The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1889-11-07

are poetic and ha begins away up among the
sun, moon and stars and gives the Lord a
great deal OF astronomical information that
must be highly gratifying, He then comes
ON down gradually over beautifully table,
lands to forever and ever, anien,N But af-
ter man has had trouble, prayer Is with
him taking hold of the arm of God and cry
ing out for help, have heard earnest pray
ers on two or three occasions that | rennem'
ber
Once, ON the Cincinnati express train,
going at forty miles the hour, and the
train jumped the track, and we were
near a chasm eighty feet deep; and the
MEN who, a few minutes before, had been
swearing and disappearing God, began 20
pull and jerk at the bell rope, and got
up ON the backs OF the sGts and cried
ont: 20 God save usn There was another
time, about eight hundred miles out at sea,
ON laundering steamer, after the last
lifeboat had been split finer than kndlnlg
wood They prayed then. Why is il you
so often hear people, in feciting the last ex-
perience of SOME friefid. say: "He made the
most beautiful prayer ever heardg' What
makes it beautiful? II is the earnestness OF
il. Oh, tell you man is IN earnest when
his stripped and naked soul wades ont in the
soundless, shoreleSs, bottomless ocean OF
eternity.
Ii Is trouble my friends, that makes us feel
o;r dependence upon God. We do not know
our own weakness or Gods strength until
the last plank breaks, 1t is contemplate in
us when there is nothing else TO take hold of,
that we catch hold of God only. A man is
unfortunate in business, He has to raise a
great deal Of money, and raise it quickly.
ne oorrows on word ana note an he can bor-
row. After a while he puts mortgage on
his house. After a while he puts second
mortgage on his house. Then he puts lien
on his furniture. Then he makes over his
life insurance. Then he assigns all his prop
erty.- Then he goes to his fatheriu'law and
asks for help.
Well, having failed everywhere, COM
pletely failed, he gets down on his knees and
says; ~ Lord, l have tried everybody and
everything, now help me out of this finan-
cial trouble" He makes God tho last resort
instead of the first resort There are men
who have paid ten cents ON dollar who
could have paid hundred cents on dollar
if they had gone to God in time. Why, you
do not fpcw who the,Lord is. He is not an
autocrat seated far up in a palace, from
which He emerges once a year, preceded by
haralds swinging swords to clear the way
No. But Father willing, at our call, to
stand by us in every crisis and predicament
Of life.
tell you what some of you business 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 the
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 re-
moved to the hospital" The young man
sends to comradc in the same building. No
help. He writes to d banker who was a
friend of his deceased father. No relief. He
writes TO an old schoolnate, but gets no help.
Saturday night comes and he is removed to
the hospital.
Gevains there he is frenzied with grief and
he borrows u sheet of paper and postage
stamp, and he sits down, aid he writes home,
saying: Dear mother, am sick unto death.
Come" It 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 time to have five minutes to
spare She wonders why a, train that can &c
thirty miles an hour cannot go sixty miles an
iour, She PUSHES into the hospital She says
MY son, what does all this mean? Why didn't
you send for me? You sent TO everybody but
ne. You knew l could and would help you.
Is this the reward get for my kindness to
you always?' She bundles him up, takes him
,ome, and gets him well very soon.
Now, some of you treat God just as that
young man treated his mother When you
get into financial perplexity, you call on the
banker, you call on the broker, you call on your
creditors, you call on your lawyer for legal
counsel; you call upon everybody, and when
you cannot get any help, then you go to God.
You say: 20 Lord come to Thee Help
ms now out of my perplexity." And the
Lord COMES though it is the eleventh hour
He says: why did you not send for Me
before? As one whom mis- mother comforteth,
so will l comfort you" 1t is to throw us bscl,
upon an all comforting God that we have
this ministry Of tears.
Again, it is the use of trouble TO capscitate
US for the office of sympathy. The priests,
under the old dispensation, were set apart by
having water spi'inkled on their hands, feet
and head; and By. the sprinkling Of tears
sympathy. When we are i'll prosperity we
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 Ike plenty of old folks around. Why?
They know how to talk. Take an aged
mother, seventy years of age, and she is al
most 'omnipotent in comfort. Why? She
has been through it ALL At Z O'clock in the
morning she goes over to comfort young
mother who has Just lost her babe
Grandmother knows all about that trou-
BILE. Fifty years ago she felt it. At IL
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. At o'clock in the afternoon
some one knocks at the door wanting bread
She knows all about that. Two or three
times in her life she came to her last loaf
At 10 o'clock that night she goes over to si'
up with some one severely sick She knows
all about it. Size knows all about fevers ant
pleurisies and broken bones. She has beer
docto1ing all her life, spreading plasters, ant
pouring out bitter drops, and shaking up no
pillows, and eontriving things to tempt {
poor appetite Doctors Abernethy and Rusl
and Hosack aud Harvey were great doctors
but the greatest doctor the world ever saw i
an old Christian woman. Dear me! Do WI
were sick in our boyhood? Was there an,
one who could ever so touch a sore withou
hurting it?
And when she lifted her spectacles agains
her wrinkled forehead, so she could lool
closer at the wound, it was three-fourth
healed. And when the Lord took her home
although you may have been men and womei
thirty, forty, fifty years Of age, you lay OF
the coffin lid and sobbed as though you wer
only five or ten years Of age. o man, prais
God II you have in your memory the pictur
Of an honest, sympathetic, kind, self sacrific
ing, Christ-like mother. Oh, it takes these PEG
pie who have had trouble to comfort Others
In trouble. Where did Paul get the ink witt
which to write his comforting epistle2 Nher,
dia David get the ink to write his comfortin;
Psalms? Where did John get the ink t.
write his comforting Revelation? They go
it out of their own tears When man ha
gone through the curriculum, and has takeI
course of dungeons and imprisonments anC
shipwrecks he is qualified for the work o
syniDathv.
When began TO preach, my sermons OF
the subject Of trouble We're all poetic and il
semi blank verse; but God knocked the blanl
verse out of me long ago and have fount
out that | cannot comfort people Except as
myself have been troubled. God make IN
the son of consolation to the people woulC
rather be the means of soothing one per
turbed spirit to-day, than TO play tune tina
would set all the sons of mirth reeling in tn
dance. am herb doctor put into thu
caidron the Root out of dry ground withou
form or conleliness Then / put in tn
Rose OF Sharon and the Lii,
of the Valley, Then ] put int
the caldron some of the leaves from the Ire
Of Life, and the Branch that was thrown int
the wilderness Marah. Then pour in th
tears of Bethany and Golgotha; then sti
| them up. Then kinde under the caldron
| fire made of the wood of the cross, and on
| drop of that potion will cure the worst sick
ness that ever afflicted human soul. Mar.
and Martha shall receive their Lazarus from