Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1893-09-07

lecJ and Wnen l see the
houSeless coming to God for shelter,
and the wretched and the vile, and the
sin-burned, and the passion-blasted ap-
pealing for mercy to u compassionate
God, l exclaim in ecstasy and triumph:
More tears for Gods bother
Again: God keeps a tender remem-
brance Of all your sicknesses. How
many Of you are thoroughly sound In
body? Not one out Of ten! / do not
exaggerate. The vast majority Of the
race are constant subjects IF ailments.
There is some one form of disease that
you are particularly subject to. You
have a weak side or back, or are sub
ject to headaches, or faintnesses, or
lungs easily distressed. 1t would not
take a very strong blow to shiver the
golden bowl of life, or break the pitch
er at the fountain. Many or you have
kept on In life through sheer force of
viii. You think no one can understand
your distresscs. Perhaps you look
a hyp~ochondriac. They SHY that you
are neryous-as if that Were nothing!
God have mercy upon any man or
I'M that is nervous! AT times you
sit alone in your room. Friends do
not come. You feel an Understandable
loneliness In your sufferings; but God
knows, God feels, God compassionates.
He counts the ~sleepless nights. he re-
CARDS the a~cuteness of the pain; he es-
Inmates the hardness of the breathing.
While you pour out the medicine from
the bottle, n count the drops, God
counts all your falling tears. AS you
look at the walls, filed with nauseous
draughts, and ut the bottles of distaste-
full tonic that stand on the shelf, re-
member that there is q larger bottle
than these, which is filled with no
mixture by earthly apothecaries, but
it is Gods bottle. in which he hath
gathered all our tears.
Again. God remembers all n sor-
rows Of poverty. There is much want
that never ome to inspection. The
deacons of the church never see it.
The ccmptrollers Of almshouses never
report it. 1t ONE not to church, for
it has no appropriate apparel. 1t makes
no appeal for help, but chooses rather
to suffer than expose its bitterness.
Fathers who fail to gain n livelihood,
SO that they and their children submit
to constant privation; sewing women,
who can not ply the needle quick
enough to earn them shelter end bread.
But whether reported or uncompiain-
ing, whether in seemingly comfortable
parlor, or in damp cellar, or in hot gar
ret, Gods angels Of mercy are on the
watch. This moment those griefs are
being collected. Down on the back
streets, in all the alleys, amid shanties
and log cabins, the work goes on.
Tears of manufacturing in summers
heat, or freezing in winters cold-they
fall not unheeded. They are jewels
for heavens casket. They are pledges
of divine sympathy. They are tears for
Gods bottle.
Again: The Lord preserves the re-
mcmbrance of all paternal anxieties.
You see a man from the most infamous
surrounding step out into the king
dom of God. He has heard no sermon.
He has received no startling providen-
tial warning. What brought him to
this new mind? This is the secret
God looked over the bottle in which
he gathers the tears of his people, and
he saw a parental tear in that bottle
which has been for forty years unan-
swered. He said: go to, now, and
let me answer that tear!" and forth
with the wanderer is brought home to
God. oh, this work of training chill
dren for God. 1t Is a tremendous work.
Some people think it easy. They have
never tried 1t. A child is placed in. the
arms q the young parent. 1t is a
beautiful thing. You look into the
laughing eyes. You examine the dim
pies in the feet. You wonder ut its
exquisite organism. Beautiful play
thing! But on some nighttall, as you
sit rocking that little one, a voice seems
to fall straight from the throne of God,
saving. THAT child is immortal! The
stars shall die, but that is an immortal.
Suns shall grow old with age and per-
ish, but that is an immortal!'
Now, l know with many of you this
is the chief anxiety. You earnestly
wish your children to grow up rightly,
but you find 1t hard work to make
them do as you wish. You check their
temper. You correct their hayward
ness; in the midnight your pillow is wet
with weeping. You have wrestled with
God in agony for the salvation of your
children. You ask me If all that anxi-
ETY. has been Intellectual. answer, No.
God understands your heart He UNI
derstands how hard you have tried to
make that daughter do right, though
she Is very petulant and reckless; and
what pains you have bestowed in teach
ing that son to walk In the path Of
uprightness, though he has such strong
proclivities for dissipation. / speak a
cheering word. God heard every coun-
sci you ever offered him. God has
known all the sleepless nights you have
ever passed. God has seen every sink
ing OF your distressed spirit. Gcd re-
members your prayers. lie keep eter-
nal record of your anxieties; and in
his lachrymatory, not such as stood in
ancient tomb, but in n that glows and
glitters beside the throne Of God, he
holds all those exhausting tears. The
grass may be rank upon your graves
and the letters upon your tombstone
defaced with the elements before the
divine response will come; but he who
hath declared, Il viii be a God to thee,
and to thy seed after thee" will not
forget, and some day, in heaven. while
you are ranging the fields of light, the
gates of pearl will swing back, and
garlanded with glory, that long way
ward one will rush into your out