The Brookhaven leader., 1891-07-16

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 thunderuus. They
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
blacker, and after awhile tear starts
and we think by an extra pressure of
the eyelid to stop it. Others follow, and
after awhile there is shower of tear
full emotion. Yea, there is rain of
tears. Hath that rain father?"
co." you say, "a tear is nothing but a
drop of limpid fluid secreted by the
lachrymal glands only a sign of
weak eyes" Great mistake. 1t is one
of the Lords richest benedictions to
the world. There are people in Black
wells Island asylum, and at Utica, and
at the asylums of this land, who were
demented by the fact that they could
not cry at the right time. Said a
maniac in one of our public institutions,
under Gospel sermon that started the
tears: 40 you see that tear? 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.
If 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 possessed 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? The tenn
pies 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 Cod or if there is hate Him; don't
talk to me about God; would He have
left me and these motherless childreu?'
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
| do JilC VI bOu
| strikes that fountain of tears. you
find out that it is tender-hcarted, mer
| ciful, pitiful, and all-compassionate God
| who was the father of that rain. "Oh,"
| you say. lit is absurd to think God is
going to watch over tears" No, my
| friends. There are three or four kinds
| of them that God counts, bottles, and
cternizes 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 parents mourning all
around the world. They neverget OVERT.
They may live to shout and sing after
ward, but there is always corridor in
the soul that is silent, though it once
resounded. My parents never men
toned the death of child who died
fifty years before, without a tremor in
the voice and sigh, OH how deep
fetched. 1t was better she should die
1t was a mercy she should die. She
would have been lifelong invalid
But you can not argue away a parents
grief. How often do you hear the
moan: "Oh! my child my child"
dlC VIC MAJ uCdtl o' IIIlOlC
children soon get over the loss of
parents. They are easily diverted with
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 the fountains of
HE soul stirred up? 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 popularity of
them was that they were near
ly 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 delirium of some sickness call for his
mother? The fact is we get so used to
calling for her the first ten years of our
life that we never get over it, and when
she goes away from us it makes deep
sorrow. 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: 80, mother! motherr'
Have these tears no Divine origin?
Why, take all the warm heart 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 a rain
of repentance? Do you know what it
is that makes d man repent? l see peO
pie going around trying to repent
They can not repent. Do you know, nc
man can repent until God helps him re-
pent? How do l know@ BY this pass
age: Him hath God exalted to be d
prince and Saviour to give repent
ance." o! it is tremendous
hour when one wakes up and says: 81
am a bad man. l have not sinned
against the sins of the land, but / hav.
wasted my life; God asked me for my
| services, and haven't given Him thos,
services. o! my sins, God forgive me-
the king of Carthage was dethroned.
his people rebelled against him. lie
was driven into Punishment. His wife
and children were outrageously abused.
Years went by and the king of Carthage
made many friends. He gathered up
great army. He marched again toward
| Carthage. Reaching the gates OF
| Carthage. the best men Of the place