Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-07
ALL TROUBLE CAUSED BIZ BROKEN LAWS
rwR1TTEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.1

Ihe man VINO Wrote tnat mad learned the
hardest of all lessons. He had learned the
lesson of pain. He had worked out the prob
lem of human sorrow, and got an answer
good answer. This man had learned the
good of trouble.
He must have been good man. The fact
that he had learned this lesson shows that.
Because trouble tests men.
Trouble enters into different lives differ
emily. 1t may be just the same trouble, the
same disappointment the same pain, the
same parting-but here it helps and there
1t hindersi of one it makes a saint, another
1t leaves a sinner as before; because people
are different Just as the same rain which
falls upon a lawn, and makes it fresh and
clean and beautiful, falls also upon road
which runs near by, and turns it into very
ugly and unpleasant mud. 1t is the same
rain, but lawn is different from road.
This man had stood the test of trouble.
And he has written down. between the lines,
how bitter an experience, how stern a test it
was. For you see it was all over when he
wrote. 1t had lain formidable stumbling
block upon his path, and he had made a
stepping-store out of it; but all that diff
cult achievement lay away back in the
distance. "It is good for me" he says,
''that have been in trouble" He can see
that now. He looks back upon it, and it is
wholly blessed in retrospect, and infinitely
worth suffering" But in the moment of
trouble, with the darkness of the black
shadow, even he, PERHAPS, could see no
hope and no light. 1t was only afterward
that be read the meaning and
FOUND THE BLESSING.
1t is best that the afflicted soul, in the
closer presence of the affiiction, in the
supreme hour of pain, should simply abide
still and wait. By-and-by, if we do that, if
we wait, if we but hold the hand of God,
without question, without utterance, patient
till He speak, we will know all that we need
to know. We will learn how rejoicing
waits on tribulation. This man waited, and
learned.
But he needed to be good man in order
to learn.
Whether trouble shall help or hinder,
whether it shall speak from Ebal or from
Gerizim, with voice of blessing or of ours
ing, depends very much upon our own
selves.
Every trouble comes upon its own blessed
ministry of good, every trial has some de-
sire ana loving purpose behind it, every
sorrow has its appointed message and mis-
sion-if we can only find tiff il can only
find usl He whose heart is open will learn
the blessing of adversely, will experience
the good of trouble. Gods teaching waits
upon our learning. God blesses US when
we are ready for Gods blessing.
This man was able to learn this hard
lesson, because he was a good man, Fortu-
nately, however, he was not so immediately
good that we have need to be discouraged.
He was good in this sense of that wide word
that he had the grace of open-heartedness
As for the rest, he was no better than we
are. He had been disobeying Gods COM
mandments, it seems, and trouble had
stopped him. To him that was the great
good of trouble. Trouble had stood before
him in path which led to sure disaster,
and ne was very thankful for its interven-
tion. ''It is good for me that have been in
trouble-that I may learn thy statutes -
And again, in another place, he says: BE
fore was troubled 1 went wrong; but now
have kept Thy word" That, to him, was
what trouble was for,
IT WAS FOR TEACHING.
Trouble is grim scboolmaster, but it
teaches some exceedingly essential lessons.
These four among a multitude of others
the lesson of strength, the lesson of law, the
lesson of faith, the lesson of love.
Every trouble is an opportunity to win tn e
grace of strength. Whatever else trouble is
in the world for, it is here for this good pur-
pose-to develop strength. A trouble is a
moral or a spiritual task. 1t is something
hard to do. And it is in the spiritual world
just as in the physical world, strength grows
by encounter with the difficult. A world
without any trouble in it would be, to men
made with our nature, the abode of spiritual
laziness and enervation.
Fortunately, every day is crowded with
trouble. Every day, to every one of us,
brings its worries, its questions, its tasks; its
domestic, its commercial, its financial
trouble. And so every day we get some
spiritual exercise. Every day we are
blessed with new opportunities for strength.
That is what the common truths of our
lives mean. Take them for tasks. Here is
a big stone which you will get out
of the road, pulling and pushing at it. clear
ing the highway and training your spiritual
muscles at the same time. Here is q very
slough Of despond, to right and to LETT is
nothing which attracts you, interests or
helps you. You are set down in the middle
of this dismal marsh-drain it, make the
waste arabic, plant it with flowers and
corn. 1t is your task. 1t is your chance to
win the crown laid up for him that ''over-
cometh."
Trouble teaches also the lesson of law,
We live in a world of law. God who cares
both for each individual of us, and for all
of us together, knows that the very best
government for this universe and this race is
government of great, universal laws. We
have
HAPPINESS IN THIS LIFE
and in the life to come, just in proportion
as we live in obedience to these great laws
of God. We learn what Gods laws are
partly by revelation, partly by experience,
and the part we learn from revelation needs
the emphasis of experience before men
actually realize the force of it. Now, the
most efficient teacher of Gods law is trouble,
Whenever We break a law of God, whether
in the world Of nature or the world of NOR
ais, there stands trouble to tell us, and
trouble tells us in a way which we do not
soon forget Trouble teaches just as the
sting of fire does. 1t is a danger mark,
Trouble is affixed to disobedience lust as
pain is put in the tip of tongue of fire, to
keep men away from it. 1t is a deterrent.
Take trouble out of the world and leave law
in and it would be like taking the sting out
of the flame, but leaving fire as fatally dan
gerousa as ever. Men would be without warn
ing. Blessed be God who has set up this
plsin danger mark over every sin.
Take it in the world of nature God has
act in this world this great law for example,
the law of gravitation. 1t is best for the
world in general that this should be uni
yersal law, and men, accordingly, are
taught il, 50 that they will remember 1t, by
accident. Whoever loses his balance in q
third-story window, whether it be an limo.
cent child or young man asleep during an
apostles sermon, it makes no matter-down
be goes. Because that is Gods wise law.
Trouble does not come in the physical
world because God is angry, unless you will
say that the fire burns you because God is
angry. Trouble comes not so much from an
act of God as from an act OF man. There is
an epidemic or plague or fever in large
town; children are taken out of their
mothers arms, the widows son dies. But
TINS Is not because God is angry. 1t is be.
cause by one of the great, wise, universal
laws OF God, whoever drinks contaminated
water lg Uoipo 20 The ~ :,