The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1891-07-15

trust. If YOU cannot understand so
minute a thing as ralndrop. bow can
YOU expect to understand Gods deal
ings: 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. Ihey
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
hlacker, and after awhile tear starts,
and we think by an extra pressure of
the evelid to stop it. Others follow,
and after awhile there is shower OF
fearful emotion. Yea, there is a rain
Of tears. Hath that rain father
GOD SEES OUR TEARS.
"Oh," you say, "a tear is nothing but
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 benedictlons to
the world. There are people in Black
wells Island insane asylum, and at
Utica, and at all the aSylums OF this
land, who were demented by the TACT
that they could not cry at the night
time. Said maniac in one OF our
public institutions, uUder q Gospel ser
mon that started the tears: do you
see that tear9 that is the first have
wept for twelve years. l think it 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 il your life whsn you would
have given the world, If you had pos,
sessed it, for one tear. i 1ou could
Shrek, you could blaspheme, but you
could not cry. Have you never seen a
man holding the hand of Gead 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 ii there is l hate
him; don't talk to me about God; would
he have left me and these motherless
Ichildren ~
But few hours or days after, com.
ing across some lead pencil that she
owned in life, or some letters which 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 IL
is a tender hearted, merciful, pitiful and
all compassionate God who was the
father of that rain. "Oh," you say, ''it
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
other kind, because the most CT the race
die in infancy, and that keeps parents
mourning all around the world. They
never get over it. They may live to
shout and sing afterward, but there is
always corridor in the soul that is
silent, though it once reSounded.
Ny parents never mentioned the
death OF child who died fifty years be-
fore without a tremor in the voice and
g 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
hear the moan, ''Oh, my child, my child. y
Then there are the tilial 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 a 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
nearly all prayed ashore by their
mothers, though the mothers went into
the dust soon after they went to sea.
Have you never heard an old man IN
deiirium of some sickness call for his
mother? Thefact is we get SO used to
calling for her the first ten years of cur
life we never get over it, and when she
goes away from US it makes deep 'or-
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!'
Have these tears no divine origin :
Why, take all the warm hearts that
ever beat in 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 rain of repent
ance? DO you know what 1t is that
makes a man repent? / see people go
ing around tying to repent. They
cannot repent. Do you know no man
can repent until God helps him to re-
pent?: How do know? BY this pas
sage. Him hath God exalted to be a
prince and Saviour to give repent
ance." Oh, it is a tremendous hour
when one wakes up and says: Il am
4 bad man. I have not Sinned against
the laws of the land, but have wasted
my life; God asked me for my services
and l haven't given those services. On,
my sins; God forgive me- When that
tear starts it thrills all heaven. An
angel cannot keep his eye OFT it. and
the church of Goa assemblies around,
and there is a commingling of tears,
and God is the Father of that rain, the
Lord, long suffering, merci!ul and gra-
ciouS.
THE CRY OF \ MOTHERS HEART.
In a religious assemblange a man
arose and said: Il have been a very
wicked man; l broke mothers heart, l
became an intidel. but l have seen
my evil way, and l have surrendered
my heart to God, but it is a grlet tnat
| never can get over that my parents
should never have heard Of my saliva
ton; don't know whether they are lly-
ing or dead" While yet he was standing
in tho andience q voice from the gallery