THE ROANOKE NEWS, TIlUllSPAY JULY, 1(5, 18.01. pOD'S MYSTERIOUS RITE i Jthe rain used by dr. talmage 1 as a common illustration. 'God Is Infinity i Infinitesimals Hit Much M la Thing, Infinitely Great, in Our Kveryday Sorrow a in the Worla'a Erection. Brooklyn, July 5. Dr. Talniage's sermon today is on a tin J of gospel in which few people believe. The weather 13 a common object of complaint ami fault Uncling, but Dr. Talmage finds a gospel in it, which today he proclaims from the text, "Ilutli the rain a fa ther?" Job xxxviii, 28. This Book of .lob has been the sub ject of unbounded theological wrangle. Men have made it the ring in which to display their ecclesiastical pugilism. Some s'iy that the Book of Job is a true history: others, that it is an allegory; others, that it is an epic poem; others, that it is a drama. Some say that Job lived eighteen hundred years before Christ, others say that he never lived at all. Some guy that the author of this book was Job; others, David; others, Solomon. The discussion has landed some in blank infidelity. Now 1 have no trouble with the books of Job or Revelation the two most mys terious books in the Bible because of a rule I adopted some years ago. I wade down into a Scripture pas sage as long as 1 can touch bottom, and when 1 cannot, then 1 wade out. 1 used to wade in until it was over my head, and then 1 got drowned. I study a passage of Scripture so long aa it is a comfort and help to my soul; but when it becomes a perplexity and a spiritual upturning, I quit. In other words, we ought to wade in up to our heart, but never wade in until it is over our head. No man should ever expect to swim across this great ocean of divine truth. 1 go down into that ocean as 1 go down into the Atlantic ocean at East Hamp ton, Iong Island, just far enough to bathe, then I come out. I never had any idea that with my weak hand and foot I could strike my way clear over to Liverpool. SC1KJ.CK IS SOT RELIGION. I suppose you understand your fam ily genealogy. You know something about your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents. Perhaps you know where they were born or where they died. Have you ever studied the parentage of the shower? "Hath the rain a father?" This question is not asked by a poetaster or a scientist, but by the head of the universe. To hum ble and to save Job (rod asks him four teen questions; about the world's archi tecture, about the refraction of the sun's rays, about the tides, about the snow crystal, about the lightnings, and then he arraigns him with the interro gation of the test. "Hath the rain a father?" With the scientific wonders of the all ready for the mow dashed of a show- I er, or wheat almost ready for the sickle j spoiled with the rust. How hard it is to bear the agricultural disappoint ments, (iod has infinite resources, but I do not think he has capacity to make weather to please all the farmers. Sometimes it is too hot. or it is too cold; it is too wet, or it it is too dry; it is too early, or it is too late. They for get that the (iod who promised seed time and harvest, summer and winter, cold and heat, also ordained all the cli matic changes. There is one question that ought to be written on every barn, cm every fence, on every haystack, on every farmhouse, "Hath the rain a father?" If we only knew what a vast enter prise it is to provide appropriate weather for this world we would not be so crit ical of the Lord. Isaac Watts, at ten years of age, complained that he did not like the hymns that were sung in the English ehael. "Well," said his father. "Isaac, instead of your com plaining about the hvmns go and make hymns that are better." And he did go and make hymns that were better. Now. I say to you, if you do not like the weather, get up a weather com pany, and have a president, and a sec retary, and a treasurer, and a board of directors, and ten million dollars of stock, and then provide weather that will suit all of us. There is a man who has a weak head, and he cannot stand the glare of the sun. You must have a cloud always hovering over him. I like sunshine; I cannot live with out plenty of sunlight, so you must al ways have enough light for me. Two ships meet in mid-Atlantic. The one is going to Southampton, and the other is coming to New Y'ork. Provide weather that, while it is abaft for one ship, it is not a head wind for the other. There is a farm that is dried up for the lack of rain, and here is a pleasure party going out for a Held excursion. Provide weather that will suit the dry farm and the pleasure excursion. No, sirs, I will not take one dollar of stock in your weather company. There is only one Being in the universe who knows enough to provide the right kind of weather for this world. "Hath the ruin a father?" god's tkxdkk mkkciks ovkk all. My text also suggests God's minute supervisal. You see the divine Sonship in every drop of rain. The jewels oi the shower are not flung away by a spendthrift who knows not how many he throws or where they fall. They are all shining princes of heaven. They all have an eternal lineage. They are all the children of a king. "Hath the rain a father?" Well, then, I say il God takes notice of every minute rain drop he will take notice of the most in significant affair of my life. It is the astronomical view of things that both ers me. Wo look up into the night heavens and we say. "Worlds! worlds!" and how insignificant we feel! We stand at rain I have nothing to do. A minister I the foot of Mount Washington or Mont gets through with that kind of sermons within the first three years, and if he has piety enough he gets through with It in the first three months. A sermon ; has come to me to mean one word of ' four letters, "help!" You all know that the rain is not an orphon. You ' know that it is not cast out of the ; gates of heaven a foundling. You j would answer the question of my text in the affirmative. Safely housed dur- ; ing the storm you hear the rain beat- ! ing against the window pane, and you j find it searching all the crevices of the window sill. i It first conies down in solitary drops, I pattering the dust, and then it deluges j the field9 and angers the mountain tor- j rents, and makes the traveler implore shelter. You know that the rain is not : an accident of the world's economy. You know" it was born of the cloud. You know it was rocked in the cradle of the wind. You know it was sung to sleep by the storm. You know that it is a flying evangel from heaven to earth. You knov it is the gospel of the weather. You know that God is its father. If this bo true, then, how wicked is our murmuring about climatic changes. The first eleven Sabbaths after I en tered the ministry it stormed. Through the week it was clear weather, but on the Sabbaths the old country meeting house looked like Noah's ark before it landed. A few drenched people sat before a drenched pastor, but most of the farmers stayed at home and thanked God that what was bad for the church was good for the crops. I committed a good deol of sin in thone days in de nouncing the weather. Ministers of the Gospel sometimes fret about stormy Sabbaths or hot Sabbaths or inclem ent Sabbaths. They forget the fact ' I ' 13 same God who ordained tyie n6sent forth bis ; " ' te'' to Hlvation, a es mar- in. 'Id) than' '-rround at h ay Blanc, and we feel that we are only in sects, and then we say to ourselves, "Though the world is so largo the sun Is one million four hundred thousand times larger." "Oh!" we say, "it is no use; if God wheels that great imichin ery through immensity he will not take the trouble to look down at me!" In fldel conclusion. Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter are no more rounded and weighed and swung by the hand of God than are the globules on a lilac bush the morning after a shower. God is no more in magnitudes than he is in minutite. If he has scales to weigh the mountains he has balance delicate enough to weigh the Infinitesi mal. You can no more see him through the telescope than you can see him through the microscope; no more when you look up than when you look down. Are not the hairs of your head all num bered? And if Himalaya has a God, "Hath not the rain a father?" I take this doctrine of a particular Providence, and I thrust it into the very midst of your everyday life. If God fathers a raindrop, is there any thing so insignificant in your affairs that God will not father that ? When Druyse, the gunsmith, , invented the needle gun. which decided the battle of Sadowu, was it a mere accident? When a fanner's boy showed Blucher a short cut by which he could bring his uriny up soon enough to decide Water- ; loo for England, was it a mere accident? When Lord Byron took a piece of money and tossed it up to decide . whether or not he should le affianced to Miss Millbank. was it a mere accident which side of the money was up and which was down? When the Christian army were iK'siegcd nt Heziers, and a drunken drummer came In at midnight and rang the alarm bell, not knowing what he was doing, but waking up the host in time to fight their enemies that , moment arriving, was it an accident? XO ACCIUKXTS IN THK DHIXK PLAN ' When, in one of the Irish wars, a starving mother, flying with her starv ing child, sank down and fainted on tho '-s in the night and her hand fell on arm bottle of milk, did that just en so ? God Is either in the affairs 3n, or our religion Is worth noth- 1-11 ..-J .... A lr u 1 b UII, tllJU JUU I1UU lbkCTI II from us ; and instead of this Bi whieh teaches the doctrine, give a secular lxok, and let us, as the imous Mr. Fox, the member of parlia ment, in his last hour, cry out. "Read me the eighth book of Virgil." f Oh, my friends, let us rouse up to an appreciation of the fact that all the af f fairs of our life are under a King'' commanu anu nnaer a i airier s watcn Alexander's war horse, Bucephalus, would allow anybody to mount him when he was unharnessed, but as soon as they put on that vv hone Buceph- 18 . in alus the saddle and the trappings of the conquerer, ho would fellow no one but Alexander to touch him. And if a a soulless horse could have so much pride in his owner. s!;uil not we immor tals c-xu't in the fact that we are owned by a King? "Hath the rain a father?" Again, my subject teaches me that God's dealings with risare inexplicable. That was the original force of my text. The rain was a great mystery to the ancients. They could not understand how the water should get into the cloud, and getting there, how it should be suspended, or falling, why it should come down in drops. Modern science comes along and says there are two portions of air of different temperature, and they are charged with moisture, and tile one portion of air decreases in temperature so the water may no longer be held in vapor and it falls. And they tell us that some of tho clouds that look to be only as large as a man's hand, and to be almost quiet in the heavens, are great mountains of mist four thou sand teet lroui oase to top, and mat hey rush miles a minute. Hut after all the brilliant experiments f Dr. James Hutton and Saussure and other scientists, there is an infinite mys tery about the rain. There is an ocean of the unfathomable In every raindrop, and (tod says today as he said in the time of Job, "If you cannot under stand one drop of rain, do not be sur prised if my dealings with you are in explicable." Why does that aged man, decrepit, beggared, vicious, sick of the world, and the world sick of him, live on, while Here is a man in nuuiiie, con secrated to God. hard working, useful in every respect, who dies? Why does that old gossip, gadding along the street about everybody s business but her own, have such good health, while the Christian mother, with a Hock of little ones about her whom she is preparing for usefulness and for heaven the mother who you think could not be spared an hour from that household why does she lie down and die with a cancer? Why does that man, selfish to the core, go on adding fortune to fortune, consuming every thing on himself, continue to prosper, while that man who has been giving ten per cent, of all his income to God and the church goes into bankruptcy ? Before we make stark fools of our selves let us stop pressing this everlast ing "why." Let us worship where we cannot understand. Let a man take that one question, "Why?" and follow it far enough, and push it, and he will land in wretchedness and perdition. WTe wont in our theology fewer inter rogation marks and more exclamation points. Heaven is tho place for expla nation. Earth is the place for trust. If you cannot understand so minute a thing as a raindrop, how can you ex pect to understand God's dealings? "Hath the rain a father?" JIDOK SOT UY KKKBLK fiKXSK Again, my text makes me think that the rain of tears is of divine origin, Great clouds of trouble sometimes hover over us. They are black, and they are gorged, and they are thunder ous. They are more portentous than Salvator or Claude ever painted clouds of poverty or persecution or be reavement. They hover over us. and get darker and blacKer, and alter a while a tear starts, and we think by an extra pressure of the eyelid to stop it Others follow, and after a while there is a shower of tearful emotion, Y'ea, there is a rain of tears. "Hath that rain a father?" "Oh." you say, "a tear is nothing but a drop of limpid fluid secreted by tho lachrymal gland is only a sign of weak eyes. ureat lnistaKe. it is one oi me Lord's richest benedictions to the world. There are people in Blackwell's Island insane asylum, and at Ltiea, and at all the asylums of this land, who were de mented by the fact that they could not cry at the right time. Said a maniac in one of our public institutions, under a Gospel sermon that started the tears: "Do you see that tear? That is the first I have wept for twelve years. I think it will help my brain." There are a great many in the grave who could not stand any longer under the glacier of trouble. If thut glacier had only melted into weeping they could have endured it. There have been times in your life when you would have given the world, if you hud pos sessed it, for one tear. You could shriek, you could blaspheme, but you could not cry. Have you never seen a tnon holding the hand of a dead wife, who had been all the world to him? The temples livid with excitement, the eye dry and frantic, no moisture on the upper or lower lid. You saw there were bolts of auger in the cloud but no rain To your Christian comfort h" said "Don't talk me about God; there U no God ; or if there is I hute him ; don't talk to me about God; would he have left ine and these motherless children?'' But a few hours or days after, coming across some lead pencil that she owned in life, or some letters which she wrote when he was away from home, with an outcrv that annals there bursts the fountain of tears, and as the sunlight of God's consolation strikes that foun tain of tears you find out that it is tender hearted, merciful, pitiful and all compassionate God who was the father of that rain. "Oh." you say, "it's absurd to think that God is going to watch over tears.' No. my friends. There are three or four kinds of them that God counts, bottles and eternizes. First, there are all parental tears, and there are more of these than of any other kind, because the most of the race die in infancy, and that keeps parents mourning all around tho world. They never get over It, They may live to shout and sing after ward, but i . there is always acqrridor in the soul that is silent, though it once resounded. My parents never mentioned tho death of a child who died fifty years before without a tremor in the voice and a sigh, oh! how deep fetched. It was better she should die; it was a mercy she should die. She would have been a lifelong invalid. But you cannot argue away a parent's grief. How often you hear the moan. "Oh! my child, my child!" Then there are the filial tears. OI K (IKIK.F KOH THK I)KAI. Little children soon get over the loss of parents. They are easily diverted with a new toy. But where is the man who has come to thirty or forty or fifty years of age who can think of the old people without having all the foun tains of his soul stirred up? Y'ou may have hail to take care of her a good many years, but you never can forget how she used to take care of you. There have been many sea captains converted in our church, and the pe culiarity of them was that they were nearly all prayed ashore by their mo thers, though the mothers went into the dust soon after they went to sea. Have you never heard an old man in delirium of some sickness call for his mother? The fact is wo get so used to calling for her the first ten years of our life we never get over it, and when she goes away from us it makes deep sorrow. Y'ou sometimes, perhaps, in days of trouble and darkness, when the world would say, "You ought to be able to take care of yourself," you wake lip from your dreams finding yourself saying, "On, mother: momer; nave these tears no divine origin? Why, take all the warm hearts that ever beat in all lands and in all ages, and put them together, and their united throb would bo weak compared with the throb of God's eternal sympathy. Yes, God also is Father of all that rain of repentance. Did you ever see a rain of repent ance? Do you know what it is that makes a man repent '. I see people go ing around trying to repent. They cannot repent. Do you know no man can repent until God helps him to re pent? How do I know? By this pas sage, "Him hath (iod exalted to be a prince and a Saviour to give reieiit ance." Oh! it is a tremendous hour when one wakes up and says: "I am a bad man; I have not sinned against the laws of the land, but I have wasted my life. God asked me for my services and I haven't given those services. Oh ! my sins, God forgive me." When that tear starts it thrills all heaven. An angel cannot keep his eve off it, and the church of God assembles around, and there is a commingling of tears, and God is the father of that rain, the Lord, long suffering, merciful and gracious. In a religious assem blage a man aroso and said: "I have been a very wicked man ; I broke my mother's heart; I became an Infidel; but I have seen my evil way, and I have surrendered my heart to God. But it is a grief I never can get over that my parents should never have heard of my salvation. I don't know whether they are living or dead." While yet he was standing in the audi ence, a voice from the gallery said. "Oh, my son, my son !" He looked up and he recognized her. It was his old mother. She had been praying for him for u great many years, and when at tho jf the cross the prodigal son andV uie praying mother embraced each other, there was a rain, a tremendous rain, of tears, and God was the Father of those tears. Oh, that God would break us down with a sense of our sin, and then lift us up with an appreciation of his mercy. Tears over our wasted life. Tears over a grieved spirit. Tears over an injured father. Oh, that (iod would move upon this audience with a great wave of religious emotion. THK OKKAT KlXfl TAUnOXS. The king of Carthage was dethroned. His people rebelled against him. He was driven into banishment. His wife and children were outr;igeously abused. Years went by, and the king of Carth age made many friends. He gathered up a great army. He marched again toward Carthage. Reaching the gates of Carthage the best men of the place came out barefooted and bareheaded, and with ropes around their necks, cry ing for mercy. They said. "We abused you and we abused your family; but we cry for mercy." The king of Carth age looked down upon the people from his chariot and said: "I caine to bless, I didn't coino to destroy. You drove uie out, but this day 1 pronounce par don for all the people. Open the gate and let the nrmv com in." The king marched in and took the throne, and the people all sounded. "Long live tho king!" My friends, you have driven the Lord Jesus Christ, the king of the church, away from your heart; you have been maltreating him all these years; but he conies back today. He stands in front of the gates of your soul. If you will only pray for his pardon, he will meet you with his gracious spirit and he will say: "Thy sins and thine iniquities I will remember no more. Open wide the gate ; I will take the throne. My peace I give unto you." And then, all through the audience, from the young and from the old, there will be a rain of tears, and God will be the father of that rain I ODDS AND ENDS. Fruit stains will usually yield to hot water when persistently poured upon them. Teachers' salaries in the I'nited States annually amount to more than iJGO, 000,1)00. There is a difference of only twenty two square miles between the areas of T'ngland and Iowa. The first word spoken through tho London Paris telephone was the good old Knglish word "Hallo." A billion dollars would give 100,000 young men enough capital to start in a profitable business for themselves. The Duke of Portland is said to pos sess, in addition to mine; and lands, an interest in house property to the extent of ?'20,()0H.000, The man w ho Mieers most sarcastical ly at the abilitv of medical men is usu ally the iuiekct to send for a doctor whenever he 1ms a pain. Phosphorus i. now being made by decomposing a mixture of acid phos phates and carbon by the heat of an electric arc within tho mass. Strychnine has been found to increase the amount of giustnc juice secreted in the stomach, the general acidity and the quantity of free acid in the secre tion. Proverb have leen called the con densed wisdom of experience, so it may be well to heed tltis one, likewise of Arabian origin, "To succeed in love or at law, you need the devil for your friend." Manufacture of Thimble.. Dies of different sir.es are used, into which the metal, whether gold, silver or steel, is pressed. The hole punch ing, finishing, polishing and tempering are done afterward. Celluloid and rubber are molded. The lcst thimbles are made in France, where the 'process is more thorough. The first step in the making of Paris gold thimble is the cutting aito a disk of the desired sire a thin piece of sheet iron. This is brought to a red heat, placed over a graduated holo in an iron bench and hammered down into it with a punch. This hole is the form of the thimble. The iron takes its shape and is rt-moved from the hole Tho little indentations to keep the needle from slipping are made in it, and all the other finishing strokes of the perfect thimble put on it. The iron is then made into steel by a process pe culiar to the French thimble maker, and is tempered, polished and brought to a deep blue color. A thin sheet of gold is then pressed Into tho interior of the thimble and fastened there by mandril. Gold leaf is attached to the outside by great pressure, the edges of the leaf being fitted in and held by small grooves at the base of tho thimble. The nrticle is then ready for use. The gold will last for years. The steel never wears out, and the gold can be readily replaced York Telegram. at any time. New NEW ADVERTISEMENTS. STOP AT m ii :- note HALIFAX 1ST. G CLEAN ROOMS. SPLENDID TABLE. POLITE SERVAKT8. Fare always the beat the markets can afford. SERVICE NEAT AND PROMPT. JWNEAK THE COURT HOUSE. Baggage taken from and to the railroad station. nice accommodations; FOE -- IIDIES. RAT ES $2.00 A DAY. Special arrangement for hnarrt by thi week or month. CLARK & REID, Proprietors. mar 20 tf. LAND SALE. -VALUABLE FARMS FOR SALE IN HAt IFAX COUNTY, N. C. A TVnnU CoMume. Buy ten yards of outing cloth at twelve cents a yard. If you like stripes, choose one of the pretty combinations of soft blues, pinks, grays and creams; but if you prefer you can get the cloth this season In a solid color. If you have a supply of silk shirts and a good blazer you will not need more than seven yards. Have a full round short skirt, the draperies being as plain and straight as possible. If you cannot af ford silk shirts make a shirt of the out ing cloth on the model of the silk shirts sold in the stores, with turnover collar and lacings in front of bright cord. Get a leather belt, if you have a slim figure, to match in color your tenuis shoes; or get a silk waist scarf or sash, knotting it in convenient position at one aide without passing about the waist, if you are not slim. Get two or three silk scarfs to knot into pretty ties at your throat, and then you will be filed, except as to shoes. Y'our tennis shoes, if they are good ones, will cost about three dollars, and you can tie them up with cords of the color of your sash and the bright stripe of your gown. Then there is the hat it was nearly forgotten. A little sailor hat answers fairly well, simply trimmed with rib bons like your sash and shoe lacings, or, if it becomes you, a big bright Tain o Shanter is a patch of color in the tennis field. New York Recorder. 0. NE FARM CONTAINO 534 ACRES horse crop cleared, good pastnre. never failing stream, apple and peach or chard, good dwelling and necessary out- houses. I'llICE $2,000. vy hoi TRACT OF 200 ACRES, ONE horse crop cleared, mast of the other in fine growth of pines; good dwelling and out houses. PRICE $1,000. 0 NE TRACT OF 83 ACRES, ONE in horse crop cleared, the balance henry growth of original pines. PRICE $400.00. 0" J hoi TRACT OF 314 ACRES, TWO horse crop cleared, tho balance in fine growth of oak and pine. PRICE $l,O0O. 0 NE TRACT OF 489 ACRES, 3 HORSE and all It is net very often that dining rooms are visited by wild animals of theirown accord, but on Sunday a large, fat woodchuck made his way into the din ing room of Mrs. Foster, on Front street, where he was captured, and he is now in a cage in their yard. Lewis' ton Journal Whlta Ntif ktl.. Within the pant two or three years there has !een a marked increase in the nninlwr f people wearing white neck ties of silk, satin, linen or cotton, in the public streets, wearing them not in preparation for dinner, but as a part of the regular doily garb. A rejiorter who walked along Broadway the other af ternoon saw over a score of them around the necks of well dressed men. In some cases they were becoming; in others, they were not. The bowknot white necktie looked seemly upon some wearers; the white scarf looked well on others. New York Sun. crop cleared; good dwelling necessary out-houses. PRICE $2,O00. 0" V hoi TRACT OF 850 ACRES, FIVE horse crop cleared; good dwelling and London Klcetria Lighting Sjritem. London was slow to accept the elec tric light, but Is now making up for lost time. At the general meeting of the Metropolitan company the chair man reported that within a year the number of the lamps supplied by them had increased from 6,000 to 60,000. As to their system of underground mains, he said that tho length of conduit at present laid was forty miles, and into these conduits there had been laid ninety miles of mains, and not ono fault or leakage had occurred. New York Telegram. out-houses. PRICE $2,500. These farms are convenient to churches, in a healthy locality, and a short distance from Halifax and Enfield. Parties wishing to buy and want to EXAMINE :-: THESE-:-LANDS Will call on MR. THOMAS OUSBY, Hen derson, N. C, or MR. T. C. BURGESS, who lives near Halifax, who will take pleas ure in showing them to purchasers. Any or all of these lands will be IETEID REASONABLE TERMS rOR 1890. ON an 30 ti. B.F.QM Weldoa, 1