The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1891-07-10

per cent, OF all his income TO God ana
tho church gees into bankruptcy
Before We make stark fools of our
selves let US stop pressing this everlast
ing why" Let ms worship where we
cannot understand. Let man take
that one question "WhyT and follow
1t far enough, and push II, and he win
land in wretshedness and pepdition.
We want In our theology fewer inter
rogation marks and more exclamation
points, Heaven is the place for expla
nation. Earth Is the place for trust,
II you cannot understand SO minute q
thing as a raindrop, how can you ex-
poet to understand Gods dealingsi
Hath the rain a fatherT'
JUDGE NOT BY FEKBLK SENSE.
Again, my text makes me think that
the rain of tears Is of divine origin.
Great clouds of trouble sometimes
hover over u.s. They are black, and
they are gorged, and they are thunder
Gus. They are more portentous than
kooiNoooi VI Sinuuo oNeI pdihpcu-
clouds Of poverty or persecution or be-
reavement. They hover over us, and
get darker and blacker, and after a
while tear starts, and we think by an
extra pressure of the eyelid to stop it.
Others follow, and after while there is
shower of fearful emotion. Yea,
there Is a rain Of tears. Hath that
rain fatherr
"Oh," you say, "a tear is nothing but
drop of lilnpid fluid secreted by the
lachrynnl glands only sign of weak
eyes" Great mistake. 1t is one of the
Lordsrichest benedictions to the world.
There are people in Blackwells Island
insane asylum, and at Utica, and al. all
the asylums Of this land, who were de-
mented by the fact that they could not
cry at the right time. Said maniac in
one of our public institutions, under a
Gospel sermon that started the tears;
DO you see that tearl That is the first
have wept for twelve years. Think it
will help my brain"
There are great many in the grave
who could not stand any longer under
the glacier 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
sessed it, for one tear You could
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 I
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, me about God; there is no
God; or if there is l hate him. don't
talk to me about God would he have
left me and these motherless childrenr'
But few hours or days after, coming
across some lead pencil that she owned
in life, or some letters which she wrote
when he was away from home, with an
cutlery that appals there bursts the
fountain of tears, and as the sunlight
Of Gods consolation strikes that foun
tain 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, tits 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 Of the race die in infancy, and
that keeps parentsmourning all around
the world. They never get over It,
They may live to shout and sing after
ward, but there is always corridor In
the soul that is silent, though 1t once
resounded.
My parents never mentioned the
death of child who died fifty years
before without tremor in the voice
and a sigh, OIL how deep fetched. 1t
was better she should die; it was
a mercy she should die. She would
have been lifelong invalid. But you
cannot argue away a parents grief.
How often you hear the moan, "Ohl
my child, my childr Then there are
the filial tears
OUR GRIEF FOR THE DEAD.
Little children soon get over the loss
of parents. They are easily diverted
with new toy But where is the man
who has come to thirty or forty OF
fifty years Of age who can think of the
old people without having all the foun.
tains of his soul stirred up2 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 pc
culiarity of them was that they were
nearly all prayed ashore by their mo
theirs, though the mothers went into
the dust soon after they went to sea-
Have you never heard an old man In
delirium of some sickness call for hii
mother2
The 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 sorrow
You sometimes, perhaps, in days o.
trouble and darkness, when the world
would say, You ought to be able to
take care of yourself" you wake W
from your dreams finding yourself
saying, ooh, mother! mother!" Have
these tears no divine originS Why
take all the warm hearts that evel
beat in all lands and in all ages, and
put them together, and their united
throb would be weak compared witt
the throb Of Gods eternal sympathy
Yes, God also is Father of all that rail-
of repentance.
Did you ever see a rain of repent
ance2 Do you know what it is tina
makes a man repenta see people go
ing around trying to repent. The.