Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1891-07-06
SCIENCE Is NOT RELIGION.

| 11lNefpOOI.
SCIENCE Is NOT RELIGION.
l suppose you understand your fam
lily genealOgy. You know something
about your parents, your grandparents
your ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. Perhaps you
know where they were born or where
they died. Have you ever studied the
parentage of the shower? Hath the
rain a father?'' This question is not
asked by a poetaster or scientist, but
| by the head of the universe. To hum
BILE and to save Job God asks him four
teen questions; about the worlds archi-
lecture. about the refracton of the
suns rays, about the tides, about the
snow crystal, about the Iightnings, and
then he arraigns him with the interro-
CATION of the text. Hath the rain a
fatherl"
With the scientific wonders of the
rain have nothing to do. A minister
gets through with that kind of sermons
within the first three years, and if he
has piety enough he gets through with
it in the first three months. A sermon
has come to ne to mean one word Of
four letters, help" You all know
that the rain is not an orphan. You
know that it is not cast out Of the
gates of heaven a founding. You
would answer the question Of my text
in the affirmative Safely housed dur
ing the storm you hear the rain beat
ing against the window pane, and you
find it searching all the crevices Of the
window sill.
1t first comes down in solitary drops,
pattering the dust, and then it deluges
the fields and angers the mountain tor
rents, and makes the traveller implore
shelter. You know that the rain is not
an accident Of the worlds economy.
You know it was born of the cloud
You know it was rocked in the cradle
of the wind You know it was sung to
sleep by the storm. You know that it
is a flying evangel from heaven to
earth You know it is the gospel of
the weather You know that God is
its father
If this be true, then, how wicked is
our mur1nuring about climatic changes.
The first eleven Sabbaths after I en-
tered the ministry it storned Through
the week it was clear weather, but on
the Sabbaths the old country meeting
house hooked like Noah's ark before it
landed \ few drenched people sat
before a drenched pastor but most of
the farmers stayed at home and thanked
God that what was bad for the church
was good for the crops. [ committed
good deal of sin in those days in de-
nouncing the weather Ministers of
the Gospel sometimes fret about stormy
Sabbaths or hot Sabbaths or incIem-
ent Sabbaths. They forget the fact
that the sane God who ordained the
Sabbath and sent forth his ministers to
announce salvation, also ordained the
weather Hath the rain a father?"
COAIPLAININGS OF SINFUL MEN.
Merchants, also, with their stores
filed with new goods, ana their clerks
idly around the counters, com
NIT the same trausgression There |
have been seasons when the whole
spring and faH trade has been ruined |
by protracted wet weather The mer-
chants then examined the weather
hey read their Bibles. They watched |
;or a patch Of blue sky. They went
to the store and came |
home again. In all that
season of wet feet and dripping gar
nents and impossible streets they
never once asked the question, Hath
le rain a father
So agriculturista commit this sin.
There is notL Sh more annoying than
O il:i>-c l'l.-s:ot! corn rot in the ground
}. ,...t's-' 80 o.. inuch moisture. or hay
Ill ready for the NOW dashed of a show
r, or wheat almost ready for the sickle
pOiled with the rust How hard it is
o GeSr the agricultural disappoint-
nents. God has infinite resources, bus
do not think he has capacity to make
weather. to please all the farmers.
sometimes 1t is too hot, or it is TOO
old; it IS too wet, or it it is too dry; it
too early, or it is too late. They for
ct that the God who promised seed
lme and harvest, summer and winter,
old and heat also ordained all the eli
matte changes. There is one question
nat ought to be written on every barn,
n every fence, on every haystack, on
very farmhouse, Hath the rain a
ltherY
If we only knew what vast enter
rise it is to prC%ide appropriate weather
Or this world we would not be so crit
.al of the Lord. Isaac Watts, at ten
ears of age, complained that he did
OF like the hymns that were sung in
ne English chapel. well, " said his
ather, Isaac, instead of your com
laining about the hymns go and make
ymns that are better" And he did
and make hymns that were better.
ow, | say to you, if you do not like
ne weather, get up a weather com
any, and have a president, and a sec
ron =