Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-11-06

and blaspheming God, began to pull an
jerk al the bell-rope. and got up on tn
backs of the seats and cried out, 80 God
save us!' There was another time, abou
eigns hundred miles out at sea, on found
erlng steamer, after the last lifeboat ha
oeen split finer than kindling wood. The
prayed then. Why is it you SO often hea
people, IN reciting the last experience O
some frie d, say: "He made the mos
beautiful prayer I ever beard?r Wha
makes it beautiful? 1t is the earnestues
of it. Oh, tell you man ia in earnes
when his stripped and naked soul wade
out into the soundIess, shoreless, bottom
less ocean of eternity.
1t is trouble, my friends, that makes u
feel our dependence upon God, We do no
know our own weakness or Gods strength
until the last plank breaks. 1t is con
temptible in US when there is nothing els,
to take hold of that we catch hold of Goo
only. A man is unfortunate in business.
He has to raise a great deal of money, ant
raise it quickly. He borrows op word anc
note all he can borrow. After awhile b,
puts mortgage on his house. Aftel
awhile he puts second mortgage on hi.
house. Then he puts lien on his furni
ture. Then he makes over his life insur
ance. Then he assigns all his property
Then he goes to his father in-law and ask.
for help.
Well, having failed everywhere, com
pletely failed, he gets down on his knees
and says: 80 Lord, l have tried everybod,
and everything, now help me out of this
financial trouble" He makes God the last
resort instead of the first resort. There
are men who have paid ten cents on a dol
lar who could have paid hundred cents or
dollar If they had gone to God in time.=
Why, you do not know who the Lord is
lie ls not an autoerat seated far up in 8
palace, from which be emerges once year,
preceded by heralds swinging swords tc
clear the way. No. But father willing,
at our call, to stand by us in every crisis
and predicament of life.
| tell yon 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 benedietiou.
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 removed to the hospital" The
young man sends to a comrade in the same
building. No help. He writes TO banker
Who was friend of his deceased father
No relief. He writes to old scboolnato.
but gets no help. Saturday night comes
and he is moved to the hospital.
Getting there, be is frenzied wish grief;
and he borrOws sheet of paper and a
postage stamp, and be sits down, and he
writes home, saying: s'Dear mother, am
sick unto death. Gene" 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 train that can go thirty
miles an hour cannot go sixty miles an
hour. She rushes into the hospital. She
says: sMy son, what does all this mean?
Why didn't you send for me? You sent
to everybody but me. You knew l could
and would help you. Is this the reward l
gss foc my kindness to you always?' She
bundles him up, takes him home, and gets
him well very soon.
Nov, some Of you trest God just as that
young man treated his mother. When Won
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: 80 Lord, l come to
Thee. Help me 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 his
mother comfortetb, SO will I comfort you.
It is to throw us back upon an all-comfort-
ing God that We have this ministry of
tears.
Again, 1t is the use of trouble to capaci-
tate US for the office of mpathy. The
priests, under the old dispensation, were
set apart by having water sprinkled on
their hanos, feet and head; and by the
sprinklipg Of tears people are now set apart
to the Office of sympathy. When We are IN
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. seventy years
of age, and she is almost omipotent in COM
fort. Why? She has been through it all.
At o'clock in the morning she goes over
to comfort young mother who has just
lost her babe.
Grandmother knows all about that
trouble. Fifty years ago she felt it. At
12 o'clock of that day she goes over TO
comfort 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 sit up with some one severely
sick. She knows all about it. She knows
all about fevers and pleurisies and broken
bones. She has been doctoring all her life,
spreading plasters, and pouring out bitter
drops. and shaking up hot pillows, and
cnntrivipg things to tempt poor appetite.
Doctors Abernethy and Rush and Hosack
and Harvey were great doctors, but the
greatest doctor the world ever saw is an
old Christian woman. Dear me! Do we
not remember her about the room when we
were sick in our boyhood? Was there any
one who could ever SO touch sore without
hurting ii?
And when she lifted her speetaeles
against her wrinkled forehead, so she could
look closer at the wound, it was three
fourths hesied. And when the Lord took
her home, although you may have been
heu sUU "Oluou tulIty, IOtty, Hity y6lTS Oi
age, you lay on the cofi lid and sobbed as
though you were only five or ten years of
age. o man, praise God if you have in
your memory the picture of an honest,
sympathetic. kind, self-sacrficing, 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 bis comforting epistie?
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
man has gone through the curriculum,
and has taken course of dungeons and
inprisonments and shipwrecks, he is quail
fed for the work Of sympathy.
When l began to preach, my sermons on
tie subject of trouble we're all poetic and in
semi blank verse; but God knocked the
blank verse out of me long ago, and have
found ont that cannot comfort people ex.
eept as myself have been troubled God
make me the son Of consolation to the peo-
pie. I moald rather be the means OF sooth-
ing one perturbed spirit to day than to play
a tune that would set all the sons of mirth