Page:Revelations of divine love (Warrack 1907).djvu/80

It is the mourners who are comforted: those that bear griefs of their own, or bear griefs of others fully, do not despair, though the mere onlooker may well despair. Thus the compassionate Julian's vision is of Comfort—comfort not for herself "in special," but for "the general Man"—for all her fellow-Christians. She who had long time mourned for the hurt that is come by sin to the creature, came to the sight of comfort not by turning her eyes away but by deeper compassion that found through the very wounds the healing of Love on earth, the glory of Love in Heaven. She was "filled with compassion for the Passion of Christ," and thus she saw His joy; so afterwards, she tells, "I was fulfilled in part with compassion of all mine even-Christians, for that well, well-beloved people that shall be saved. For God's servants, Holy Church, shall be shaken in sorrow and anguish and tribulation in this world, as men shake a cloth in the wind. And as to this our Lord answered in this manner: A great thing shall I make hereof in Heaven of endless worship and everlasting joys. Yea so far forth as this I saw: that our Lord joyeth of the tribulations of His servants, with truth and compassion." "For He saith: I shall wholly break you of your vain affections and of your vicious pride: and after that I shall together gather you, and make you mild and meek, clean and holy, by oneing to me" (xxviii.). Sin is indeed "the sharpest scourge," "viler and more painful than hell, without comparison," "an horrible thing to