SHOULD WE NOT WEEP? by James Caughey

James Caughey was born in Northern Ireland on April 9, 1810. The Caughey family later immigrated to America while James was still very young. By 1830 Mr. Caughey was working in a large flour mill in Troy, New York. Between the years of 1830-31, he was soundly converted, along with thousands of others during the Second Great Awakening in the "Burned-over District."

Two years after his conversion, he was admitted as a Methodist preacher into the Troy Conference. James Caughey was a man committed to faith-filled, travailing prayer. "He spent many hours of each day on his knees, with his Bible spread open before him, asking wisdom from on high, and beseeching a blessing from God on the preaching of His Word. This was his almost constant employment between breakfast and dinner."
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If Jesus wept over Jerusalem, when He beheld a cloud of wrath gathering over it - why, Oh, why, should not we weep? I repeat it, why should not we weep to behold the mouths of the grave and of hell preparing to open and to engulf so many.

Instead of repressing our tears, should we not rather say with the prophet Jeremiah, "Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people?" And if sinners will despise, and sin on, we can only resolve with Jeremiah again, "But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and mine eyes shall weep sore and run down with tears."

Who of us, or who that has ever read the writings and history of Jeremiah the prophet, would charge him with weak-mindedness? We are the followers of "The Man of Sorrows." Like Him, we are "acquainted with grief."

From Christ's own lips we learn that, "unless you are born again, you cannot see or enter the kingdom of heaven." -- (John 3:3,5).

And, had He added, you shall never, in that case, see or enter hell, perhaps our eyes could remain dry... Continue reading