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This "therefore" ought to be to us like a great gate of entrance into a king's house. If the logic fails here, it falls everywhere. We must keep our eye upon the therefores of Divine and human reasoning and providence. We must note the time of things; we must not set up the standard at the wrong place; nor must we judge the evening by the morning nor the morning by the evening. There is a manhood of infancy, and a manhood of youth, and a manhood of old age: each period has its own manhood, its own Bible, its own vision, its own song or groan. This third chapter of Lamentations opens well "I am the man that hath seen affliction." That is the man we want to hear talk; we do not want any foamy babble; we cannot now do with any piled or inflammatory rhetoric. There comes a time in life when affliction must speak to us. "He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath made me drunken with wormwood." And yet I am told I should be cheerful, and pray, and look up, and be happy, and be expectant; how can I pray when the Lord hath broken my teeth with gravel stones and covered me with ashes? Can the grave praise His majesty? And so long has He removed my peace and my joy that I have forgotten prosperity, My soul has been removed from peace; strength and hope I have none. But, remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It Is as if insanity suddenly emerged into sobriety, self-control, and a true spiritual realisation of the meaning and purpose of things. The very memory of the gall and the wormwood makes me hope; I have had so much of them that there cannot be any more to have; it has been so terrible that now surely it is going to be summer time and joy. We need those great prophetic voices. Sometimes we need the very biggest soul that ever lived, and we seem to need him every whir — all his brains, all his heart, all his music. He is not too much for us because our grief is so deep and so sensitive, and the whole outlook is a horizon of blackness, and darkness has no history and no measuring points. This is where the religious element enters into life with great copiousness, and where it should be received with unutterable welcomes. I wonder if there are any analogies that may help us in the explanation of the meaning and the application of the purpose of this mysterious "therefore." Seed grows. If it does grow, what then! Everything. As what? As the resurrection; that is answer enough to your mean inquiry. If a little seed can grow, why may not the planted bulb of the body grow? Thou sowest not the body that shall be, and yet a body in some real, strong, clear, and satisfactory sense. But some man will say, How? Oh, universe, halt! call thy suns and moons to stand still, to answer this fool's How? When we come to question asking, we had better fall to praying. Do not mistake impertinence for inquiry; and do not suppose that the whole universe, with all its constellations, will say to itself, Hush! here is some poor dark stumbling soul that wants to understand how. There will be no answer given to him until time, with all its evolution and declaration of answers to enigmas and mysteries, shall work out its purpose, and the man shall be answered by a great vision. "Therefore." I have never seen the stars except in the darkness, therefore the night may have something to show me as well as the day — the night of loneliness and desolation and bitter sorrow. Intellect grows, therefore character may grow. The little may become great, the weak may become strong, that which is far off may be brought nigh, and that which is barren may be fruitful. We know that intellect grows; we have seen it in the little child, we have almost seen the new idea enter the opening brain; it is as if we saw a beautiful little bird fly into a bush in the summer time and reappear, so to say, though not literally, not as a bird, but as a song. Who can tell when the ideas came to fruition in the human brain? Who can fix the date when the little boy became almost a philosopher? Who can say at what hour the meaning of certain words was revealed to any one of us? If this process of mental expansion can go forward with such happy results, so the human soul, when it is known under the name of character, nobleness, self-control, love of God, may grow, and no man can say just when or just where.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

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KJV: I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.

WEB: I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.