The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-08-19


and I had 10 admire the glee with which
I she drove But after awhile We met
team and We had 10 turn out The ROAD
was narrow. and IL was sheer down on
both sides She handed the reins over TO
me and said: Il think you had better
take charge Of the horse" So We are all
children; and on this road Of life We like
TO drive. II gives one such an appearance
of superiority and power II looks Dig.
But after a while We meet some obstacle
and We have TO turn out. and the road IS
narrow. and II is sheer down on both
sides. and then We are willing that
COD should take the reins and drive. An
my friends. we get upset so often because
we do not hand over the reins soon enough.
After a man has had trouble, prayer is
with him taking hold Of the arm OF God
and crying out for help / have heard
earnest prayers on two or three occasions
that / remember. once, on the Cincin-
natl express train, going forty miles the
hour, the train jumped the track, and we
were near a chasm eighty feet deep; and
the men who a few minutes before. had
been swearing and disappearing God, be-
gan 10 pull and jerk at the bell rope, and
got Up on the backs Of the seats, and cried
out. "Oh God. save usI' There was anoth-
er time, about eight hundred miles out at
sea, on a laundering steamer, after the
last life-bOat had been split finer than
kindlingwood. They prayed then. Why is
1t you so often hear people. in reciting the
last experience of some friend, say, He
made the most beautiful prayer 1 ever
heard2' What makes il beautiful? 1t is
the earnestness of II. OH ! tell you. a
man is in earnest when his stripped and
naked soul wades out in the sOundless.
shoreless. bottomless ocean Of eternity.
1t is trouble. my friends. that makes us
feel our dependence upon God. We 40 not
know our own weakness or Gods strength
L. de-
tible in us when there is nothing else to
take hold of. that we catch hold of God
only. Why, you do not know who the Lord
Isl He Is not an autOcrat seated far up in
a palace, from which he energies once a
year. preceded by heralds swinging
swords to clear the way. No. But Fa-
Their willing, at our call, to stand by us in
every crisis and predicament of life. tell
you what some of you business men make
me think of. A young man goes off from
home TO earn his fortune. He goes with his
mothers consent and benediction. She has
large wealth, but he wants to make his
own fortune. He goes far away, falls sick,
gets out OF money. He sends for the hotel
keeper where ne is staying. asking for
lenience, and the answer he gets it. IF
you don't pay up Saturday night you'll be
removed to the hospital"
The young man sends to a comradc in
the same building. No help. He writes
to a banker who was a friend of his de-
ceased father. No relief. He writes to an
old schoolmate. but gets no help. Satur-
day night comes, and he is moved to the
hospital.
Getting there, he is frenzied with grief:
and he borrows a sheet of paper and a
postage stamp and he sits down and he
writes home, saying: Dear mother, 1
am sick unto death. Come" 1t is ten
minutes to 10 O'Clock when she gets the
letter. At 10 O'Clock the train starts. She
is five minutes from the depot She gets
there in time to have five minutes to spare
She wonders why train that can go
thirty miles an hour cannot go sixty miles
an hour She PUSHES into the hospital. She
says: MY son, what does all this mean2
Why didn't you send for me? You sent
to everybody but me. You knew l could
and would help you. Is this the reward L
get for my kindness to you always?" She
bundles him up, takes him home and
gets him well very soon. Now, some of
you treat God just as that young man
treated his mother. When you get into
a financial perplexity, you call on the
banker, you call on the broker you call on
your creditors. you call on your lawyer
for legal counsel; you call upon every
body, and when you cannot get any help,
then you go to God. You say: 20 Lord,
! come to thee. Help me now out of my
perplexity." And the Lord comes, though
it is the eleventh hour. He says: why
did you not send for me before? AS one
whom his mother comforteth, so will 1
comfort you" 1t is to throw us back upon
God that we have this ministry of tears.
Again, it is the use of trouble to capaci-
tate us for the office of sympathy. The
priests, under the old dispensation, were
set apart by having water sprinkled up
on their hands. feet, and head; and by the
sprinkling of tears people are now set
apart to the office of sympathy. When we
are in prosperity we like to have great
many young people around us, and we
laugh when they laugh, and we romp
when they romp, and we sing when they
sing; but when we have trouble we like
plenty of old folks around. Why? They
know how to talk. Take an aged mother,
seventy years of age and shells almost ON
nipotent in comfort. Why? She has been
through it all. At Z O'Clock in the morn
ing she goes over to comfort a young
mother who has just lost her babe. Grand
mother knows all about that trouble.
Fifty years ago she felt 1t. At twelve
o'clock of that day she goes
over TO comfort widowed
soul. She knows all about that
She has been walking in that dark valley
twenty years. At o'clock in the after
noon some one knocks at the door, want
ing bread. She knows all about that. Two
of three times in her life she came to her
last loaf. At 10 o'clock that night she
goes over to sit up with some one severe
ly sick. She knows all about it, She
knows all about fevers and pleurisies and
broken bones. She has been doctoring all
her life, spreading plasters and pouring
out bitter drops and shaking up hot pill
lows and contriving things to tempt poor
appetite. Doctors Abernethy and Rush
and Hosack and Harvey were great doc
tors, but the greatest doctor the world
ever saw is an old Christian woman.
Dear mel Do we not remember her about
the room when we were sick in our boy
hood? Was there any one who could ever
so touch sore without hurting it?
Where did Paul get the ink with which
TO write his comforting epistle? Where did
David get the ink to write his comforting
Psalms? Where did John get the ink TO
write his comforting Revelation? They got
it out of their own tears. When a man has
gone through the curriculum. and has
taken course of dungeons and imprison-
ments and shipwrecks. he is qualified for
the work of sympathy
When began to preach. my sermons on
the subject of trouble were all poetic and
in semi-blank verse: but God knocked the