St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1901-04-13
MINISTRY OF TEARS.
Dr.. Talmage Puts Hisfortunes Of
Life in a Cheerful Light.

Shows That II They Were Borne IN
the Right Spirit They Might
Prove to He Aavantages-
Sympathy Of Jesss.
copyright. 1901. by Louis Klopsch. N. II
A vast taudience crowded the Acad-
emy Of Music in this city to-day to
hear Dr. Talnage. Discoursing on
"The Ministry of Tears" he put the
misfortunes of life in q cheerful
light, showing that if they were borne
in the right spirit they might prove
to be advantages His text was Rev.
vii. II: And God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes"
What a spectacle a few weeks ago
when the nations were in tears!
Queen Victoria ascended from the
highest throne on earth to throne
in. HeaS en- The prayer more often
offered than any prayer for the last
Ga years had been answered, and God
did save the queen. All round the
world the bells were tolling, and the
minute guns were booming at the
obsequies Of the most honored wom-
an Of many centuries. As near four
years ago the English and American
nations shook hands in congratula-
tion at the queens jubilee, so in
these times two nations shook hands
in mournful sympathy at the queens
denarture. No people outside Great
Britain so deeply felt that mighty
grief as our people. The cradles OF
many of our ancestors were rocked
in Great Britain. Those ancestors
played in childhood on the banks OF
the Tweed or the Thames or the
Shannon. Take from our veins the
English blood or the Welsh blood
or the Irish blood or the Scotch
blood and. the stream of. our life
would be a mere shallow They are
over there bone of our bone and
flesh of our. flesh. 1t is our Wilber-
force, our Coleridge, our De Quincy,
our Robert Burns, our John Wesley,
our John Knox, our Thomas Chal-
mers, our Walter Scott, our Bishop
Charnock. our Latimer, our Ridley,
our Robert Emmett, our Daniel
O'Connell. our Havelock. our RuslSin,
our Gladstone. our good and great
and glorious Victoria. 'lt.< -aHIst
The language in which we offered
the English nation our condolence is
the same language in which John
Runyan dreamed and Milton sang
and Shakespeare dramatfzed and
Richard Baxter, prayed and George
Whitefield thnndered. The prince OF
Wales, now king, paid reverential Wis.
It to Washington's tomb at Mount
Vernon. and Longfellow's statue
adorns Westminster abbey, and Ahra.
ham Lincoln in bronze looks down
upon Scotland's capital. 1t was nat
ural that these two nations be in
tears. But am not going to speak
Of national tears, but OF individual
tears and Bible tears. - x.ss
Riding across a western prairie
wild flowers up to the hub of the
carriage wheel, and while long dis
tance from any shelter. there came
a. sudden shower, and, while the rain
was falling in torrents, the sun was
shining as brightly as I ever saw
it shine, and I thoughts: What
beautiful spectacle is this! 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 labeled as containing tears, and
Mary's tears and Paurs tears and
Christ's tears. and the harvest of JOY
that is to spring from the sowing Of
tears. God mixes them; God rounds
them: God shows them where to fall;
God exhales them. A census is taker
of them, and there is record as tt
the moment when they were borr
and as to the place of their grave
Tears OF bad men are not kept. Al
exander in his sorrow had the hail
clipped from his horses and mule:
and made a great ado about his grief
but in all the vases of Heaven there
Il not one Of Alexander's tears.
speak OF the tears of Gods children
Alas, me! they are falling all thu
time! In summer you sometimes
hear the growing thunder. and yo'
see there is a storm miles away, bu'
Won know from the drift of thu
clouds that it will not come any
where near you. So. though it be al
bright around about You. there is
| shower of trouble somewhere all thu
time. Tears, tears! stl4E
What 10 the use Of them. anyhow
why not substitute laughter? Why no
make this q 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 fam
| lily is put together, not have them al
stay, or, il they must be transplante'
10 make other homes, then have then
all live. the family record telling
| story Of marriages and births, but o
no deaths? Why not have the harvest
chase each other without fatiguinl
toil?. Why the hard pillow, the har'
crust. the hard struggle7 1t is cas-.
enough to explain smile or success
or a congratulation, but come now AM
bring all your dictionaries and all you
philosophers and oil your religions an
help me explain tear. A chemist vii
| tell you that it is made up Of salt AM
lime and other component parts. but h
misses the chief ingredients-thea aci'
| of a soured life, the viperine sting o
a bitter memory, the fragments OF I
broken heart. l will tell you what
tear is. 1t is agony in solution. Heal
then, while discourse of the ministr
Of tears or the practical use Of sorrow
First, it is the design Of trouble I
keep this world from being too q
tractive. Something must be done t
make us willing to quit this existence
II it were not for trouble. this woul
be q good enough Heaven for Us. Yo
and would be willing to take leas
of this life for a hundred million year
if there were no trouble. The eartf
cushioned and upholstered and pi
Jared and chandeliered at such expens.
no story Of other worlds could enchan
Us. We would say: "Let well enoug
a.one. If you want to die and hav
your body disintegrated in the dustan
your soul 60 out on . celestial adver
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