The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1889-11-02

49, ib III vi Won BUSINESS
men make me think of. A young man
goes OIL from home to earn his fortune.
ne goes with his mothers consent and
oeheulctlon. h has large wealth, but
ne wants to make his own fortune. He
goes lar away, falls sick, gets out OF
money. He sends for the hotelkeeper
where he is staying, asking for Ten
fence, and the answer he gets is: ''If
you don't pay up Saturday night you'll
De removed to the hospital" The young
man sends to a comrade in the same
building. No help. He writes to a
banker who was a friend to his deceased
father. No relief. He writes to an old
schoolmate, but gets no help. Saturday
night comes and he is moved to the hos
pital.
Getting there, he is frenzied with
grief; and he borrows a sheet of paper
and a postage stamp, and he sits down,
and he writes home saying: 'Dear
mother, am sick unto death. Come" 1t
is ten minutes of ten when she gets the
letter. At ten o'clock the train starts.
She is five minutes from the depot. She
gets there in time to have five minutes
to spare. She wonders why a train that
can go thirty miles an hour can not go
sixty miles an hour. She rushes into
the hospital. She says: my son, what
does all this mean? Why didn't you
send for me? You sent to everybody but
me. You knew I could and would help
you. Is this the reward l get for my
kindness to you always?" She bundles
him up, takes him home, and gets him
well very soon.
Now, some of you treat God just as
that young man treated his mother.
When you get into a financial perplexi-
ty you call on the banker, you call on
the broker, you call on your creditors,
you call on your lawyer for legal coun-
sci, you call upon every body and when
you can not get any help then you GO to
God. You say, 80 Lord, l come to Thee.
Help me now out of my perplexity."
Again, it is the use of trouble to ca
pacitate us for the Office of sympathy.
The priests under the old dispensation
were set apart by having water
sprinkled on their hands, feet and head
and by the sprinkling of tears people
are now set apart to the Office of SYM
pathy. When we are in prosperity we like
w HdFO q BICdU manly JouuB pOODlS
around us, and we laugh when they
laugh, and we romp when they romp,
and we sing when they sing; but when
we have trouble we like plenty of old
folks around. Why? They know how
to talk. Take an aged mother, seventy
years of age, and she is almost omnipo-
tent in comfort. Why? She aas been
through it all. y y y
o, man, praise God If you have in your
memory the picture of an honest,
sympathetic, kind, self-sacrifcing,
Christ-like mother. o, it takes these
people who have had trouble to comfort
others in trouble. Where did Paul get
the ink with which to write his COM
forting epistle? Where did David get
the ink to write his comforting Psalms?
Where did John get the ink to write his
comforting Revelation? They got it out
of their own tears. When a man has
gone through the curriculum and has
taken a course of dungeons and i'm
prisonments and shipwrecks he is quail
fled for the work of sympathy.
When 1 began to preach my sermons
on the subject of trouble were all poetic
and in semi-blank verse, but God
knocked the blank verse out of me long
ago and 1 have found out that l can not
comfort people except as l myself have
been troubled. God make me the son of
consolation to the people. l would
rather be the mea of soothing one per-
turbed spirit to-day than to play a tune
that would set all the sons of mirth reel
ing in the dance.
You know on a we'll spread table the
food becomes more delicate at the last.
l have fed you to-day with the bread of
consolation. Let the table now be
cleared and let us set on the chalice of
Heaven. Let the kings cup bearers
come in. Good morning, Heaven! co."
says some critic in the audience, "the
Bible contradicts itself. 1t intimates
again and again, that there are to be no
tears in Heaven, and if there be no
tears in Heaven how is it possible hat
God will wipe any away?" 1 answer,
have you never seen a child crying one
moment and laughing the next; and
while she was laughing you saw the
tears still on her face? And perhaps
you have stopped her in the very midst
of her resumed glee and wiped off those
delayed tears.
$50, think, after the Heavenly rapt-
ures have come upon US, there may be
Jne m..A ~ some earthly GRIEF, and
while those tears are glittering in the
light of the Jasper sea, God will wipe
them away. How we'll He can do that.
Jesus had enough trial to make Him
sympathetic with all trials. The short
est verse in the Bible tells the story;
Jesus wept." The scar on the back of
either hand, the scar on the arch of
either foot, the row of scars along the
line of the hair, will keep all Heaven
thinking. o, that great weeper is just
the n to silence all earthly trouble,
wipe out all stains of earthly grief.
Gentle! Why, His step is softer than
the step of the dew. 1t will not be a
tyrant bidding you to hush up cry
ing. 1t will be a Father who will
take you on His left arm, His face
cleaning into yours, while with the
soft tips of the fingers of the right hand,
He shall wipe away all tears from
your eyes. ! have noticed when the
children get hurt, and their mother Is
away from home, they always come to
me for comfort and sympathy; but /
nave noticed that when the children get
hurt and their mother is at home they
go right past me and to her. / am Of
no account. So when the soul comes up
into Heaven out of the wounds of this
life, it will not stop to look for Paul, or
Moses, or David or John. These did
very well once, but now the soul shall
rush past crying: where is Jesus?"
where is Jesus?' Dear Lord, what a
magnificent thing to die if thou shalt
thus wipe away the tears. Methink it
will take us some time to get used to
Heaven: the fruits of God without one
speck; the fresh pastures without one
n~ettle; the orchestra without one
snapped string; the river of gladness
without one torn bank; the solferinos
and the saffron Of sunrise and sunset
swallowed up in the eternal day hat
beams from Gods c"ountenance!
Why should / wish to linger In the wild,
When Thou art waiting, Father, to receive Thy
child2
Sure, If we could get any appreciation
Of what God has in reserve for us, it
would make US so homesick we would
be unfit for our every day work.
Prof. Leonard, formerly of Iowa uni
versity, put in my hands a meteoric
stone, a stone thrown off from some
other world to this. How suggestive it
to me. And | have to tell you the
best representations We have of Heaven
are only areolites flung off from that
world which rolls on, bearing the multi
tudes of the redeemed. We analyze