Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1891-07-07


8 but Alexander to touch him. And If
= a soulless horse could have so mucl
pride in his owner, shall not we immor
, tails exult in the fact that we are owned
by a King} Hath the rain fatherT
, Again. my subject teaches me tha
/ Gods dealings with us are ineXplicable
That was the original force of my text
! The rain was a great mystery to tn
ancients. They could not understand
how the water should get into the cloud
and getting there, how it should bt
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,
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 thou
sand feet from base to top. and that
they rush miles a minute.
But after all the brilliant experiments
of DIR. James Hutton and Saussure and
other scientists, there is an infinite mys-
terry about the rain. There is an ocean
of the unfathomable in every raindrop,
and God says today as he said in the
time of Job, IF you cannot under
stand one drop of rain, do not be sur
prised if my dealings with you are in
explicable. Why does that aged man,
decrepit, beggared, vicious, sick Of the
world, and the world sick of him, live
on. while here is a man in midlife, con
secrated to God, hard working, useful
in every respect, who diesl
Why does that old gossip, gadding
along the street about everybody's
business but her own, have such good
health, while the Christian mother,
with a flock of little ones about her
whom she is preparing for usefulness
and for heaven-the mother who you
think could not be spared an hour from
that household-why does she lie down
and die with a cancer2 Why does that
man, selfish to the core, go on adding
fortune to fortune, consuming every
thing on himself continue to prosper,
while that man who has been giving ten
per cent. of all his income to God and
the church goes into bankruptcy
Before we make stark fools of our
selves let us stop pressing this everlast-
ing "why." Let us worship where we
cannot understand. Let man take
that one question, "Why2" and follow
it far enough and push it, and he will
land in wretchedness and perdition.
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
If you cannot understand so minute n
thing as raindrop, how can you ex-
pect to understand Gods dealings
Hath the rain a father2"
JUDGE NOT BY FEEBLE SENSE.
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 thunder
Gus. They are more portentous than
Salvador or Claude ever painted
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 al
extra pressure of the eyelid TO stop it.
Others follow, and after a while there is
n shower of fearful emotion. Yea,
there is rain of tears. Hath that
rain father"
"Oh, you say, "a tear is nothing but
drop of linpid fluid secreted by tn,
lachrymal glands only n sign of veal
eyes Great mistake. Ii is one of TIN
Lords richest benedctons to the world
There are people in Blackwelrs Islam,
insane asylum, and at Utica, and mt al
the asylums of this land, who were de
mented 10y the fact that they could no
cry at the right time, Said maniac il
one of our public institutions, under
Gospel sermon that started the tears
do you see that tearl That is the ilrs
have wept for twelve years, think
will help my brain
There are a great many in the gray
who could not stand any longer unde
the glacier of trouble, II that glacie
had only melted into weeping the
could have endured IT, There hay
been times in your life when you woul
have given the world, If You had po
sessed IL, for one tear You coul
shrek, YOU could blaspheme but yo
could not cry, Have you never seen
, man holding the hand OF a dead VIII,
, who had been all the world to him
The temples livid with excitement n
eye dry and frantic, $50 moisture on n
4 upper or lower lid You saw there wei
l bolts Of anger in the cloud but no rain
TO your Christian comfort he sale
, Don't talk me ahou, God, there is n
; God, or II there is | hate him; don
| talk TO ME about God would he haN
left me and these motherloss children
But a few hours or days after, comiu
across some lead pencil that she owne
in life, OF some letters which She wrol
{ when he was away from home, with a
D outery that appols there hnrts Il
fountain OF tears, and as the sunligl
s OF Gods consolation strikes that foul
tain of tears you find ont that il Is
z tender hearted, mewihll pititul an
all compassionate God who was q
: father of that rain
= "Oh, you say, Its absurd 10 thin
that God Is going To watch over teags