Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1891-07-10
LITTLE DROPS OF WATER
THEY ALL SPRING FROM THE
GREAT FOUNTAIN HEAD.
Thrilling Sermon at tho brooklyn
Tabernacle sunday-"Has tho HAHN
Fatherf" Was DIR. Talnsge's
Text

/ Il ut DOOh Oh JOD mas pcCh bhC ouO-
ject of unbounded theological wrangle.
Men have made IL the ring in which to
display their ecclesiastical pugilism.
Some say that the Book of Job Is .
true history; others, that 1t Is an allie
CORY; others, that it is an epic poem;
others that it is drama. Some say
that Job lived eighteen hundred years
before Christ; others say that he never
lived at all. Some say that the author
of this book was job; others, David;
others, Solomon. The discussion has
landed some in blank intidelity. Now,
] have no trouble with the Books Of
Job or Revelation.
You all know that the rain Is not an
orphan. You know it is not cast out
of the gates of heaven a founding.
You would answer the question of my
text in the affirmative.
II this be true, then, how wicked Is
our murmuring about climatic changes.
The first eleven Sabbaths after l en-
tered the ministry it stormed. Through
the week it was clear weather, but on
the Sabbaths the old country meeting
house looked like Noah's Ark before il
landed.
Merchants, also, with their stores
filed with new goods, and their clerks
hanging idly around the counters, COM
NIT the same transgression. There
have been seasons when the whole
spring and fall trade has been ruined
by protracted wet weather.
So agriculturists commit this sin.
There is nothing more annoying than
to have planted corn rot in the ground
because of too much moisture, or hay
all ready for the NOW dashed of a
shower, or wheat almost ready tor the
sickle spoiled with the rust. How hard
it is to bear the agricultural
disappointmcnts. God has in
finite resources, but / do not think
he has capacity to make weather
to please all the farmers. Sometimes
it Is too hot, or it is too cold; it is too
wet, or it is too dry; it is too early or
it IS too late. My text also suggests
Gods minute supervisal. You see the
oivine Sonship in every drop of rain.
The Jewels of the shower are not flung
away by spendthrift who knows not
how many he throws or where they
fall. They are all shining princes OF
heaven. They all have an eternal lin
cage. They are all the children of
King. Hath the rain father?"
If God fathers rain-drop, is there
anything SO insignificant in your affairs
that God will not father that? When
Druyse, the gunsmith, invented the
needle gun, which decided the battle of
Sadowa, was it mere accident? When
n farmers boy showed Butcher short
cut by which he could bring his army
up soon enough to decide Waterloo for
England, was it a mere accident?
When Lord Byron took a piece of
money and tossed it up to de-
eide whether or not he should be
affianced to Miss Millbank, was it
mere accident which side of the money
was up and which was down? When
the Christian army were besieged at
Beziers, and a drunken drummer came
in at midnight and rang the alarm bell,
not knowing what he was doing, but
waking up the host in time to fight
irving, was it an 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 and her hand
fell on a warm bottle of milk, did that
just happen so? God is either in the
affairs of men, or our religion is worth
nothing at all, and you had better take
Bible, which teaches the doctrine, give
us secular book, and let us, as the
famous Mr.. Fox, the member of Parlia-
ment, in his last hour, cry out: Read
me the eighth book of Virgil" o! my
friends, let as rouse up 70 an apprecia-
ton of the fact that all the affairs
of our life are under a Kings command
and under Fathers watch. Alexan-
ders war horse, Bucephalus, would al
low anybody to mount him when he
was embarrassed; but as soon as they
put on that war horse, Bucephalus, the
saddle and the trappings of the con-
queror, he would allow no one but
Alexander to touch him. And if a soul
less horse could have SO much pride in
his owner, shall not we immortals exult
in the fact that we are owned by a
King?
Again, my subject teaches me that
Gods dealings with us are inexplica-
BILE. That was the original force of
my text. The rain was a great mys-
terry to the ancients. They could not un-
derstand how the water should get
into the cloud, and getting there, how
1t 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 temper
ature, and they are charged with
moisture, and the one portion of
air decreases in temperature so the
water may no longer be held in
vapor, and it falls. And they tell us
that some of the clouds that look to be
only as large as a mans hand, and to be
almost quiet in the heavens, are great
mountains of mist four thousand feet
from base to top, and that they rush
miles n minute. But after all the
brilliant experiments of DIR. James
Hutton and, Saussure, and other
scientists, there is an infinite mystery
about the rain. There is an ocean of
the unfathomable in every rain-drop,
and God says to-day as he said in the
time of Job: eff you can not under
stand one drop of rain, do not be sur
prised il my dealings with you are in.
applicable"
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