The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-09-07
A BOTTLE OF TEARS.
DR.. Talmage Chooses a Unique
Theme for His Discourse.

800
A Text That Carries Consolation to the
Weary and Heavy Laden--The Gricfs and
Trials of This World Accrue to Our Glory
Hereafter.
BROOKLYN, Aug. 27.--Rev. 7. De Witt
Talmage chose unique theme as his
subject for today-viz, "a Bottle of
Tears the text selected being Psalms
wi, 8, aPut thou my tears into thy bot
tie.
Hardly a mail has come to me for 20
wears that has not contained letters say
ing that my sermons have comforted the
writers of those letters. have not this
summer nor for 20 years spoken on the
platform of any outdoor meeting but
coming down have been told by hun
dreds of people the same thing. So I
think will keep on trying to be ''son
of consolation"
The prayer Of my text was pressed ont
of David's soul by innumerable calaml
ties. but it is just SIS appropriate for the
distressed of all ages. Within the past
century travellers and antiquarians have
explored the ruins of many of the an
Gent cities, and from the very heart Of
those buried splendors of other days
have been brought up evidences of Gus
toms that long ago vanished from the
world. From among tombs Of those
ages have been brought up lachryma-
tories, or lachrymals, which are walls
made Of earthenware. 1t was the Gus
tom for the ancients to catch the tears
that they wept over their dead in bot
tie, and to place that bottle in the graves
of the departed, and we have many
specimens of the ancient lachrynatories,
or tear bottles, in our museums
TEAR BOTTLES FROM CYPRUS.
When on the way from the Holy Land
our ship touched at Cyprus, we went
back into the hills of that island and
bought tear bottles which the natives
had dug out Of the ruins of the old city.
There is nothing more suggestive to me
than the tear bottles which brought
home and put among my curiosities.
That was the kind Of bottle that my
text alludes to when David cries, 'Put
thou my tears into thy bottle"
The text intimates that God has an in
innate acquaintance and perpetual re-
membrance of all our griefs, and vial.
or lachrymatory, or bottle, in which he
catches and saves our tears, and I bring
to YOU the coincidence of this Christian
sentiment Why talk about grief? Alas,
the world has it's pangs, and now. while
/ speak, there are thick darknesses of
soul that need to be lifted. There are
many who are about to break under the
assault Of temptation, and perchance,
if no words appropriate to their case be
uttered, they perish. I come on no FOOLS
errand. Put upon your wounds no salve
compounded by human quackery; but,
pressing straight to the mark, I hail you
as vessel midsea cries to a passing
craft, "Ship ahoyr' and invite you on
board vessel which has faith for rud
der, and prayer for sails, and Christ for
captain, and heaven for an eternal har-
Dor.
Catherine Rheinfeldt, Prussian,
keeps boat with which she rescues the
drowning. When storm comes on the
coast, and other people go to their beds
to rest, she puts out in her boat for the
relief Of the distressed, and hundreds of
the drowning has she brought safely to
the beach. In this lifeboat of the Cos
pei I put out today. hoping, by Gods
help, to bring ashore at least one soul
that may now be sinking in the pillows
Of temptation and trouble. The tears
that were once caught in the lachryma-
tories brought up from Herculaneum
and Pompeii are all gone, and the bottle
is as dry as the scoria of the volcano that
submerged them, but not so with the
bottle in which God gathers all our tears.
First, I remark that God keeps perpet-
ually the tears Of repentance. Many a
man has awakened in the morning SO
wretched from nights debauch thathe
has sobbed and wept. Pains in the head,
aching in the eyes, sick at heart and I'M
fit to step into the light. He grieves, not
about is misdoing, but only about its
consequences. God makes no record of
such weeping. Of all the million tears
thst have gusl,ed as the result of such
misdemeanor, not one ever got into
Gods bottle. They dried on the fevered
cheek or were dashed down by the bloat-
cd hand or fell into the red wine cup as it
came again to the lips, foaming with still
worse intoxication.
But when a man is sorry for his past
and tries to do better-when he mourns
his wasted advantages and bemoans his
rejection of Gods mercy and cries amid
the decorations of an aroused con-
science for help out of his terrible pre-
dicament, then God listens; then heaven
bows down; then scepters Of pardon are
extended from the throne; then his cry
ing rends the heart of heavenly compass
sion; then his tears ars caught in Gods
bottle.
PARADISE AND THE PERI.
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