The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-05-27

talk of those who ought TO have SYM
pathized with him. And looking
around upon them, and weighing what
they had said, he utters the words of
my text. Why did God let sin come
into the worldp 1t is question | often
hear discussed, but never satisfactorily
answered. God made the world fair
and beautiful at the start. If our first
parents had not sinned in Eden they
might have gone out of that garden
and found 80 paradises all around the
earth-Europe. Asia, Africa, North
and South America-so many flower
gardens or orchards of fruit redolent
and luscious. | suppose that when
God poured out the Gihon, and the
Hiddekel, he poured out, at the same
time, the Hudson and the Susquehan-
ma; the whole earth was very fair
and beautiful to look upon. Why did
it not stay so? God had the power to
keep back sin and woe. Why did he
not keep them back? Why not every
cloud roseate and every step a Joy,
and every sound music, and all the
ages long jubilee of sinless men and
sinless women? God can make a rose
as easily as he can make thorn.
Why, then, the predominance of
thornsP He can make good. fair, ripe
fruit as well as gnarled and sour fruit.
Why so much, then, that is gnarled
and sour? lie can make men robust
in health. Why, then. are there so
many invalids? Why not have our
whole race perpetual leisure instead
of this tug, and toll and tussel for
/
let sin come into the world-when |
get on the other side of the river of
death. That is the place where such
questions will be answered and such
mysteries solved. He who this side
that river attempts to answer the
question only illustrates his own igno-
rance and incompetency. All know
is one great fact, and that is, that
herd of woes has come in upon us,
trampling down everything fair and
beautiful. A sword at the gate of
Eden and a sword at every gate
More people under the ground than
on it. The graveyards in vast ma jor-
ity. The 1000 winters have made
more scars than the &, 900 summers can
cover up. Trouble has taken the ten
der heart of this world in its two
rough hands and pinched it until the
nations wall with agony. If all the
mounds of graveyards that have been
raised were put side by side you might
step on them and nothing else, going
all around the world, and around
again and around again. These are
facts. And now | have to say that, in
a world like this, the grandest occu-
patton is that of giving coincidence.
The holy science of imparting comfort
to the troubled we ought all of us to
study. There are many of you who
could look around upon some of your
very best friends, who wish you well,
and are very intelligent, and yet be
able truthfully TO say to them in your
days of trouble: Miserable comfort
ers are We all"
/ remark, in the first place that very
voluble people are incompetent for the
work of giving comfort Bildad and
Eliphaz had the gift of language and
with their words almost bothered
Jobs life out, Alas! for these voluble
people that go among the houses of
the afflicted, aud talk, and talk, and
talk, and talk. They rehearse their
own sorrows, and then they tell the
poor sufferers that they feel badly
now, but they will feel worse after
awhile. Silence! DO you expect with
thin courtplaster of words to heal a
wound deep AS the soul? Step very
gently around about broken heart.
Talk very softly around those whom
God has bereft. Then go your way.
Deep sympathy has not much to say.
A firm grasp of the hand, IA compass.
sionate look, just one word that means
as much as "A whole dictionary, and
you have given, perhaps, all the com
fort that a soul needs
Again remarked that all those per.
sons are incompetent to give any kind
of comfort who act merely as worldly
philosophers. They come in and say
'Why, this is what you ought to have
expected The laws of nature mus
have their ways" and then they gel
eloquent over something they have
seen in post-mortem examinations
Now, away with all human philosophy
at such time. What difference does
il make to that father and mother
what disease their son died of? He II
dead, and it makes no difference
whether the trouble was in the epigas
trio or hypogastric region. II thu
philosopher be of the social school, he
will come and say: You ought to con
troll your feelings. You must not cry so
You must cultivate cooler tempera
ment. You must have self-reliance
self-government, self-con trojan ice
berg reproving a hyacinth for having
a drop of dew in its eve. violinis
has his instrument, and he sweeps hi
fingers across the strings, now evolSinI
strains of joy, now strains of sadness
He cannot play all the tunes on on
string. The human soul is an instru
pent of thousand strings, and al
sorts Of emotions were made to pla
on it, Now IN anthem, now a dirge