The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1892-12-18
OUR SUNDAY COLUMN.
Original and Otherwise-Pre-
pared by Mark.
NO. 80.

- NY huSo h"'o iShty BOOu Ulmc,
said person to tho writer on ono oc
casion. Yes, they have good time
and some of thom always carry merry
heart and q cheerful face to tho from
door. They had rather mako people
smile than cry.
There is enough in this life thai
comes OF itself To depress the spirit and
sadden tho heart. \Yo need to scatter
sunshine. Religion is love; love is ioy
innocent joy that can and ought to be
communicated to all pursuits; Joy and
sunshine that ought to be shared by all
homes and hearts. If preachers can
sometimes evoke smile and chase a
tear, ii they can raise laugh and hush
a groan, let them do so. "Mirthfulness
is just as good in its place as conscience
or veneration. Praying can no moro be
made substitute for smiling than
smiling can for praying" 1t is Locke
who says that God made both tears
and laugh ter, and both for kind pur-
poses. Tears hinder sorrows from be.
coming despair and madness, and
laughter is one of the very privileges
of reason, being confined to tho human
species
But let not the reader suppose that
preachers and pastors are always cheer
full, always full OF jest and pleasantly,
and have no serious moments, no minis.
terial dignity, no pastoral anxiety and
sympathy, no heartaches. Such is not
the case. Sometimes the true pastor
feels that his heart will almost break
with the weight of Affections, suffer-
ings, bereavements and SORROWS of
others. Sometimes they have to appear
cheerful when there is dreadful drain
and strain upon heart and mind and
sympathies that the oft repeated scenes
of hu nan suffering entail. Apart from
what onv can do for the relief o: human
woe and conscious evidence of having
done all that he can do, the next bes t
safety-valve for the sympathy burdened
soul is the Indulgence in some harmless
pleasantries.
This paves the way for me to say that
pastors life. espe cially city pastor,
is like dissolving panorama. Some
times he has to go directly from the
saddest funeral 10 the gayety of a mar
riage scene.
Just now | have access to PASTORS
diary of former date, and will detail
bit of his experience. One morning a
call came from him TO meet a corpse at
the depot and accompany tho friends Of
the deceased to the city cemetery. He
went. There was a widow with five
small children without means, without
friends, hundreds of miles away from
her relatives, stranger in strange
land, and her deceased husband native
of the far West. When the pastor, with
few friends, arrived at the cemetery
he found very deep grave and
an exhumed collin. What it
mean? Only two days before strangers
nd nc1,t 81 a
daughter, fourteen pears old, and laid it
away in the grave. When the father
died, the day after, and his body is
brought to the same place, the body OF
the daughter is taken up. tho grave is
dug longer and deeper, the coffin en-
closing the remains Of the father is de-
posted in the grave first, and then the
collin enclosing the remains of the
daughter is lowered in the same grave,
and placed on top of the fathers coffin.
Words or comfort were read from the
Book OF God, and tne few who were
present prepared to separate. Railroad
employees paid for the collins and hacks,
ana wanted 10 give tho pastor some, hing
for his services, but he declined to &C
cept their money, and asked permission
TO unite with them in helping the widow
III her distress and restitution, and,
putting q sum CT money in er hand, the
pastor babe her and the children good
bye. and commended her to One who
has promised TO be the husband
to the widow and the friends Of the
fatherless. This was Monday. The
diary conducts the p.stor from such a
scene as this to the nome OF one of his
choicest friends, where a mother il
dying by inches under the corroding
ho SO
moned where the day before "a Young
husband and only son had left home,
we'll and hearty, to resume his work on
new private residoI CO Of Senator in
Washington. He was on scaffold sixty
feet from the pave mcnJ. Something
gave way and the man was precipitated
to the pavement and almost instantly
killed. The pastor found tho mother,
two sisters, wife. with infant three
weeks only, waiting for the corpse. He
went to tho depot and met the remains
and with undertaken and pail
bearers returned to the sad homo.
What q scene, What a sad fun
eral! And SO it won't from day 10
day. Now. to a tender hearted pastor
iheso scenes ef suffering are a drain
upon tho heart. 1t is the tender.
hearted that suffer Pastors pleasau.
tries then, are often tho surface ripple
the moro bubble Of temporary cheer
full letting up or reaction from an under.
current or tension of deep, abiding
anxious solicitude and sympathy in be
half of the hundreds of souls over
which the Holy Spirit hath made him
| overseer.
'1'is not causc OF small import,
The pastors care demands;
But what might fill an angels heart
| And hcd Saviour's hands
Pastors have many trials, but tho
also have many blessings. Tho Lore
| takes care of them There arc a wau