Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1893 — A UNIQUE THEME. [ARTICLE]

A UNIQUE THEME.

The Alleged Usefulness of Adversity. Ancient Tear Jug»—Lachrymatories Used in King David's Day—Comfort for, ~ Afflicted. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn, last Sunday. Subject: “A Bottle of Tears.” Text: Psalms. Ivi, B—“ Put8 —“Put thou my tears into thy bottle.” The prayer of my text was pressed but of David's soul by innumerable calamities, but it is just. as appropriate for the distressed of all ages. Within the past century travelers and antiquarians have explored the ruins of many of the ancient cities, and from the very heart of those , buried splendors of other days have been brought up evidences of customs that long ago vanished from the world. From among the tombs of those ages have been brought up lachrymatories, or lachrymals, which are vials made of earthenware. It was the custom for the ancients to catch the tears they wept over their dead in a bottle and to place the bottle in the graves of the departed, and we have many specimens of the ancient lachrymatories in our museums. The text intimates that God has an intimate acquaintance and perpetual remembrance of all our griefs, and a vial, or lachrymatory, or bottle in which he catches and saves our tears, and I bring you the condolence of this Christian sentiment Why talk about grief? Alas, the world has its pangs, and now while I speak there are thick darknesses of soul that need to be lifted. There are many who are about to break under the assault of temptation, and perchance, if no words appropriate to their case be uttered, they perish. I come on no fool’s errand. Put upon your wounds no salve compounded by human quackery; but pressing straight to the mark, I hail you as a vessel amidsea cries to a passing craft, “Ship ahoy!” and invite you on board a vessel which has faith for a rudder and prayer for sails, and Christ for captain and heaven for an eternal harbor.

First, I remark that God keeps perpetually the tears of repentance. Many a man has awakened in the morning so wretched from the night’s debauch that he has sobbed and wept. Pains in the head, aching in the eyes, sick at heart, and unfit to step into the light. He grieves, not about his misdoing, but only about its consequences. God makes no record of such weeping. Of all the million tears that have gushed as the result of such misdemeanor, not one ever got into God's bottle. They dried on the fevered cheek, or were washed down by the bloated hand, or fell into the red wine cup as it came again to the lips foaming with still worse intoxication. But when a man is sorry for his past and tries to do better—when he ■mourns his wasted advantages and bemoans his rejection of God’s mercy and cries amid the lacerations of an aroused conscience for help out of his terrible predicament —then God listens.

Again, God keeps a tender remembrance of all your sickness. How many of you are thoroughly sound in body? Not one out of ten. Ido not exaggerate. The vast majority of the race are constant subjects of a ilmants. There is some_one.form of diseasethat you are particularly subject to. You have a weak side or back, or are subject to headaches or faintness or lungs easily distressed, It would not take a very strong blow to shiver the golden bowl of lifexir break the pitcher at the fountain. Many of you have kept on in life shrough sheer force of will. You think no one can understand your distresses. Perhaps you look strong, and it is supposed that you are a hypochondriac. They say you are nervous—as if that were nothing! God have mercy upon any man or woman that is nervous.

Again, God remembers all the sorrows of poverty. There is much want that never comes to inspection. The deacons of the church never see it. The comptrollers of almshouses never report it. It comes not to church, for it has no appropriate apparel. It makes no appeal for help, but chooses rather to suffer than expose its bitterness. "Fathers who fail to gain a livelihood, so that they and their children submit to constant privation; sewing women who cannot ply the needle quick enough to earn them shelter and bread. Again, the Lord preserves the remembrance of all paternal anxieties. You see a man from the most infamous surroundings step out into the kingdom of God. He has heard no sermon. He has receivt d no startling providential warning. What brought him to this new mind? This is the secret: God looked over the bottle in which he gathers the tears of his people, and he saw a parent’s tear in that bottle which has been for forty years unanswered. He said, “Go to, now, and lei Me answer that tear!” and forthwith the wanderer is brought home to God. Now, 1 know with many of you this is the chief anxiety. You earnestly wish your children to grow up rightly, but you find it hard work to make them do as you wish. You check their temper. You correct their waywardness. In the midnight your pillow is wet with weeping. You have wrestled with God in agony for the salvation of your children. You ask me if all that anxietv has been ineffectual. I answer, No. God understands how hard you have tr|ed to make that

daughter do right, though she is so very petulant and reckless, and what pains you have bestowed in teaching that son to walk in the path of uprightness, though he has such strong proclivities for dissipation Again, God keeps a perpetual rememembrance of all bereavements. Thes** are the trials that cleave the soul and throw the hearts of men to be crushed in the wine-press. Troubles at the store you may leave at the store. Misrepresentation and abuse of the world vou may leave on the street where you found them. The law suit that would swallow your honest accumulations may be left in the court room. But bereavements arc home I rouoles, and there is no escape from them . You will see that vacant chair. Your eye will catch at the suggestive picture. Now, you have done your best to hide your grief. You smile when you do not feel like it. Butthough you may deceive the world, God knows. He looks down upon the ' empty cradle, upon the desolated nursery, Upon the stricken home and says: “This is the way I thrash wheat : this is th?* way I scour my jewels! Cast thy burden on my arm, and I will sustain you. All those tears I liavo gathered into my bottle!"

But what is the use of having so many tears in God's lachrymatory? In that great casket or vase why does God preserve all your troubles? Through all the ages of eternity what use of a great collection of tears? Ido not know that they will be kept there forever. I do not know but that in some distant age of heaven an angel of God may look into the bottle and find it as empty of tears as the lachrymals of earthenware dug up from the ancient city. Where have the tears gone? What spirit of hell hath been invading God’s palace and hath robbed the lachrymatories? None. These were sanctified sorrows, and those tears were changed into pearls that are now set in the crowns and robes of the ransomed; I walk up to examine this heavenly coronet,gleaming brighter than the sun, and cry, “From what river depths of heaven were those gems gathered?” and a thousand voices reply, “These are transmuted tears from Gods bottle.” I see scepters of light stretched down from the throne of those who on earth were trod on of men, and if every scepter point and inlaid in every ivory stair of golden throne, and behold an indescribable richness and luster, and cry, “From whence this streaming light these flashing pearls?” and the voices of the elders before the throne, and of the martyrs under the altar, and of the one hundred and forty and four thousand radiant on the glassy sea exclaim, “Transmuted tears from God’s bottle.”

Let the ages of heaven roll on the story of earth’s poinp and pride long ago ended. The Kohinoor diamonds that make kings proud, the precious stones that adorned Persian tiara and flamed in the robes of Babylonian processions forgotten;, the Golconda mines charred in the last conflagration; but, firm as the everlasting hills, and pure as tho light that streams from the throne, and bright as the'river that flows from the eternal rock, shall gleam, shall sparkle, and shall flume forever those transmuted tears of God’s bottle. Meanwhile let the empty lachrymatory of heaven stand forever. Let no hand touch it. Let no wing strike it. Let no collision crack it. Purer than beryl or chrysoprasus. Let it. stand on tho step of Jehovah’s throne and under the arch of the unfading rainbow. Passing down the corridors of the palace, the redeemed of .earth shall glance at it and think of all the troubles from which they were delivered, and say, each to each: “That is what we heard of on earth.” “That is what the psalmist spoke of.” ’•There once was put our tears.” “That is God's bottle.”: And while standing there inspecting this richest inlaid vase of heaven, the towel’s of the palace dome strike up this lively chime: “God hath wiped away ail tears from all faces. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. ”