by
Published by The Oriental Missionary Society
900 North Hobart
Boulevard,
Los Angeles, Calif.
© 1933 renewed 1961.
This book is available in PDF form on a few WebSites. I have no idea if this is legale, so I will not provide links.
The book is divided into the days of the year with each day having poems, quotes or or entries that Mrs. Cowman found comforting.
The acknowledgments include one to ‘Thomas Y. Crowell’ for “The Book of Comfort” by J. R. Miller. This is the only reference I have for the existence of this book. This book is now on line
Mrs. Cowman ends the acknowledgments with this statement:
I have used many quotations that have been a blessing to me, of some of which I do not know the authorship. So far as knowledge has permitted I have given due recognition. I trust I have not trespassed upon the rights of others. Indulgence is begged, if failure was made to reach any other author or holder of copyrighted selections. If such has been done a correction will be made in the next edition.
Dr. Miller is quoted four times in the book: on, January 11, January 25, April 29, and June 5
“I must be about my Father’s business” (Luke 2:49)
One of the most serious dangers of inconsolable sorrow is that it may lead us to neglect our duty to the living in our mourning for the dead. This we should never do. God does not desire us to give up our work because our heart is broken. We may not even pause long with our sorrows; we may not sit down beside the graves of our dead and linger there, cherishing our grief.
A distinguished General related this pathetic incident of his own experience in time of war. The General’s son was a lieutenant of battery. An assault was in progress. The father was leading his division in a charge; as he pressed on in the field, suddenly his eye was caught by the sight of a dead battery. officer lying just before him. One glance showed him it was his own son. His fatherly impulse was to stop beside the loved form and give vent to his grief, but the duty of the moment demanded that he should press on in the charge; so, quickly snatching one hot kiss from the dead lips, he hastened away, leading his command in the assault,
Ordinarily the pressure is not so intense, and we can pause longer to weep and do honor to the memory of our dead. Yet in all sorrow the principle is the same. God does not desire us to waste our life in tears. We are to put our grief into new energy of service. God’s work must never be allowed to suffer while we weep. The fires must be kept burning on the altar. The work in the household, in the school, in the store, in the field, must be taken up again — the sooner, the better. Our bereavement is a call, not to sad weeping, but to new duty.
— Dr. J. R. Miller —
Dr. J. R. Miller tells the following beautiful incident:
“I sat one evening with a father and mother beside the bedside of their little child, who seemed about to leave them. We talked of the will and love of God, and, before offering prayer, I asked the parents, ‘What shall we ask God to do?’ There was a moment of silence, and then the father, with deep emotion, said, ‘We would not dare decide. Leave it to Him.’ Only God knows what will be best — to live in this world, enduring its wintry weather, or to be taken to the summerland of heaven, to grow up there, getting the crown without the conflict. We are not wise enough to decide what will be best; we would rather leave it to our Father.”
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.” (Isa. 26:3)
All we need to do in time of sorrow and loneliness is to stay our minds upon God, to trust Him, to rest in Him, to nestle in His love. We remember where John was found the night of the Lord’s last supper with His disciples, — the darkest night the world ever saw, in the deepest sorrow men ever knew, — he was leaning on Jesus’ breast. He crept into that holy shelter to find quiet. John was kept in perfect peace during all those terrible hours. Everything appeared to have slipped away and there was nothing that seemed abiding. But John crept into the shelter of love and simply trusted, and was kept in holy peace.
A beautiful story is told of Rudyard Kipling during a serious illness a few years since. The trained nurse was sitting at his bedside on one of the anxious nights when the sick man’s condition was most critical. She was watching him intently and noticed that his lips began to move. She bent over him, and heard him whisper the words of the old familiar prayer of childhood, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”
The nurse, realizing that her patient did not require her services, and that he was praying, said in apology for having intruded upon him, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Kipling; I thought you wanted something.“ “I do,” faintly replied the sick man: “I want my heavenly Father. He only can care for me now.” In his great weakness there was nothing that human help could do, and he turned to God and crept into His bosom, seeking the blessing and the care which none but God can give. That is what we need to do in every time of trial, of sorrow, — when the gentlest human love can do nothing, — creep into our heavenly Father’s bosom, saying, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” That is the way to peace. Earth has no shelter in which it can be found, but in God the feeblest may find it.
— Dr. Miller —
“For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.” (Isa. 41:13)
There is something in bereavement which makes it mean a great deal in a woman’s life. It is a sore disappointment. Dreams of love’s happiness are shattered. The beauty which had only begun to be realized in her home, in her wedded joy, in the development of her plans and hopes is suddenly left to wither. Very great is the sorrow when one of two lovers is taken and the other left. Widowhood is very desolate and lonely.
Just how shall she meet her perplexities. She is a Christian. She is comforted in her grief by the truth of Divine love, that her sorrow was no accident, that her bereavement was not the plan of God to break up the goodness and beauty of her life, that nothing has really gone wrong in the plan of Christ for her. But the question presses itself upon her mind — I am sure it has done so a thousand times — How am I to go on in this broken life of mine? What am I to do in my shattering bereavement? Her life is not yet finished. She is only a girl in years. She may live — she probably will live forty years or more. What does Christ want her to do with her broken life?
God’s plan for her was not spoiled when her sorrow came interrupting everything, leaving her in darkness. The sorrow was not a surprise to God, and His plan for her life runs on to the end of her years. What the remainder at the plan is she does not know for the present. She must not know. Her faith must not fail; she must not despair. She must go on in faith and confidence. Believe that all these broken things are in His hands. “Gather up the broken pieces that remain that nothing be lost,” — that is what Christ is saying to her today. Let her gather up the broken pieces from this miracle of love and happiness. Let her keep all the fragments.
The next thing is for her to recommit her life, with its grief, its desolation, its broken things, all to Christ. She must not undertake to rebuild it. She must not make plans of her own for the years to come. She must let Christ lead her, let Him plan for her, mark out the way. He must build the life for her. He must have much of the love she has to give. Be brave dear soul! God’s help is near!
— Dr. Miller —
Ed Note 1: (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling 1865 - 1936 , British short-story writer, novelist and poet, who celebrated the heroism of British colonial soldiers in India and Burma, Kipling was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1907).