quotes

"No time for homilies when the lightning's shaft has smitten and the man lies stunned and stricken. Then let the comforter be silent; let him sustain by his presence, not by his preaching; by his sympathetic silence, not by his speech. "Afterward, when the storm is spent, he may venture to open his mouth; afterward, when the morn has dawned, he may seek to justify the ways of God to man; for afterward the sufferer will be prepared to hear, and "afterward" the sufferer himself may be able to extract sweetness from bitterness, music from mourning, songs from sorrow, and the peaceable fruit of righteousness from the root of wretchedness and woe."