192. The Lachrymatory

The Lachrymatory

Psa_56:8 : ’93Put thou my tears into thy bottle.’94

This prayer was pressed out of David’92s 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 tombs of those ages have been brought up lachrymatories, or lachrymals, which are vials made of earthenware. It was the custom of the ancients to catch the tears that they wept over their dead in a bottle, and to place that bottle in the graves of the departed; and we have many specimens of the ancient lachrymatories, or tear-bottles, 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 to you the condolence of this Christian sentiment. But why talk of human griefs when we have but to look out and behold the largest prosperity’97a great harvest soon to be gathered in all the land. Multitudes of men, with no cares save how they may safely invest their large accumulations. Joy in the city mansion and mountain cabin. Joy among the lumbermen of Maine as they shove their rafts into the water. Joy among the emigrants, far out upon the vast prairie. Joy, joy! Why talk about grief? Alas! the world has its pangs, and now, while I speak, there are before me thick darknesses of soul that need to be lifted. I stand in the presence of some who are about to break under the assault of temptation, and perchance, if no words appropriate to their case be uttered today, they perish forever. I come on no fool’92s errand. I put upon your wounds no salve compounded by human quackery, but, pressing straight to the mark, I hail you as a vessel mid-sea cries to a passing craft, ’93Ship ahoy!’94 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.

Catharine Rheinfeldt, a Prussian, kept a boat with which she rescued the drowning. When a storm came on the coast and other people went to their beds to rest, she put out in her boat for the relief of the distressed, and hundreds of the drowning she brought safely to the beach. In this lift-boat of the Gospel I put out today, hoping, by God’92s help, to bring ashore at least one soul that may now be sinking in the billows of temptation and trouble. The tears that were once caught in the lachrymatories brought up from Herculaneum and Pompeii are all gone, and the bottle is as dry as the scoria of the volcano that submerged them; but not so with the bottle in which God gathers all our tears.

First: I remark that God keeps perpetually the tears of repentance. Many a man has awakened in the morning so wretched from the night’92s 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’92s bottle. They dried on the fevered cheek or were dashed down by the bloated hand or fell into the red wine-cup as it came again to the lips, foaming with still worse indication. But when a man is sorry for his past and tries to do better’97when he mourns his wasted advantages and bemoans his rejection of God’92s mercy and cries amidst the lacerations of an aroused conscience for help out of his terrible predicament, then God listens; then heaven bows down; then scepters of pardon are extended from the throne; then his crying rends the heart of heavenly compassion; then his tears are caught in God’92s bottle.

You know the story of Paradise and the Peri. I think it might be put to higher adaptation. An angel starts from the throne of God to find what thing it can on the earth worthy of being carried back to heaven. It goes down through the gold and silver mines of earth, but finds nothing worthy of transportation to the Celestial City. It goes down through the depths of the sea, where the pearls lie and finds nothing worthy of taking back to heaven. But coming to the foot of a mountain, it sees a wanderer weeping over his evil ways. The tears of the prodigal start, but do not fall to the ground, for the angel’92s wing catches them, and with that treasure speeds back to heaven. God sees the angel coming, and says: ’93Behold the brightest gem of earth and the brightest jewel of heaven’97the tear of a sinner’92s repentance!’94

When I see the Heavenly Shepherd bringing a lamb from the wilderness; when I hear the quick tread of the ragged prodigal hastening home to find his father; when I see a sailor-boy coming on the wharf and hurrying away to beg his mother’92s pardon for long neglect and unkindnesses; when I see the houseless coming to God for shelter and the wretched and the vile and the sin-burned and the passion-blasted appealing for mercy to a compassionate God, I exclaim, in ecstasy and triumph: ’93More tears for God’92s bottle!’94

Again: God keeps a tender remembrance of all your sicknesses. How many of you are thoroughly sound in body? Not one out of ten! I do not exaggerate. The vast majority of the race are constant subjects of ailments. There is some one form of disease that you are peculiarly subject to. You have a weak side or back or are subject to headaches or faintnesses or lungs easily distressed. It would not take a very strong blow to shiver the golden bowl of life or break the pitcher at the fountain. Many of you have kept on in life through 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! At times you sit alone in your room. Friends do not come. You feel an indescribable loneliness in your sufferings; but God knows; God feels; God compassionates. He counts the sleepless nights; he regards the acuteness of the pain; he estimates the hardness of the breathing. While you pour out the medicine from the bottle and count the drops, God counts all your falling tears. As you look at the vials filled with nauseous draughts and at the bottles of distasteful tonic that stand on the shelf, remember that there is a larger bottle than these, which is filled with no mixture by earthly apothecaries, but it is God’92s bottle, in which he hath gathered all our tears.

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 controllers 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. But whether reported or uncomplaining, whether in seemingly comfortable parlor or in damp cellar or in hot garret, God’92s angels of mercy are on the watch. This moment those griefs are being collected. Down on the back streets, on all the alleys, amidst shanties and log-cabins, the work goes on. Tears of want seething in summer’92s heat or freezing in winter’92s cold’97they fall not unheeded. They are jewels for heaven’92s casket. They are pledges of divine sympathy. They are tears for God’92s bottle!

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 received 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 parental tear in that bottle which had been for forty years unanswered. He said, ’93Go to now, and let me answer that tear!’94 and forthwith the wanderer is brought home to God. Oh, this work of training children for God! It is a tremendous work. Some people think it easy. They have never tried it. A child is placed in the arms of the young parent. It is a beautiful plaything. You look into the laughing eyes. You examine the dimples in the feet. You wonder at its exquisite organism. Beautiful plaything! But on some nightfall, as you sit rocking that little one, a voice seems to fall straight from the throne of God, saying, ’93That child is immortal! The stars shall die, but that is an immortal! Suns shall grow old with age and perish, but that is an immortal!’94

Now I know that 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 anxiety has been ineffectual. I answer, No. God understands your heart. He understands how hard you have tried 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 paths of uprightness, though he has such strong proclivities for dissipation. I speak a cheering word. God heard every counsel you ever offered him. God has known all the sleepless nights you have ever passed. God has seen every sinking of your distressed spirit. God remembers your prayers. He keeps eternal record of your anxieties; and in his lachrymatory’97not such as stood in ancient tomb, but in one that glows and glitters beside the throne of God’97he holds all those exhausting tears. The grass may be rank upon your grave, and the letters upon your tombstone defaced by the elements before the divine response will come; but he who hath declared, ’93I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee,’94 will not forget; and some day, in heaven, while you are ranging the fields of light, the gates of pearl will swing back, and, garlanded with glory, that long-wayward one will rush into your outstretched arms of welcome and triumph. The hills may depart and the earth may burn and the stars fall and time perish, but God will break his oath and trample upon his promises’97never! never!

Again: God keeps a perpetual remembrance of all bereavements. These are the trials that throw the red hearts of men to be crushed in the wine-press. Troubles at the store you leave at the store. Misrepresentation and abuse of the world you may leave on the street where you found them. The lawsuit that would swallow your honest accumulations may be left in the court-room. But bereavements are home troubles, and there is no escape from them. You will see that vacant chair. Your eye will catch at the suggestive picture. You cannot fly the presence of such ills. You go to Switzerland to get clear of them, but, more sure-footed than the mule that takes you up the Alps, your troubles climb to the top, and sit shivering on the glaciers. You may cross the seas, but they can outsail the clipper or merchantman. You may take caravan, and put out across the Arabian desert, but they follow you like a simoom, armed with suffocation. You plunge into the Mammoth Cave, but they hang like stalactites from the roof of the great cavern. They stand behind with skeleton fingers to push you ahead. They stand before you to throw you back. They run upon you like reckless horsemen. They charge upon you with gleaming spear. They seem to come haphazard’97scattering shots from the gun of a careless sportsman. But not so. It is good aim that sends them just right; for God is the archer.

This summer many of you will especially feel your grief as you go to places where once you were accompanied by those who are gone now. Your troubles will follow you to the seashore, and will keep up with the lightning express in which you speed away. Or, tarrying at home, they will sit beside you by day, and whisper over your pillow night after night. I want to assure you that you are not left alone, and that your weeping is heard in heaven. You will wander among the hills, and say, ’93Up this hill, last year, our boy climbed with great glee, and waved his cap from the top;’94 or, ’93This is the place where our little girl put flowers in her hair, and looked up in her mother’92s face,’94 until every drop of blood in the heart tingled with gladness, and you thanked God with a thrill of rapture; and you look around, as much as to say, ’93Who dashed out that light? Who filled this cup with gall? What blast froze up these fountains of the heart?’94 Some of you have lost your parents within the last twelve months. Their prayers for you are ended. You take up their picture, and try to call back the kindness that once looked out from those old, wrinkled faces, and spoke in such a tremulous voice; and you say it is a good picture, but all the while you feel that after all it does not do justice; and you would give almost anything’97you would cross the sea, you would walk the earth over’97to hear just one word from those lips that a few months ago used to call you by your first name, though so long you yourself have been a parent. Now you have done your best to hide your grief. You smile when you do not feel like it. But though you may deceive the world, God knows. He looks down upon the empty cradle, upon the desolated nursery, upon the stricken home, and upon the broken heart, and says, ’93This is the way I thresh the wheat; this is the way I scour my jewels! Cast thy burden on my arm, and I will sustain you. All those tears I have gathered in my bottle!’94

But what is the use of having so many tears in God’92s 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? I do 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 to? What sprite of hell hath been invading God’92s palace, and hath robbed the lachrymatories? None! These were sanctified sorrows, and those tears were changed into pearls, that now are set in the crowns and robes of the ransomed. I walk up to examine this heavenly coronet, gleaming brighter than the sun, and cry, ’93From what river-depths of heaven were these gems gathered?’94 and a thousand voices reply, ’93These are transmuted tears from God’92s bottle!’94 I see scepters of light stretched down from the throne of those who on earth were trod on of men; and in every scepter-point, and inlaid in every ivory stair of golden throne, I behold an indescribable richness and luster, and cry, ’93From whence this streaming light’97these flashing pearls?’94 and the voices of the elders before the throne, and of the martyrs under the altar, and of the hundred and forty and four thousand radiant on the glassy sea, exclaim, ’93Transmuted tears from God’92s bottle!’94

Let the ages of heaven roll on’97the story of earth’92s pomp and pride long ago ended; the Koh-i-noor diamonds that made 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 the light that streams from the throne, and bright as the river that flows from the eternal rock, shall gleam, shall sparkle, shall flame forever these transmuted tears of God’92s 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 the step of Jehovah’92s 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 earthly troubles from which they were delivered, and say, each to each, ’93That is what we heard of on earth.’94 ’93That is what the Psalmist spoke of.’94 ’93There once were put our tears.’94 ’93That is God’92s bottle!’94 And while standing there inspecting this richest inlaid vase of heaven, the towers of the palace dome strike up this silvery chime: ’93God hath wiped away all tears from all faces.’94 Wherefore comfort one another with these words!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage