The Far-Off Interest of Tears

‘“* He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” — PsaLm cxxvi. 6.

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HERE we have the weeping sower and the joyful harvester, and the Psalmist unites them in the reach of the same vision. Sad and heavy days are seen in relationship with glad and exuberant days. And the happier conditions are not merely a change from the gloomy conditions; they are a sequence, a consequence, a vital issue, they are related as cause and effect, as seedtime. and harvest. A divine ‘doubtless’ is hidden in the process, and promises an inevitable progress and’ transformation. aq Now no: harvest ever comes of just weeping.’ Weeping may be only an idle evasion. We are sometimes tempted to allow our tears to satisfy our conscience. dare yVeeP over something and then we are snared into assuming that something has been accomplished. Emotion is healthy only when it moves us to action. Without action emotion becomes stale and rancid. We may weep over these harrowing days through which we are passing, we may ‘“* water our couch with our tears,’ and nothing is accomplished. We are to be driven by our emotion to fields that are convulsed and broken by calamity, and in the awful furrows we are to sow our precious seed. For, indeed, the very groundwork of human life is nowadays strangely upheaved. Large fields of life, which have been as hard as iron, are beaten into dust. Hearts which have been callous as a wayside are sorely broken, and ready for the seed. And we are to go forth, weeping, endued with all the gracious sympathetic tenderness of our Master, and with exquisite carefulness we are to scatter the seed of the Kingdom.

What seed can we sow? There is the precious seed of the absolute dependableness ot the holiness of God. Let us sow that seed on the stricken field. There is the precious seed of redeeming love and grace. ‘“Kate,” said Professor Elmslie to his wife, as he lay dying, ‘‘ we will tell everybody that God is love!’? Let us scatter that seed in the bleeding rents of every riven life. And there is the precious seed of truth about vanquished death and resurrection glory, and the wonders of our eternal home in God. There is an abundance of precious seed. Let us be the sowers of the Lord, and let us - go forth, weeping, bearing this precious seed, and we-shall doubtless. come again with rejoicing, bringing our sheaves with us.