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Tears
by Commissioner George Scott Railton (from the Christian Mission Magazine, August 1876)

Parting sorrows, so often repeated, and yet felt so keenly perhaps contribute more largely to the sum total of human tears than any other cause. Tears, the overflow and the relief of sorrow in some, are often the seeds of greater sorrow still in those who see them. There is a magnetic influence in tears which communicates feeling rapidly in all directions; but in addition to this the sight of tears generally leaves behind a deep and lasting impression. This seems to indicate that there is a harmony and a sympathy in human nature still, which can be wrought upon very readily and very effectively. And to us, whose main business it is to move men upon a subject of the first importance, it becomes a most interesting question how to shed the most tears, and to make others shed the largest quantity.

Of course there is feeling at times too deep and strong for tears but as a rule, tears are not shed simply because people do not feel sufficiently to shed them. Let us feel more and we shall make other people feel more too. It is impossible for the truth of God to be released without producing a great deal of feeling, and, in a world where there is so much wrong, to realise the truth must be to feel a great deal of sorrow. No doubt this is one main reason why He who was the Truth, and fully understood the Father, was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.

Why do we not weep at parting with sinners out of doors? Here is a crowd of poor sinners. Some of them have just stood and have scarcely heard anything yet. We grieve to turn away from them. But those men have stood for more than half an hour. That man and that woman, without bonnet or shawl, were about when we commenced, and have listened eagerly all the time. A city crowd of passing strangers to one another and to us. We must go to our indoor service, for it is time; but oh, what is to become of these people? We have never met them all before, and shall never meet them all again. The last word, the last look, before we meet the judgement seat! As far as we and our testimony for Jesus is concerned, these men and women are dying now. Parting forever! Parting without hope of ever meeting some of them in God’s presence above! Oh, why do not tears burst from our eyes ere we turn away to our procession or to walk homewards?

Is it because we do not feel real brotherly love to these pour souls? We should not like to leave our own brother or sister there in the streets amongst that crowed to live and die like the rest. We should not like our own relatives to stay behind and perish. And yet these men and women are all our brethren, for whom Jesus died, for whom Jesus weeps and pleads still. Oh, to feel it more!

Is it because we are so much occupied with our own word, the service we have held, or are going to hold, that we really do not think just then about others? If so, is not our service, to a large extent, a mere form? We are there to expressly to care for others, and yet our minds are so taken up with our own joys, our own affairs, in fact, that we forget, at any rate, at the solemn parting moment the very object of our coming. The leader, thanking God for so good and open-air meeting, wondering why so-and-so does not sing louder, questioning whether he has given our the best hymn, and what will be the best to follow it with, praying for a good time inside, and singing aloud in joyous confidence, and the poor lost sheep he wanted to lead home all behind still at the corner there! All busy, very busy, and with their Master’s business too; but too much engaged with their own things after all to look with pitying, melting eyes to the things of others!

Oh for an overflowing flood of tender love of souls! Oh, for singing choked with sobs and processions broke up through the ungovernable emotion of holy men and women, broken-hearted on account of sins and sorrows of other people! Do we wonder while we feel so little about their straying away?

If we ourselves could but see our dying Saviour, as he draws night to many a soul, and turns away sickened and grieved by their continued refusal, if we looked into those eyes that weep still, and saw the heaving of that sad breast that is pierced as ever; so always, with the keenest of sorrows, the sorrow of a thoroughly disinterested sympathy, surely those who come to listen to us would not find it so easy to get away.

May God send us all a deep, all-consuming concern for the souls of our neighbours, that shall rend our hearts, and bow our souls, and make our lives one ceaseless flow of sweetness, tenderest compassion for the wretched blinded victims of sin, whose look of horror and anguish before the judgement seat of Christ will otherwise recall to us many a listless, unfeeling prayer, and many a hard, emotionless speech.

 

 

 

 

   

 

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