Proverbs 14:10

The heart that knows the bitterness of its soul, etc. The elect have bitterness of soul as long as they are deferred from eternal joys; and the wicked, when they are afflicted by perverse desires. But the elect, because they walk in the light, foresee …

YOU lift up your eyes and you behold the stars. Surely, it is no idle imagination that these heavenly lights are distant worlds. But they are entirely separated from the inhabitants of this globe. You may peer at them through the telescope as long as you will, but you cannot enter into the feelings and pursuits of the dwellers in those worlds. You know nothing of the nearest planet, nor even of the world's own satellite. Some look up and declare that they see a man in the moon. It is the fancy of the ignorant. Others gaze at it till they discover huge volcanoes. It is the belief of the astronomer. But do what you will, you cannot enter into conversation with the moon-dwellers. You cannot sympathize with their politics, nor share their domestic experiences. There is a great gulf fixed and we who would pass to them cannot—neither can they pass to us who would come from there. In a great measure such is our relation to our fellow men. Men are microcosms, or little worlds—each man has his distinct sphere, wherein he dwells. We are so many worlds and no one world of man exactly overlaps another. You cannot completely know your fellow man. All that you know concerning your fellows—and there is much which we can know—leaves a great deal as unknown to us as the fixed stars. There is a bitterness which each man feels alone and a sweetness with which none can understand. Every man is, in a measure, self-contained. His being is detached from other beings in certain matters. There are bonds which unite us to our fellow man, and there is a solidarity about the race. But for all that, each man is a distinct atom and item and there are portions of his nature in which he does not touch his fellow man at all but displays his own individuality and personality. Alone are we born, one by one. Alone do we die, one by one.

YOU lift up your eyes and you behold the stars. Surely, it is no idle imagination that these heavenly lights are distant worlds. But they are entirely separated from the inhabitants of this globe. You may peer at them through the telescope as long as you will, but you cannot enter into the feelings and pursuits of the dwellers in those worlds. You know nothing of the nearest planet, nor even of the world's own satellite. Some look up and declare that they see a man in the moon. It is the fancy of the ignorant.

The heart knoweth his own bitterness - מרת נפשו morrath naphsho, “The bitterness of its soul.” Under spiritual sorrow, the heart feels, the soul feels; all the animal nature feels and suffers. But when the peace of God is spoken to the troubled soul, the joy is indescribable; the whole man partakes of it. And a stranger to these religious feelings, to the travail of the soul, and to the witness of the Spirit, does not intermeddle with them; he does not understand them: indeed they may be even foolishness to him, because they are spiritually discerned.

A striking expression of the ultimate solitude of each man’s soul at all times, and not merely at the hour of death. Something there is in every sorrow, and in every joy, which no one else can share. Beyond that range it is well to remember that there is a Divine Sympathy, uniting perfect knowledge and perfect love.