SERMON XIII

A WOUNDED SPIRIT.

PROV. xviii. 14.- -A wounded spirit who can bear?

A WOUNDED SPIRIT:-we inquire naturally what it is; what causes produce it; what makes it difficult to bear it; and what, if any, are the remedies for it. To these four points your attention will now be directed.

I. What is meant by a wounded spirit? A few words only will be necessary to explain this to those who have not experienced it, if there are any such; to those who have, no explanation is necessary. We are so made that we are capable of experiencing two kinds of pain-that of the body, and that of the mind, the soul, the heart. With the former we are more conversant, not perhaps because there are more sufferers, but because the symptoms are more apparent; the sufferer is more willing that the disease should be known; the remedy is more easily applied. These sufferings lay the foundation for the skill of the physician, who professes to have little to do with the mind, and who in fact refers to this much less frequently than the perfection of his own art would require. The pains of the body and the soul are distinct in their origin and their nature; they differ in their symptoms, and they differ as much in their remedies. It is true, such is the intimate connexion between the body and the soul, that the one often travels over into the department of the other, and that the sorrows of the mind prostrate the powers of the body, or that a diseased nervous system makes a war of desolation on the healthful operations of the soul; but still these diseases and remedies pertain to different departments of our nature, and are designed to be distinct expressions of the Divine displeasure against the crime of the apostacy.

I am concerned now, as Christian ministers mainly are, with the latter the diseases of the mind. I have no concern with the former-the diseases of the body-except to suggest considerations which will teach submission when they come upon us; to show why they are sent upon men; and except so far as the influence of the gospel may keep from the vices that engender disease, and which lead to pain and death.

When we speak of a wounded spirit, and especially as contrasted, as it is in our text, with "infirmity,"-" the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?"- -we refer to the sickness of the heart; the disease of the soul; the anguish which mind can be made to suffer; the mental derangements, the sorrows resulting from disappointments, and losses, and chagrin, and remorse, and the numerous kindred woes to which the soul is subject.

Between these sufferings and those of the body, we may remark the following points of difference as more clearly illustrating their nature. (1.) Much of the suffering of a wounded spirit is almost unavoidably concealed. It lies deep in the soul, while a disease of the body may be so apparent in a prostrate frame, in a sunken eye, in pallid features, or in the flush of fever, that it cannot be hidden. God has given to the soul no such certain indications of the existence of its diseases as he has to the body. The body may be healthful, and everything may indicate the appearance of a man sound in body and in soul, even when the mind is in anguish. (2.) Much of the pain and anguish of the soul is concealed of design. We would not have all the world know what we suffer in the soul, or all the pain that the heart feels. What we feel from disappointed affection or ambition; from abortive plans and frustrated hopes; from chagrin, neglect, and slander; and especially what we feel from recollected guilt, we would not have the world at large know, and there is much of that which we suffer in regard to which we do not choose to invite the sympathy of a friend. We should have a strong reluctance, it may be, to let our most intimate friends know how much we suffer by being slandered, and what is the actual pain we experience when a rival has been more successful than we have. We feel that our own self-respect is involved in not appearing even to our friends to suffer, and in bearing up under such trials as though they produced no effect on us. It is not so with the pain of the body. We feel that there is no disgrace in the headache, in the pain of pleurisy, or in the hectic on the cheek, or in a raging fever; but that such sufferings rather have a claim to sympathy, and we are willing that they should be known. (3.) A third remark is, that the sufferings of the soul often force themselves upon the body, and prostrate its powers, and reveal themselves when we have sought to conceal them. The eye not sufficiently disciplined in guilt will betray him who has done wrong. Or the bloom of beauty Jeaves the cheek, and the youth pines away apparently without disease, and dies as the result of a wounded spirit. Or the

anguish of disappointment, and chagrin, and guilt, become too great to bear; and the sanguinary deed of a moment shows that the fires had long raged within, and that the wounded spirit could no longer be endured, and the sufferer rushes to evil that he "knows not of."

These remarks are, I trust, all that is needful to explain what is meant by a wounded spirit, in order to prepare the way for what I have yet to say. The amount of what I have said is, that the sorrows of a wounded spirit are such as result from disappointment, ingratitude, losses, slander, chagrin, and remorse; from things which go to make the mind sad and prostrate, or to overwhelm it with the recollections of guilt.

II. I proceed, in the second place, to state more particularly the causes of this—the things which operate to produce a wounded spirit. Probably the idea of wrong done to us, or of our having done wrong to others, is always connected with the sorrow of a wounded spirit; or the essential cause of it is wrong that has been in some way perpetrated, and that is leaving its bitter results on the soul. But this idea operates most subtilly, and we often allow ourselves to be influenced as if wrong had been done when none such existed, or was intended. A rival outstrips us, and we feel as if he had done us wrong; or as if the community had, by bestowing honours on him which we sought for ourselves. We are disap

pointed in business; we fail in our plans and expectations; our fields are blasted, or our vessel sinks in the deep, and we allow ourselves almost to feel as if the floods and streams and waves had conspired against us to do us wrong, and with a wounded spirit we sink into sadness and complaining. With this general explanatory remark we may observe, that the causes of a wounded spirit are such as the following:

(1.) Long cherished, but ungratified desire; or deep, but disappointed affection. We seek honour, but it is withheld; we desire the reciprocal affections of friendship or love, but they are not bestowed; we fix our hopes of happiness on the attainment of some, to us, endeared object, and we cannot grasp it; there is some one whose friendship we deem to be essential to our welfare, but it is a prize which we cannot make our own. The smile that we sought gladdens the hearts of others, but not ours; the presence of the object diffuses happiness on all else except on our desolate souls. To all others there are warm beams of sunshine in the presence of the object; to us there is the coldness and darkness of an eclipse. Unrequited and unreciprocated affection makes the heart sad. "Conceal.. ment, like a worm in the bud, feeds on the damask cheek."

The heart "pines in grief,” and the wounded spirit sinks in melancholy. There is a secret feeling that a wrong has been done; that such ardour of love should have met with a response, and that there was a claim to reciprocal affection.

(2.) Disappointment in business, or in the pursuits of ambition. We enter on the career of life with many others. We start together from the goal. They have no advantage in the time of starting, or in the smoothness of the way, or in the cheering plaudits of those who are lookers on at the race, or in the favour of those who are to distribute the prizes. But soon we begin to lag in the rear, and their success stimulates them to new efforts, and our want of success depresses us. A rival outstrips us. He has better health or better talents, or finds better friends; or facilities of success are open to him which are denied to us; or the world seems partial to him, and we begin to feel that it is disposed to do us injustice. We even feel almost that he has done us some injustice, and we begin to envy him and to wish him out of the way, as, disappointed and sad, we suffer under the tortures of a wounded spirit. Disappointment thus meets many an aspirant after fame, wealth, and pleasure. It occurs in all professions and callings of life, and in every attempt to find pleasure in objects that are not designed by the Great Author of all things to produce it. No one can gather up and record the disappointments that have been met in the career of ambition, or in the social or in the festive circle. No one can record the secret sighs that have been heaved when pleasure has been sought in vain; or write down the account of the tears that envy, and chagrin, and mortification have caused the sons and daughters of gaiety to shed when they have gone from their places of amusement to sad and sleepless pillows. So we seek more intimacy with a friend than we have a right to look for or expect; we calculate on attentions to which we have a very slender claim; we attempt to make our way into society where our presence is not particularly sought, and are not successful, and the spirit is wounded. There are the mingled feelings of mortified pride, and chagrin, and disappointed ambition; the feelings resulting from neglect, and from the rebuke which the coldness of others has given us, and we feel that wrong has been done us, and the soul pines in sadness.

(3.) The spirit is wounded by attempts to injure our name. Our richest inheritance is a good name. To a man in private life it is his comforter and joy; to a man in professional or public life it is his capital, his all. To each one of us it is the best inheritance which we expect to leave to our children—an inheritance

which we believe will be to them of more value than if we could leave them the gold of Ophir; nay, we feel that it would be a worthless inheritance could we bequeath to them the wealth of Croesus, if it descended with a name covered with infamy. There is no one of us but would wish to have some kind word cut on the humblest stone that may mark the place where we sleep, or that would not wish the stranger to hear that our character was upright, if perchance he should walk where we slumber in the dust.

Now there is nothing that pierces so deep into the soul as slander, "whose breath outvenoms all the worms of Nile." The robber may take my purse, but he has taken only “trash, which was mine, is his, and has been the slave of thousands. But he who takes away my good name, robs me of that which not enriches him, but makes me poor indeed." When a man charges me with a base and dishonourable action; when he accuses me of dishonesty or falsehood; when he perseveres in the accusation even in the face of a life of undisputed integrity; when he expresses no doubt about its truth, and he has the power of making many others believe that what he says is true; and when as may happen-I may lack just the kind and degree of evidence which I need to make all clear, I need not say that then a deeper wound will be made in the spirit than would be made by the loss of property, or the death of a friend. If to all this there should now be added the circumstance that he formerly enjoyed my friendship; that he ate at my table, slept under my roof, was in my family, heard me speak in the openness of unreserved confidence, and was permitted to look into my very soul, he does me a deeper wrong. He adds not only to cruelty the sin of ingratitude-a sin that pierces deeper than any other; but he adds the power of doing me a deeper injury—for he speaks as one who may be supposed to know. Such were the wounds of the soul which David, and after him He who was "the root and offspring of David," experienced. "Mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me," Psa. xli. 9. 'It was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company," Psa. lv. 12-14.

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(4.) The spirit is wounded by the recollection of guilt—of the wrong which we have done in days that are past. Probably