Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-07-17


takes notice of every minute raindrop He
will take notice of the most Insignificant
affair of my life. It is the astronomical
view of things that bothers me.
We look up into the night heavens. and
we say. Worlds. worldsE' and how insig
nificant we feel! We stand at the foot OF
Mount Washington or Mont Blanc, and we
feel that we are only insects, and then we
saw TO ourselves Though the world Is so
large the sun is one million four hundred
thousand times larger" OH we Say, sit
is no use, if God wheels that great t:4&cninery
through immensely He win not taSe the
trouble to look down at me-" lnfidel con-
cusion Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter are
no more rounded and weighed and swung bV
the hand of God than are the globuieS on
a lilac bush the morning after shower.
God is no more in magnitudes than He is
in minute. If He has scales to weigh the
mountains He has balances delicate enough
to weigh the iafinitesimal. You can no
more see Him through the telescope than you
can see Him through the microscopes; no
more when you look up than when you look
down. Are not the hairs Of your head all
numbered? And il Himalaya has God.
Hath not the rain a fatherE L take this
doctrine of particular Providence, and
rnrusU IL 1nJo Une very mruso or your every
day life. II God fathers raindrop, 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 a mere accident? When a
farmers boy showed Butcher short cut by
which he could bring his army up soon
enough to decide Waterloo for England, was
it mere accident? When Lord Byron took
a piece of money and tossed it up to decide
whether or not he should be affianced to Miss
Millbank was it mere accident which s1de
of the money was up and which was DOVE:
When the Christian army was besiged at
Baziers and a drunken drummer came IN at
midnight and rang the alarm bell not know
ing what he was doing but waking up the
nosU IN r1ne TO ng1r UneIr enemTes TnaU mo-
ment arriving, was it was accident?
When in one of the Irish wars starving
mother flying with her starving child, sank
down and tainted on the rocks in the night
and her hand fell on warm bottle of milk,
did that Just happen SO? God is either in the
affairs of men or our religion is worth moth
ing at all, and you had better take it away
from u.s. and instead of this Bible, which
teaches the doctrine, give us a secular book,
and let us, as the famous Mr.. Fox, the men,
Der Of parliament, in his last hour, cry out:
''Read me the eighth book of Virgil"
OH my friends let rouse up to an ap-
probation of the fact that all the affairs of
our life are under king command and I'M
der a fathers watch. AIeXanders war
horse Bucephalus, would allow anybody to
mount him when ne was embarrassed, but as
soon as they put on that war horse, Bucepha-
lus, the saddle and trappings of the con-
queror he would allow one but Alexander
to touch him. And if a soulless horse could
have so much pride in his owner, shall not
we immortals exult in the fact that we are
owned by king? Hath the rain a father"
Again my subject teaches me that Gods
dealings with US are inexplicable. That was
the original force of my text. The rain was
Rgreat mystery to the anclents. They could
not understand how the water should get
into the cloud and getting there, how it
= l. 49, &eI,
come down in drops. Modern science comes
along and says there 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 tells US that some of the clouds
that look to be only as large as 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 a
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 unfath-
enable in every raindrop and God says to-
day as He said in the time of Job, eff you
cannot understand one drop of rain, do not
be surprised if My dealings with you are in
expIicable." Why does that aged man, de-
crepit, beggared, vicious sick of the world,
and the world sick of him, live on, while
God, hard working, useful in every respect,
who dies? Why does that old gossip, CAD
ding along the street about everybody's bust
ness 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 cancer?
Why does that man, selfish to the core, go
on tn
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 ourselves, let US stop pressing
this everlasting 'why." Let US worship
where we cannot understand. Let a man
take that one question: "Whys" and follow
in wretchedness and perdition. We want III
our theology few II interrogation marks and
more exclamation points. Heaven is the
place for explanation. Earth is the place for
trust. II you cannot understand so minute
a thing as raindrop, how can you expect
to understand Gods dealings? ''Hath the
rain a father?'
Again, my text makes me think tdat 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. They are more por-
tentious than Salvador or Claude ever
painted-clouds Of poverty, or persecution,
or Bereavement. They hover over US and
they get darker and blacker, and after
awhile tear starts, and we think by an
extra pressure of the eyelid to stop it. 9th
ers follow, and after awhile there is show
er or fearful emotion. Yea, there is a rain
of tears. Hath that rain fatherg'
'Oh," you say, "a tear is nothing but
dropof limpid fluid secreted by the lach-
rymal gland-it is only sign of weak eyes,"