The Forrest City times., 1891-07-10
LITTLE DROPS OF WATER
THEY ALL SPRING FROM THE
 GREAT FOUNTAIN HEAD.
Thrilling Sermon at che Brooklyn Tabernacle Sunday-''Has che Rain . Fatherl" Was Dr. Talmage,s Text


 | ject of unbounded theological wrangle
 Men have made it the ring in which to | display their ecclesiastical pugllism.
 Some say that the Book of Job is true history; others, that it is an ale gory; others, that it is an epic poem; others that it is a drama. Some say that Job lived eighteen hundred years before Christi 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 infdelity. Now, | l 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 6 founding. You would answer the question of my | text in the affirmative.
 | If this be true, then, how wicked is | our rmurmuring 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 tho old country meeting | house looked like Noahs Ark before it | landed.
 Merchants, also, with their stores | filled with new goods, and their clerks
 hanging idly around the counters, com | init 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. 1 There is nothing more annoying than | to have planted corn rot in the ground l because of too much moisture, or hay
 all ready for the now dashed of a |. IL I l sickle spoiled with the rust. How hard
 it is to bear the agricultural | disappointments. God has in finite resources, but 1 do not think he has capacity to make weather
 to please all the farmers. Sometimes 1t Is too hot, or it is too cold; it is too
 wet, or it is too dry; it is too early or it $ too late. My text also suggests
 Gods minute supervisal You see the
 divine Sonship in every drop of rain. The jewels of the shower are not flung l 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
 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 . piece of
 money and tossed it up to de- eide whether or not he should be afiianced to Miss Millbank, was 1t
 mere accident which side of tho money
 was up and which was down? When the Christian army were besieged at
 Bexiers, and drunken drummer came
 in at midnight and rang the alarm bell, not knowing what he wns doing, but waking up the host in time to fight their enemies that moment ar 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 it away from lis, and instead of this
 Bible, which teaches the doctrine, give us a secular book, and let us, as the famous Mir. Fox, the member of parlia-
 ment in his last hour cry out: Read me the eighth book of Virgil" O. my friends, let us rouse mp to an appreeia- ton of the fact that all the affairs of our life are under a King command and under q Fathers watch. Alexan- ders war horse, Bueephalus, would al low ybody to mount him when he was unharnessed; but as soon as they put on that war horse, Bucephalus, the
 saddle and the trappings of the con- queror, he would allow uo one but Alexander to touch him. And if soul less horse could have so much pride in his owner, shall not we immortals exult in the fact that we are owned by
 King?
 Again, my subject teaches me that Gods dealings with us are ineXplica-
 ble. That was the original force of my text The rain was a great mys- tery to the anciepts. They could not un- derstand how the water should get into the cloud, and getting there, how it 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 dtuft- anu titN CuaTPco NlIu 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, aSe great mountains of mist fosr thousand feet from base to top. and that they rush miles minute. But after aA the
 brilliant experiments of Dr. James
 Hutton and, Saussure, and other scientists, there is an infinite mystery about the rain. There Is an ocean of the unfathomabl in every rain drop,
 and God says to-day as he said in the time of Job If you can not under stand one drop ot rain, 50 not be sur
 prised if 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 gorged, and they are thunderous. They are more portentous than Salvador or Claude ever painted-clou of poverty,
 or persecution, or bereavenept They
 hover over us, and they get darker and
 blacler, 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 a shower of
 fearful emotion. Yea, there is rain