---

I. "THERE IS A COMFORTER."

1. So our high festival of the Holy Ghost comes round, and meets the wants which the year has been accumulating. Just as Good Friday came and met another year's guilt, Whit-Sunday comes to meet another year's grief. Some have wept alone, and have had no earthly solace. Some have had comforters; but their well-intentioned comfortings mocked you. Or, the human comforting was very precious and very true, and you know what that word "comforter" means; but here is that which exceeds it all, as the fountain exceeds one of its own smallest drops — "a Comforter."

2. Christ said, "Another Comforter." Who is it? The Father? Yes; for He is "the God of all comfort." The Son? Yes; "I will not leave you comfortless." Then, a Trinity of Comforters. Is that the way we travel to "God is love"? Through a Comforter I ask a Comforter to send a Comforter. Or more truly, two Comforters, of themselves, send a Comforter. You are a deep mourner. But see how you are encircled. And can any sorrow outreach that comforting?

II. THE MODE OF HIS COMING.

1. It is the comforting of a Spirit. Therefore He mingles with our spirit. He does not need that there should pass any actual words. Every one who has ever passed through very deep sorrow will appreciate this. There are times when all language is poor and rude. How often have we longed that our minds could throw themselves into another's mind without speaking. The Holy Ghost does that.

2. And what power there is in that thought, that He is the Holy Ghost! It wants holiness to deal with a wounded mind. Nothing but what is very holy ought ever to come near sorrow.

3. Still, the Spirit uses instruments, and almost always the Word. It is not always a promise. Sometimes it is a doctrine, whose grandeur fills, and raises, and assures the Spirit. Sometimes it is a command, and the comfort is the sense of duty. The Comforter never forgets that He is the Sanctifier, and the Sanctifier never forgets that He is the Comforter. Therefore, if you would be comforted, obey the impulse of the Spirit, and go and be much with your Bible, and be jealous that the first thing you seek is holiness.

4. He does not make you forget, but He draws happiness out of the unhappiness; He makes the subject of your tears the element of your smile; He does not take away the cloud, but He makes a rainbow of the shower; the pain does not go, but gradually the pain has so much of Christ in it that you scarcely wish to part with it.

5. He always displays Christ — makes you find what you want, not in man, but in Christ. If the thought which is presented to your mind does not draw you nearer to Christ — if you are not led to do something for Christ's sake — it is not the true Comforter who has been speaking to you. Jesus is the balm of life, and the comfort of the Spirit is the revealing of Christ.

(J. Vaughan, M. A.)

---

---

KJV: And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

WEB: I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever,—