Sylvanus Stall

Suggestion:—A bottle partly filled with dust from the roadway will help to illustrate the condition which would quite universally prevail if the earth were not refreshed with frequent rains.

In order that you might see something of the present condition of the earth, I have brought in this bottle some dust, taken from the centre of the road. As I turn the bottle around, you see how dry it is and how it floats in the air, leaving the inside of this bottle all powdered with dust. The dust in this bottle is only a sample of what all the earth would soon become, if God did not send rain at frequent intervals throughout the year. I suppose you could all tell me of a number of instances in the Old Testament where we have accounts of drouths that extended throughout a period of years, and of the hunger and famine and death which followed.

When you are out of doors and look about you, you cannot but be impressed with how dry and dusty the trees and grass and everything about you is. If this dry weather were to continue long you could understand that soon everything would wither and die, and if it were to continue for a few years, men and beasts would not only die of thirst, but even the air itself would suck out from our bodies the moisture that is in our blood, and death would speedily follow. But if you were to remove all the moisture from the air, the earth would not only become barren, but it would become intensely cold. It is due to the moisture which is in the atmosphere that the warmth which comes to the earth from the sun is retained near the earth after the sun has gone down. If it were not so, even in a summer's night after the sun has gone down, the coldness which exists above the clouds would quickly come in contact with the earth, and the cold would become so intense that every person and every living thing would be in danger of being frozen to death in a single night.

You will remember that the great Sahara Desert is a vast tract of thousands of square miles where no rain falls, and where the heat is intense. There is, however, much moisture in the air that floats over the plains, but the reason that no rain falls is because there are no mountains in that portion of the globe for thousands of miles.

Now suppose that there were to be no rain at all, and people should undertake to water the earth by bringing the water from the rivers. On an average of about thirty-three inches of rain fall upon the surface of the entire earth each year, in some places more, in others less. The weight of this water in one single square mile would be nearly two and one-half millions of tons, and if this water which falls upon one single square mile had to be drawn in cars, it would require 100,000 carloads of water to keep this one single mile as wet as God usually keeps it throughout the year by the rain from heaven. I think you will see, from what I have said, that all the cars in the entire United States, and there are hundreds of thousands of them, would not be sufficient to haul water from the rivers for any considerable distance to keep more than ten miles square of earth watered. But you can also see that if all these cars were to be run on a piece of ground only ten miles square, that entire piece of ground would be almost completely covered with railroad tracks, and we would scarcely be able to raise anything on it in the way of grain or vegetables or food of any kind. But even if we could successfully water ten miles square of land, what would that be compared with the absolute necessity of watering the entire continent and all the continents of the globe in order to make life possible upon the earth. Now the question arises, how does God accomplish this great result?

I suppose you have all noticed the teakettle when it is upon the stove and the steam is coming out of the spout, and around the lid. You have there had a practical demonstration of how God can cause the water, which is 800 times heavier than the atmosphere or the air, to rise and float, for you know that any substance heavier than air will always fall to the earth. In the instance of the teakettle you will see how heat causes the water to become steam and thus to rise in the air and float away, rising to the height of the clouds which float two, three and four and sometimes more miles high above the earth.

Now, just in this same way God makes the heat from the rays of the sun to cause that from every river and lake and all the expanse of the ocean, as well as from the surface of the earth, there shall constantly arise a very fine vapor, which, although it is somewhat like steam, is still so much finer that you and I cannot see it with our unaided eyes. It is by means of this vapor that God raises the moisture from the oceans and all bodies of water and from the earth, to fall again in gentle showers.

But when this vapor has been lifted up from the ocean, you will see readily that if it were to descend again in rain upon the very places from which it had been lifted it would accomplish no good. It is necessary that instead of falling back into the ocean and into the lakes and rivers, it must be carried over the land. So you see that we might aptly compare the vapor to a great pump, by means of which God lifts millions of gallons of water every hour from the sea into the atmosphere.

Now just the same as men load grain and fruit and other things into the cars to ship them to some distant place, so God loads these vapors into the atmosphere or into the clouds. When the clouds are all loaded with vapor, or that which is to descend upon the earth in the form of rain, God sends the winds, and these winds blow the clouds from over the ocean far inward over the land until they come to the place where God wants to pour them out in showers and rain, and in snow and blessing.

But now, you will see that there is another difficulty. When all this vast quantity of water is held in the clouds, a mile or two above the earth, if it were to be poured out, it would come with such force upon the earth that it would destroy every living thing. Now, as God used the warmth from the sun as His agent to lift the water into the clouds, so also, when He desires to unload the clouds, to pour the rain upon the earth, He causes the warm air which carries the water to be blown upon by the colder air which floats above it, and as the heat lifted the water, so the cold causes it to descend; and immediately it begins to form as clouds, one particle or atom of moisture touches another, and the two form the larger atom, and these again unite with others, until finally a drop is formed, and it begins to descend and comes down in gentle showers upon the earth as though it were sifted through a very fine sieve. These small drops fall upon the earth so gently as not even to bruise the leaf of the tenderest flower or the tenderest insect that walks upon the earth.

Possibly some children may not fully understand, but the older ones will get some idea of the vast quantity of water which God pours upon the earth, when they are reminded that all the water that flows in the rivers has been let down from the clouds. God is daily pumping up from the ocean and other bodies of water rivers as vast as the combined waters of the Mississippi, Missouri, Susquehanna, the Hudson, and every creek and streamlet and river that flows, not only on this continent, but in all the world. And God is doing this constantly by His own infinite wisdom and infinite might. The machinery with which men pump the water from the river for the supply of a single city wears out; but these great engines with which God is constantly keeping the earth supplied with water for man and beast, for tree and flower, for garden and field, never wear out. Truly with the prophet we may exclaim: "He that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out on the face of the land: the Lord is His name." (Amos v: 8.)

From what I have said I think you will all see how constantly we are dependent upon God for everything which we enjoy. If God were to withhold the rain or the sunshine, famine and want and death would soon follow. Yet in the most wonderful way God is constantly providing that with which we are daily to be fed and always to be clothed. God is not unmindful of us. He never forgets, but in His own good time and in His own most wondrous way He sends us the rain and every needed blessing.

God never forgets us, but I fear that we often forget Him and forget when we drink the refreshing glass of clear, cool water, that it is God who gave it to us. When you sit down at the table, do you remember that it is God who gives you the food, and do you thank Him for the food which He gives you, or do you, like the unmannerly boy who receives a gift and never thanks the donor, sit down and eat and go away without ever thanking God the Giver? When He watches over and keeps you during the night, do you forget to kneel down and thank Him in the morning? When day after day He clothes you, do you thank him? When He feeds and clothes you, do you love and serve Him, or do you accept of these blessings and then run off and serve Satan, God's great enemy?

These are serious questions, and I trust you will think seriously of them, and daily, when you receive God's blessings, that you will turn to Him in grateful thanksgiving and faithful service.