Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-03-15
THE MINISTRY OF TEARS.
d.. TaImage Puts Forth the Misfortunes
OF Life in Cheerful Manner
# Oar Troubles Are Borne In the Right Spirit
T.iey May Prove 20 Be Advantages
God tAe Fist R.sOrf.
DOWNRIGHT 1901. !

''The Ministry OF Tears" he put forth the
misfortunes of life in a cheerful light,
showing that if they were borne in the
right spirit they might prove to be advan,
tages. His text was Rev. vii, IL, And
God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes"
What a spectacle a few weeks ago when
the nations were in tears! Queen Vic
toria assembled from the highest throne on
earth to throne in heaven. The prayer
more often offered than any prayer for the
last sixty-four 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 obse-
quies 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
of our ancestors were rocked IN Great Brl,
tain. 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 mere shall.
low. There are over there hone of our
bone, and flesh Of our flesh. 1t is our Will
berferce, our Coleridge, our De Quincy,
our Robert Burns, our John Wesley, our
John Knox, our Thomas Chalmers, our
Walter Scott, our Bishop Charnoek, our
Latimer, our Ridley. our Robert Emmett,
our Daniel O'Connell, our Havelock, our
Ruskin, our Gladstone, our good and great
and glorious Victoria.
The language in which we offered the
English nation our coincidence is the same
lev ,,-h,oh Tohp Arpap1pd
and Milton sang and Shakespeare drama,
TIED and Richard Baxter. prayed and
George Whitefeld Numbered. The PRINCE
of Wales, now King, paid reverential visit
to Washington's tomb at Mount Vernon,
and Longfellow's statue adorns Westmins-
ter Abbey, and Abraham Lincoln in
bronze looks down upon Scotland's capt.
tai. 1t was natural that these two ma
tions be in tears. But | 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 a sudden shower, and
while the rain was falling in torrents the
sun was shining as brightly as ever saw
it shine, and | thought what a 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 Marys
tears and PauPs 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
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. Alex,
ander 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 Alex.
ander's tears. / 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 1T may be
all bright around about you, there Is
shower of trouble somewhere all the time.
Tears, tears! WY,
What is the use of them, anyhow? Why
not substitute laughter? Why not make
this world where all the people are well
and eternal strangers to pains and aches
What is the use of an eastern storm Wnen
we might have perpetual nor wester! why,
when a family is put together, not have
them all stay, or, if they must be trans
planted to make other homes, then nave
them all live, the family record telling a
story of marriages and births, but OF no
deaths? Why not have the harvests
chase each other without fatigulng toll
Why the hard pillow, the hard crust, the
hard struggle? 1t is easy enough TO ex-
plain smile or a success or congratuia-
ton, but come now and bring all your die,
tionaries and all your PHILOSOPHERS and all
your religions and help me explain tear.
up of salt and lime and other component
parts. but he misses the chief ingredients
the acid of soured life, the viperinee
sting of bitter memory, the fragments OF
broken heart [ will tell you what tear
is. 1t is agony in solution. Hear. then,
while discourse of the ministry OF tears
or the practical uses of sorrow:,,
First, it is the design! OF trouble to keep
Something must be done to make us will
ing to quit this existence. If 1t were not
for trouble, this world would be q good
enough heaven for us. You and l would
be willing to take lease of this life for a
hundred million years if there were no
trouble. The earth, cushioned and up,
holstered and pillared and chandeliered at
such expense, no story OF other WORDS
could onCDdnC It's. VIC WOuio soy t~s
well enough alone If you want to die and
have your body disintegrated in the dust
and your soul go out on celestial adyen
good enough for me- You might as well
60 to man who has just entered the
Louvre at Paris and tell him to hasten OH
to the picture galleries of Venice OF Flor
use of my going there? There are Rem
brandts and Rubenses and Titians here
that ] have not looked at yet" No mar
wants to 90 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 surround
ings. How shall He do it? He cannot af
ford to efface His horizon, or to tear on
fiery panel from the sunset, or to suotrac
an anther from the water lily, or to banisi
the pungent aroma from the mignonette
or to drag the robes of the morning IL
You cannot expect Christopher Wrel
to mar his st. Pauls cathedral, or a. MI
chael Angelo to dash out his own Las
Judgment" or Handel to dlscord nj
'Tsrael in Egypt" and you cannot expec
His own world. How, then. are we to b.
made willing to leave! Here Is "her
trouble comes IN. -,
After man has had good deal o
trouble he says: "Well, I am ready to go
II there is a house somewhere whose roo
does not leak, l would like to live there
IF there is an atmosphere somewhere, tina
does not distress the lungs, would like t
breathe it. If there is a society some
where where there is no little tattle,
would like like to sos yS enerS Where e can fin
m mv lost friends, would like to go there;
H Hs u rHet to read the first part Of the Bbl
chi dI Why has he changed Genesis 70
f Revelation? All, he used to, be anxiog
chiefly GeftS to know how this world was m mad
and all about its geological constructor on
Now he is chiefly anxious to know ;. no,
the next world was made, anc now IL iooh