The Penn's Grove record., 1891-07-17

When Druyse. the gunsmith, invented the
needle gun, which decided the battle or
Sadowa, was it a mere ~accidentf when a
farmers boy showed Butcher a short cut by
which he could bring his army up soon
enough to decide Waterloo for England, was
1t a mere accidentl 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 a mere accident which side
of the money was up and which was DOWN.
When the Christian army was besiged at
Baziers and a drunken came in at
midnight and rang the alarm bell, not know.
ing what he was doing. but waking up the
host in time to fight their enemies that mo-
ment arriving, was 1t was accidentf
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 III the
affairs of men or our religion Is worth moth
ing at all, and you had better lake It away
from us, and instead of this Bible, which
teaches the doctrine, give US q secular book,
and let us, as the famous Mr.. Fox, the menu
FIBER of parliament, in his last hour, cry out:
Read me the eighth book of Virgil"
OH my friends, let US rouse up to an APP
probation OF the fact that all the affairs OF
our life are under a kings command and I'M
der a fathers watch. Alexander's war
horse, ~Bucephalus, would allow anybody to
mount him when he was Embarrassed, but as
soon as they Pit on that war horse, Bucepha-
lus, the saddle and %trappings Oh the con-
queror he would allow no one but Alexander
to touch him. And If q soulless horse could
have 50 much pride in his owner, shall not
weimmortals exult in the fact that we are
owned by a kingf Hath the rain a father
Again my subject teaches me that Gods
dealings with as are inexplicable. That was
the original force of my text, The rain was
a great mystery to the ancients. They could
| MT n,larStanA hnpv tho Uptar Ehnul1 get
into the cloud, and getting there, how IL
should be suspended, or falling, why 1t should
come down in drops. Modern science comes
along and says there are tive portions of air
Of different temperature, and they are
charged with moisture, and the one portion
of air decreases in temperature SO the water
NAV 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 asa mans hand,
and to be almost quiet in the hea vens, 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 ar ocean of the unfath-
enable in every ~raindrop, and God says to-
day as He said in the time OF Job, "lf you
cannot understand one drop OF rain, do not
be surprised If Ny dealings with you are in
! EX Dlitft Dle..' ny uD6S UNA htcu hihu, 70
crapit, beggared, vicious, sick Of the world.
and the world sick of him, live on, while
here is a man in mid life, consecrated to
God, hard working, useful in every respect,
VINO dies? Why does that old gossip, CAD
ding along the street about everybody's busi-
ness but her own, have such good health,
while the Christian mother, with q hock 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 witt a cancers-
Why does that man, selfish to the core, go
on adding fortune to fortune, consuming
everything 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, "WhyY" and follow
it far enough, and push it, and he will land
in Indebtedness and perdition. We want in
our theology fewer interrogation marks and
more exclamation points. Heaven is the
pIace for explanation. Earth is the place for
trnst. If you cannot understand so minute
a thing as a raindrop, how can you expect
to understand Gods dealings3 Hath the
rain IA father?'
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, n
they are thunderous. They are more por-
t~enfious than aviator or Claude ever
paintcd-clouds of poverty, or persecution,
or bereavement. They hover over us, and
they get darker and blacker, and after
awhile a tear starts, and we think by an
extra pressure OF the eyelid to stop it. 9th
ers follow. and after awhile there is a show
er OF fearful emotion. Yea, there is a rain
of tears. ''Hath that rain a fatherS'
on Won say, "a tear is Nothing but q
dropof limpid fluid secreted by the ZACH
rynial gland-it is only a sign of weak eyes"
Great mistake. 1t is one OF the Lords rich
est benedictions to the world. There are
people in Blackwelrs Island insane asylum,
and at Utica, and at all 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 "A gospel sermon that started the tears.
"Da YOU see that tear? that Is the first l
have wept for twelve years. think it Will
help my brain"
There are a 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, il 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 n dead wife, who had been all the world
TO him? The temples livid with excitement,
the eye dry aud frantic, no moisture on the
nper or lower lid. You saw there were
bolts of anger in the cloud, but no rasn. To
yonr Christian comfort. he said, Don't
ink 10 me about God; there Is no God, or If
there is | hate Him; don't talk to me about
~lHod:would He have left me and these mother
less children"
Rut "a few hours or days after. coming
- ..,o Ion. .anail that cha nuvnaI m
life, or some letters which she wrote when
he was away from home, with an outcry that
l~aDnals. there bursts the fountain of tears,
and as the sunlight of God's consolation
strikes that fountain of tears, you find out
that it Is a tender hearted, merciful, pltitul
Land all compassionate God who was the
Father of that rain. 'Oh," you say, sit is
lsbsurt to think that God is going to watch
love. tears" No, my friends. There are
Three or four kinds of them that God counts,
hotties and eternizes. First, there are all
lnarantal tears, and there are more of these
than any other kind, because the most of
the race die in infancy, and that keeps pa
rents mourning all around the world. They
mayer ret over it. They may live to shout
and sing afterward, but there is always a
corridor in the soul that is silent, though it
once r~esounded.
NV parents never mentioned the death II of a
child who died fifty years before without a
tremor in the voice and a sigh, oh, how deep
tetchedl 1t was better she should die. 1t was
a mercy she should die. She would nave
been a lifelong invalid. But you cannota argue
away a parents grief. How often you hear
the moan: 'Oh, my child, my childP' Then
there are the tilial tears. Little children sOon
get over the loss of parents. They are easily
diverted with a new toy. But where is the
, man that has come TO thirty or forty or fifty
wears Of age, who can think of the old peo-
!, Ole W without having all the fountains of his
soul stirred upi You may have had to takl
care of her a good many years but YOU
never can forget how she used to take care
of you.
There have been many sea captains con.
verified in our church. and the popularity OF
, them IVA that they were nearly 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
t delirium OF some sickness call for his motherf
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, per-
haps, in days of trouble and darkness, when
the world would saw, lyon ought To he able