Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1895-08-19
A DIVINE COMFORTER
GOD WIPES AWAY THE TEARS OF
THE AFFLICTED CHRISTIAN.

Tender Sympathy.
NEW YORK, Aug. 18.-Rev DR.. Tai
mage could not have selected more APP
propriate subject than the one of today.
considering the bereavement that has
come upon him and his household He
had already prepared his sermon for to-
day, selecting as a topic Comfort, "
and taking as his text, "And God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes,
Revelation vii, II.
Riding across a western prairie, wild
flowers up to the hub of the carriage
wheel, and while long distance from
any shelter, there came q sudden shower,
and while the rain was falling in tor
rents, the sun was shining as brightly
as I ever saw it shine, and I thought
what beautiful spectacle this is So
the tears of the Bible are not midnight
storm, but rain on pansied prairies in
Gods sweet and golden sunlight. You
remember that bottle which David la
&eled as containing tears, and Mary's
tears, and Paul's tears, and Christ's
tears, and the harvest of joy that is to
spring from the sowing of tears. God
mikes them. God rounds them. God
shows them where to fall God eXhales
them. A census is taken of them, and
there is record as to the moment when
they are born and as to the place of
their grave.
Tears of bad men are not kept. Alex
ander in his sorrow had the hair clip
ped from his horses and mules and
made great ado about his grief, but in
all the vases of heaven there is not one
of Alexander's tears. I speak of the
tears of Gods children. Alas, me, they
are falling all the time In summer you
sometimes hear the growing thunder,
and you see there is storm miles away,
but you know from the drift of the
clouds that it will not come anywhere
near you. So, though it may be all
bright around about you, there is q
shower of trouble somewhere all the
time. Tears Tears
Tears and Laughter.
What is the use of them anyhow?
Why not substitute laughter? Why not
make this a world where all the people
are we'll and eternal strangers to pain
and aches? What is the use of an east
ern storm when we might have per-
petual nor 'wester? Why, when family
is put together, not have them all stay,
or if they must be transplanted to make
other homes. then have them all live
the family record telling a story of mar
riages and births, but of no death? Why
not have the harvests chase each other
without fatiguing toll? Why the hard
pillow, the lard crust, the hard strug
gle? 1t is easy enough to explain a
smile, or q success, or a cOngratulatiOn,
but come now and bring all your die
tionaries, and all your PHILOSOPHERS, and
all your religions, and help me explain
a tear. A chemist will tell you that it
is made up of salt and lime and other
component parts, but he misses the chief
ingredients-the acid of soured life,
the viperine sting of q bitter memory,
the fragments of broken heart. 1 will
tell you what q tear is. 1t is agony in
solution. Hear, then, while discourse
of the uses of trouble;
First, it is the design of trouble to
keep this world from being too attract
i've. Something must be done to make
us willing to quit this existence. If it
were not for trouble, this world would
be good enough heaven for me. You
and I would be willing to take lease
of this life for 100000, 900 years if
there were no trouble. The earth cush-
toned and upholstered and pillared and
chandeliered with such expense, no
story of other worlds could enchant US.
We would say: ''Let we'll enough
alone If you want to die and have your
body disintegrated in the dust and your
a aCx -n11fJ 1rn
then you can go, but this world is good
enough for mer' You might as we'll go
to a man who has just entered the
Louvre at Paris and tell him to hasten
off to the picture galleries of Venice or
Florence. "Why," he would say, "What
is the use of my going there? There are
Rembrandts and Rubenses and Raphaels
here that haven't looked at yet. No
man wants to go out of this world, or
out of any house, until he has better
house. To cure this wish to stay here
God must somehow create disgust for
our surroundings. How shall he do it?
He cannot afford to deface his horizon,
or to tear off a fiery panel from the sun
set, or to subtract an anther from the
water lily, or to Danish the pungent
aroma from the mignonette, or to drag
the robes or the morning III m1re. You
cannot expect Christopher Wren to
mar his own St. Paul's cathedral, or
Michael Angelo to dash out his own
''Last Judgment or Handel to dis
cord his Israel in Egypt and you
cannot expect God to spoil the architec-
ture and music of his own world How,
then, are we to be made willing to
leave? Here is where trouble comes in.
After a man has had good deal of
trouble he says: 'tWe1l, ] am ready to
go. If there is a house somewhere
whose roof doesn't leak, would like