Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1891-07-25

S@@ N0A~ ~
a lilac bush the morning after a shower.
God is no more in magnitudes than He l.
in minutiya II He tas scales te weigh the
mountains, lie has balances delltate enough
~ weigh the ininiteslEnal. You can no
more see Him through the telescope than you
can see Him through the microscope; no
more when YOU Hook up than when you look
down. Are not the hairs of your head all
numbereds And if Himalaya has a God.
Hath not the rain q father l take this
doctrine of a particular Providence, and !
thrust It into the very midst OF your every
day life. If God fathers a raindrop, IS there
any thing SO Insignificant in your affairs that
God will not father that !
then Druyse. the gunsmith, invented the
needle gun, which decided the battle Of
Sadowa. was II a mere accident! hen q
farmer boy showed Butcher a short cut BY
waIcn ne couiu Urlng MS. army up soon
enough to decide Waterloo for England, was
il a mere accident? When Lord Byron took
d piece Of money and tossed it up to decide
whether or not he should be affianced to Miss
Nlllbank, was 1t a mere accident which side
If the money was up and which was down;
When the Christian army was bes1ged at
Eagiers, and a drunken came In at
midnight and rang the alarm bell, not know
lI1 what be was doing, but waking up the
most IN Lime 10 ngnt their enemies unac mo-
1nent arriving, was 1t was accident!
When in one Of the Irish wars a starving
mother, flying with her starving child, sank
down and tainted on the rocks in the night
aud her hand fell on a warm bottle OF milk,
did that just happen 50: God Is either In the
affairs OF men OF our religion Is worth MOTH
ing at all, ana YOU had better take it away
tom US, ana instead or this blD!e, when
teaches the doctrine, give us a secular book,
and lei us. as the famous Mr.. Fox, the mem
Der of parliament, i'll bis last hour. cry out
Read me the eighth book of Virgil
Oh, my friends, let us rouse up to an ap-
probation OF the fact that all the affairs of
our life are under a kings command aud unl
der a fathers watch. Alexander's war
horse, Bucephalus. would allow anybody tC
mount him when he was unharnessel, but as
soon as they pat on that war horse. Bucepha-
ius, the saddle and %trappings OF the con
queror he would allow no one but Alexander
10 touch him. And if d soulless horse could
have SO much pride in his owner. shall not
elmmortals eXult III tue fact that We are
Jwnet by a king: Hath the rain a father
Again my subject teaches me that Gods
dealings with Us are lnexpilcable. That was
the original force Of my text. The rain was
a great mystery to the ancientS. They could
not understand how the water should get
into the cloud, and getting there. how it
should be suspended, or falling, why it should
come down in drops. Modern science comes
along and says there are two portions of air
of different temperature, and they are
charged with moisture, aud the one portion
OF air decreases III temperature So the water
NAV no longer be held i'll vapor, and it falls.
And they tells US that some Of the clouds
, that look TO be only as large asa mans hand,
and to be almost quiet III tue hea Veins, are
great mountains of mist four thousand feet
from base to top, and that they rush miles a
minute.
But after all the brilliant experiments Of
Or. James Hutton, and Saussure. and other
scientists, there is an infinite mystery about
'herain. There is an OCEAN of the unfath
ENABLE in every raindrop, and God says to-
lay as He said in the time OF Job, If you
cannot understand one drop of rain, do not
he surprised if My dealings with You are in
explcable." why does that aged man, de-
crepit, beggared, vicious, sick Of the world,
and the world sick Of him, live on, while
here is a man i'll mid life, consecrated to
God, hard working, useful in every respect,
who dies? Why does that old gossip, CAD
ding along the streets about every body's bust
ness but her own, have such good health,
while the Christian mother, with a flock of
little ones about her whom she Is preparing
tor usefulness and for heaven-the mother
who you think could not be spared al hour
from that household-why does she lie down
ana die with a cancer?
Why does that man, selfish to the core, go
On adding fortune to fortune, consuming
everything on himself, continue to prosper,
wine ludl llldIl, WHO mas DGen giving ten per
cent. of all his income to God and the church.
,,oas into bankruptcy? Before we make
stark fools of ourselves, let us stop pressing
this everlasting why" Let us worship
where we cannot understand. Let a man
take that one question, Why" and follow
1t far enough, and push it. and he will land
IN wretchedness and perditlon. We want III
our theology fewer interrogation marks ana
more points. Heaven is the
pace for explanation. Earth is the place for
trust. Ii you cannot understand 50 minute
a thing as a raindrop, how can you expect
to understand Gods dealings, Hath the
rain a father
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 gorged, and
they are thunderous, They are more por-
tentious than Salvador or claude ever
palnted-clouds of poverty, or persecution,
or bereavement, They hover over us, and
they get darker and blacker, and after
awhile a tear starts, and we think by an
extra pressure of the eyelid to stop it. 9th
ers follow, and after awhile there is a show
er of fearful emotion. Yea, there is a rain
Of tears. Hath that rain a fathery'
Oh you say. "a tear is nothing but a
dropof limpid fluid secreted by the ZACH
rylnai gland-lt Is only a sign of weak eyes.
Great mistake. 1t is one OF the Lords rich
est benedictions to the world. There are
ptop4c Al DidChNeli ) lStunu luSdue dSyluLl,
aud at Utica, and at all the asylumS of this
land, who We're demented by the fact that
they could not cry at the right time. Said
a maniac in one OF our public institutions,
Under a gospel sermon that started the tears
ID you see that tear, that is the first !
have wtpt for twelve years. | think 1t vii
help my brain.
there are d great many in the grave who
could not stand any longer under the glacier
OF trouble. II that glacier had only melted
itto weeping they could have endured 1t
here have been times in your life when yor
would have given the world, if you had pos
se>sed II. tor one tear. You could shrek
You could blaspheme, but You could not cry
fiaVe you never seen a man holding the hant
or a dead wife, who had been all the worl,
- Elm: The temples livid with exciteme nt
the eye dry au3 frantic. no moisture on th
upper or lower iii. You saw there uer
bolts OF anger III the cloud. but no rain. L
your Christian comfort. rs said. ID n
talk TO lie about God. there is no God ~
there Is hate Him; don't talk to me abon
bod, would lie rave te1t me and these mother
less children"
But a few hours or DAYS aftAr comm
across some leal pencil that she owned -