Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1889-11-02
oy US IN every crisis and predicament


of life.
tell you what some of you bust
ness men make me think of. A young
man goes off from home to earn his
fortune. He goes with his mothers
consent and benediction. She has
large wealth; but he wants to make
his own fortune. He goes far away,
falls sick, gets out OF money. He
sends for tlle hotel keeper where he is
staying, asking for lenience, and the
answer he gets is: IF you don't pay
up. Saturday night you'll be removed
to the hospital. Tie young man
sends to comrade in the same build
ing. No help. He writes TO a banker
who was friend of his deceased
father. No relief. He writes to all
old schoolmate, but gets no help.
Saturday night comes, and no is
moved to the hospital
Getting there, he is frcnzicd with
grief; and he borrows sheet OF pa
per and a postage stamp, and he sits
down, and lie writes home, saying:
Dear mother, am sick unto death.
Come. 1t is ten minutes OF 10
O'CLOCK when she gets the letter. At
10 o'clock the train starts. She is five
minutes from the depot. She gets
There in.Stime to lave five minutes to
Ifgspare. SIZE wonders why w train that
can go thirty miles an hour cannot
60 sixty miles an hour. She PUSHES
into the hospital. She says: My
son, what does all this mean? Why
didn't you send for nle2 You sent to
everybody but me. You knew ]
could and would help you. Is this
the reward l get for my kindness to
you always2" 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 mothor.
When you get into financial per-
plexity, you call on the banker, you
call on the broker, you call on your
creditors, you call Oh your lawyer for
legal counsel; you call upon every
body, and when you cannot get any
help, then you go to God. You say:
20 Lord l come to Thee. Help me
now out of my pcrplexity." And the
Lord comes, thought is the eleventh
hour. He says: why did you not
send for me before2 AS one whom
his mother comforteth, so will I COM
fort you" 1t is to throw us back
upon an all comforting God that we
have this ministry of tears.
TT MAKES US SYMPATHETIC.
Again, it is the use of trouble to
capacitate us for the Office Of SYM
pathy. The priests. under the old dis.
pensation, were set apart by having
water sprinklel on their hands, feet
and heads; and by the sprinkling OF
tears people are now set apart 10 the
office of sympathy. When We are in
prosperity we like to have great
many young people 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, 70 years
of age, and she is almost omnipotent
in comfort. Why2 She has been
through it all. At z o'clock in the
morning she goes over to comfort a
young mother who has just lost her
babe.
Grandmother knows all about that
trouble. Fifty years ago she felt it.
AT 10 o'clock of that day she goes over
to comfort a widowed soul. She knows
all about that. She has been walking
in that dark valley twenty years. Al
4 o'clock in the afternoon some one
knocks at the door wanting bread.
She knows all about that. Two OF
three times in her life she came TO her
last loaf. At 10 o'clock that night she
goes over to sit up with some one Sc.
verely sick. She knows all about it.
She knows all about fevers and plcu-
risies and broken bones. She has been
doctoring all her life, spreading plas
tiers, and pouring out bitter drops, and
shaking up hot pillows. and contriv-
ing things to tempt a poor appetite.
Doctors Abcrnethy and Rush and Ho-
sack and Harvey were great doctors,
but the greatest doctor the world ever
saw is an old Christian woman. Dear
mel Do we. not remember her about
the room when we were sick III our
boyl1ood2 Was there any one who
could ever SO touch sore without
hurting it,
And when she lifted her spectacles
against her wrinkled forehead, SO she
could look closer at the wound, it was
three-fourths healed And when the
| Lord took her home, although you
may have been men and women SO,
40, so years of age, you lay on the
coffin lid and sobbed as though you
were only or 10 years OF age. q
mall, praise God if you have i'll your
, memory the picture of an honest, sym
pathetic, kind, self sacrificing, Christ
like mother. Oh, it takes these people
| who have had trouble to comfort Others
{ in trouble. Where did Paul get the
| ink with which to write his comfort.
| ing epistle2 Where did David get the
| ink to write his comforting Psalmsl
Where did John get the ink to write
his comforting Revelations They got
it out Of their own tears. When q
man has gone through the curriculum.
and has taken course OF dungeons
and imprisonmcnts and shipwrecks. he
is qualified for the work of sympathy.
When 1 began to preach, my SER
mons on the subject of trouble were
all poetic and in senli-blank verse; but
God knocked tile blank verse out OF
me long ago, and I have found out
that cannot comfort people except cS
l myself have been troubled. Goa
make me the son of consolation to the
people. I would rather be the means
of soothing one perturbed spirit today;
than to play tune that would set all
the sons of mirth Keeling in the dance.
am an herb doctor. put into the
caldron the Root out OF dry ground
without form or comeliness. Then |
mt in the Rose of Sharon and the