The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1891-07-14

interrogation. marks and more eXclama-
ton points. Heaven Is the place for
explanation. Earth is the place for
trust. If you cannot understand 80
minute a thing as ralndrop, how eau
| you expect to understand Gods deal
ings? Hath the rain fatl,er?"
Again, my text makes me think that
| the rain of tears is of divine origin.
Great clouds of trouble sometimes hover
over us. They are black, and they are
gorRed. and they are thunderous. They
are more pOrtentous than Salvador or
Claude ever painted-clouds Of poverty,
or persecution, or bereavement. They
hover over us, and they get darker and
blacker, and after awhile tear starts,
| and we think by an extra pressure Of
the eyelid to stop 1t. Others follow,
and after awhile there is a shower of
fearful emotion. Yea, there is rain
| of tears. "Hath that rain q father?"
GOD SEES OUR TEARS.
drop Of limpid fluid secreted by the
| lachrymal gland-it is only a sign of
weak eyes" Great mistake. 1t is one
of the Lords richest benedictions to
the world. There are people in Black
wells Island insane asylum, and at
Utica, and at all the asylums of this
that they could not cry at the right
time. Said maniac in one of our
public institutions, uuder Gospel ser
mon that started the tears: "Do you
see that tear? that is the first 1 have
wept for twelve years. l think 1t Will
help my BRAIN"
There are great many in the grave
who could not stand any longer under
the, glancier of trouble. Ii that glacier
had only melted into weeping they
| could have endured it.. There have
been times in your life when you would
have given the world, If you had pos
shrek, you could blaspheme, but you
could not cry. Have you never seen a
| man holding the hand Of dead wife,
| who had been all the world to him?
| The temples livid with excitement, the
eye dry and frantic, no moisture on the
| upper or lower lid. You saw there
were bolts of anger in the cloud, but
no rain. To your Christian comfort,
he said, Don't talk to me about God;
there is no God, or if there is 1 hate
him; don't talk to me about God; would
he have left me and these motherless
children?'
But few hours or days after, com.
| ing across some lead pencil that she
wrote when he was away from home,
| with an outcry that appals, there bursts
the fountain of tears, and as the sun
light of Gods consolation strikes that
| fountain OF tears, you find out that it
| is a tender hearted, merciful, pitiful and
all compassionate God who was the
father Of that rain. "Oh," you say, cit
is absurd to think that God is going to
watch over tears" No, my friends.
There are three or four kinds of them
| that God counts, bottles and eternizes.
First, there are all parental tears, and
there are more Of these than of any
die in infancy, and that keeps parents
mourning all around the world. They
never get over 1t. They may live to
| shout and sing afterward, but there is
! always a corridor in the soul that is
silent, though it once reSOunded.
My parents never mentioned the
death OF II child who died fifty years be-
| fore without tremor in the voice and
a sigh, oh, how deep fetched! 1t was
better she should die. 1t was mercy
she should die. She would have been a
lifelong invalid. But you cannot argue
away parents grief. How often you
| Then there are the filial tears. Little
children soon get over the loss of par
ents. They are easily diverted with a
new toy. But where Is the man that
has come to thirty or forty or fifty
years Of age, who can think of the old
people without having all the fountains
of bis soul stirred up? You may have
had to take care OF her good many
years, but you never can forget how
she used to take care Of you.
There have been many sea captains
converted in our church, and the pecu-
liarity of them was that they were
j'mothers, though the mothers went into
the dust soon after they went to sea.
| Have you never heard an old man in
delirium o. some sickness call for his
| mother? ne fact is we get so used to
calling for her the first ten years Of our
life we never get over it, and when she
goes away from us it makes deep sor-
row. You sometimes, perhaps, in days
of trouble and darkness, when the
world would say, "You ought to be
able to take care of yourself"-you
wake up from your dreams finding
yourself saying, "Oh, mother! mother!'
llaye these tears no divine origin :?
| Why, take all the warm hearts that
ever beat III all lands, and in all ages,
and put them together and their united
throb would be weak compared with
the throb of Gods eternal sympathy.
Yes, God also is father of all that rain
of repentance.
| Did you ever see a rain of repent
ance? DO you know what it is that
makes man repent? / see people 60
ing around trying to repent. They
cannot repent. Do you know no man
can repent until God helps him to re-
pent? How do [ know2 BY this pas
sage, "1lim hath God exalted to be a
prince and a Saviour to give repent
ance." Oh, it is Il tremendous hour
when one wakes up and says: "I am
bad man. l have not sinned against
the laws of the land, but have wasted
my life; God asked me for my services
and haven't given those services. Oh,
my sins; God forgive me-" When that
tear starts 1t thrills all heaven. An
angel cannot keer his eye OIL it. and
the church of GoI assemblies around,
and there is commingling of tears,
and God is the Father of that rain, the
Lord, long suffering, merciful and gra-
ciOus.
TIE CRY OF A MOTHERS HEART.
In religious assemblange a man
arose and said: II have been very
wicked man; broke mothers heart, l
became an infidel. but / have seen
my evil way, and L have surrendered
L aaNV Il ,v.H n Nj T.. -. q L.