Connecticut western news., 1901-03-14
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New YORK March 10.-A vast audi
ence crowded the Academy of Music in
this city today to hear DIR. Talmage.
Discoursing on THE Ministry of
Tears" he put the misfortunes of life
in a cheerful light, showing that If
they We're 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 assembled from the highest
throne ON earth to throne in heaven.
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 ut the obsequies Of the most
honored woman of many centuries.
AS near four years ago the English
and American nations shook hands in
congratulation at the queens jubilee,
so in these times two nations shook
hands in mournful sympathy at the
queens departure. No people outside
Great Britain so deeply felt that
mighty grief as our people. The era
dies of many of our ancestors were
rocked in Great Britain. Those ances-
tors 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
mere shallow. There are over there
bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.
1t is our Wilberforce, our Coleridge,
our De Quincy, our Robert Burns, our
John Wesley, our John Knox, our
Thomas Chalmers. our Walter Scott
our Bishop Charnock, our Latimer,
our Ridley, our Robert Emmett, our
Ruskln, our Gladstone, our good and
great and glorious Victoria.
The language in which we offered the
English nation our coincidence is the
same language in which John Bunyan
dreamed and Milton sang and Shakes
peare dramatized and Richard Baxter
prayed and George Whitefield thunder
ed. The Prince Of Wales, now king,
paid reverential visit to Washington's
tomb at Mount Vernon, and Longfel-
lows statue adorns Westminster alb
hey, and Abraham Lincoln In bronze
looks down upon Scotland's capital. 1t
was natural that these two nations be
In tears. But 1 am not going to speak
Of national tears, but of individual
tears and Bible tears.
Riding across a western prairie, wild
flowers up to the hub of the carriage
wheel and while a long distance from
any shelter, there came sudden show
err, and while the rain was falling in
torrents the sun was shining as bright
ly as ever saw it shine, and thought
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.
Uses of Trouble.
You remember that bottle which Da-
vid labeled as containing tears and Ma
RVS tears and Paurs tears and Christ's
tears and the harvest of joy that is to
mixes them; God rounds them; God
shows them where to fall; God exhales
them. A census Is taken of them, and
there is a record as to the moment
when they are born and as to the place
of their grave. Tears of bad men are
not kept. Alexander in his sorrow had
the hair clipped 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.
1 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
a 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 a shower of trouble somewhere
all the time. Tears, tears!
What is the use of them anyhow?
Why not substitute laughter? Why
not make this a world where all the
people are well and eternal strangers
an eastern storm when we might have
a perpetual nor'wester? Why, when a
family is put together, not have them
all stay, or, If they must be transplant
ed to make other homes, then have
them all live, the family record telling
a story of marriages and births, but
of no deaths? Why not have the har-
vests chase each other without ia
tiguing toll? Why the hard pillow,
the hard crust, the hard struggle? 1t
is easy enough to explain a smile or a
success or congratulation, but come
now and bring all your dictionaries
and all your PHILOSOPHERS and all your
religions and help me explain tear.
A chemist will tell you that it is made
up of salt and lime and other compo-
nent parts, but he misses the chief in
gredients-the acid of a soured life,
the viperine sting of bitter memory,
the fragments of a broken heart.
will tell you what tear is. 1t is agony
in solution. Hear, then, while 1 dis
course of the ministry of tears or the
practical uses of sorrow:
First, 1t 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 1t
were not for trouble, this world would
be a good enough heaven for us. You
and would be willing to take lease
of this life for hundred million years
if there were no trouble. The earth,
cushioned and upholstered and pillar
ed and chandeliered at 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 soul go out on celestial ad-
venture, then you can go, but this
world is good enough for me-" You
might as well go to man who has
just entered the Louvre at Paris and
tell him to hasten off to the picture gal
ieries of Venice or Florence. Why
he would say, what Is the use of my
going there? There are Rembrandts
and Rubenses and T1tians here that l