Bible curriculum. The Scriptures also move onward to the vision of a God who cares. "Like as a father pitieth"--this is the message even of the Old Testament. It gives an answer to that piercing cry: