Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1888-11-08
POOR COMFORTERS.
Dr. Talmage Discourses on q Fa-
miliar Glass Of People.
Mo- Much Talk Poor Consolation in Time
Of Tr0uble-Worldiy Philosophy Not
Very Comforting-value of Cheer
fulness to the Afflicted.

In a recent sermon upon the subject,
@P1asters That Will Not Stick" DIR. Tall
mage took for his text: Miserable COM
1ogters are we all."-Job xvi. 2. Follow
Ing Is the sermon:
The man of Uz had great many trials
the loss of his family, the loss of his prop
erty, the loss of his health, but the most
exasperating thing that came upon him
was the tantalizing talk of those who
ought to have sympathized with him
Looking around upon and weighing what
they had said he utters the words Of my
tsxt.
Why did God let sin come into the
world! 1t is a question l often hear dis
cussed, but never satisfactorily answered.
God made the world fair and beautiful at
the start. If our first parents had not
sinned in Eden they might have gone out
Of that garden and found fifty paradises
all around the earth-Europe, Asia, Africa,
North and South America-so many flower
gardens or orchards of fruit, redolent and
luscious. / suppose that when God poured
out the Gihon and the Hiddekel he poured
out at the same time the Hudson and the
Susquehanna; the whole earth was very
fair and beautiful to look upon. Why did
II not stay so: God had the power to keep
back sin and woe. Why did He not keep
them back: Whynot every cloud roseate,
and every step joy and every sound
music and all the ages long jubilee Of
sinless men and sinless women!
God can make a rose as easily as He can
make thorn. Why, then, the predomin-
ance of thorns: He can make good, fair,
ripe fruit as well as gnarled and sour fruit.
Why 50 much then, that is gnarled and
sour: He can make men robust in health.
Why, then, ere there so many invalids.
Why not have for our whole race perpetual
leisure, instead of this tug and toll and
tussle for livelihood. l will tell you why
God let sin come into the world-when
get on the other side of the River of Death
That is the place where such questions will
be answered and such mysteries solved.
He who this side of that river attempts to
answer the question only illustrates his
own ignorance and incompetency. All
know is one great fact, and that is that
herd of woes have come in upon us, tramp
ling down every thing fair and beautiful.
A sword at the gate of Eden, and sword
at every gate. More people under the
ground than on it. The graveyards in
vast majority. The six thousand winters
have made more scars than the six
thousand SUNNI ers can cover up. Trouble
has taken the tender heart of this world
In its two rough hands, and pinched it
until the nations wall with the agony. II
all the mounds of graveyards that have
been lifted were put side by side, you
might step on them and on nothing else,
going all around the world, and around
again, and around again. These are the
facts. And now have to say that, in a
world like this, the grandest occupation is
that Of giving coincidence. This holy
science of imparting comfort to the
troubled we ought all of us to study.
There are many of you who could look
around on some of your very best friends
who wish you well and are very intelli-
gent, and yet be able truthfully to say to
them in your days of trouble, miserable
conforters are We ALL"
remark, in the first place, that very
voluble people are incompetent for the
work of giving comfort. Bildad and Eli
phas had the gift of language, and with
their words almost bothered Jobs life out.
Alas for these voluble people that go
among the houses of the afflicted and talk,
and talk, and talk, and talk! They re-
hearse their own sorrows, and then they
tell the poor sufferers that they feel badly
now, but they will feel worse after a while.
Silence! Do you expect, with a thin court
plaster of words, to heal a wound deep as
the soul? Step very gently around about
. broken heart. Talk very softly around
those whom God has bereft. Then go
your way. Deep sympathy has not much
70 say. A firm grasp of the hand,
. compassionate look, just one word
that means as much as a whole diction-
azy, and you have given, perhaps, all the
comfort that a soul needs. A man has
terrible wound in his arm. The surgeon
comes and binds it up. ''Now," he says,
e%carry that arm in a sling, and be very
careful Of it. Let no one touch it." But
the neighbors have heard of the accident,
and they come in, and they say: "Let US
eco it" And the bandage is pulled off,
and this one and that one must feel it, and
80 how much it is swollen; and there is
irritation, and inflammation, and exasper-
ation, where there ought to be healing and
cooling. The surgeon comes in, and says:
ssWhat does all this mean? You have no
business to touch those bandages. That
viii never heal unless you let it alone"
So there are souls broken down in sorrow.
What they most want is rest, or very care
bors have heard of the bereavement or of
the loss, and they come in to sympathize,
and they say: "Show us now the wound.
What were his last words: Rehearse now
the whole scene. How did you feel when
you found you were an orphan" Tearing
or the bandages here, and pulling them off
there, leaving CHASTITY wound that the
balm Of Gods grace had already begun to
Aeal. o, let no loquacious people. with
ever-rattling tongue go into the homes of
the distressed,
Again l remark that all those persons
arc Incompetent TO give any kind of COM
Tort who act merely as philosophers. They
oome in and say: why, this is what you
Dught to have expected. The laws of ma
ture must have their way" and then they
gee eloquent over something they have
Deen in post mortem examinations. Now,
AWAY with all human philosophy at such
time. What difference does it make to
hat father and mother what disease their
SON died of. He is dead and it makes no
difference whether the trouble was in the
epigastric or hypogastric region. If the
be of the stoical school he will
come and say: ''You ought to control your
feelings. You must not cry so. You
must cultivate a cooler temperament. You
must have self-reliance, self-government,
an iceberg reproving a
hyacinth for having drop of dew in its
u1a A violinist has his instrument, and
= sweeps his fingers across the strings,
~ evoking strains of joy and now strains
MADNESS. He can not play all the tunes
f0ne string. The human soul is an in
11sument Of a thousand strings, and all