The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1886-10-07
pB. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
DISADVANTAGES OF SOME
PEOPLE.
Text; can these things are against mo /"

yOu oou otoopu III uedu, DuU n6 Ii ITlmo
Minister of Egypt aud has the keys Of the
great corn crib. You think that circumstances
are all adverse, but they will turn out WELL
IN all your life you never made greater
mistake than when you said; Gan these things
are against me.n
A great multitude of people are under
seeming disadvantages, and will today, in
the swarthiest Ango Saxon that can man
age, treat their cases; not as nurse counts
out eight or ten drops of prescription, stirs
them in half glass Of water, but as when
man has by mistake taken large amount of
opium, or Paris green, or belladonna, and the
patient is walked rapidly round the room and
shaken up and pounded until he gets wide
draught Of the poison Of Encouragement and
come out by the order of the Divine Physi.
clan to rouse you out of that lethargy.
First, many people are under the disad-
vantage of an unfortunate name given them
by parents who thought they were doing
good thing. Sometimes at tie baptism of
children while have held up one hand in
prayer l have held up the other hand in
amazement that parents should have weight
ed the babe with such dissonant and repul-
sive nomenclature. | have not so much won
dered that some children should cry out at
the christening font as that others with such
smiling face should take title that will be
the burden of their lifetime. 1t is outrageous
to alliict children with an undesirable name
because it happened to be possessed by
parentor rich uncle from whom favors are
expected, or some prominent man of the day
who may end his life in disgrace. 1t is no
excuse, because they are Scripture Names to
call a child Jehoiakim or Tiglath- -Pileser.
AT this very altar baptized one by the
name of Bathsheba. Why, under all the
circumambient heaven, any parent should
want to give to child the name of that loose
f,ra IF Ga r;r,f,, 7
cannot imagine. l have often felt at the
baptismal altar, when names were announced
to me, like saying, as did Rev. DR.. Richards,
of Morristown, N. j., when a child was
handed him for sprinkling and the name
given: Hadn't you better call it something
else:n
Impose not upon that babe name sugges-
gestlve OF fippan y or meanue s. There is no
excuse for such assault and battery on the
cradle when our language is opulent with
names musical in sound and sugge stive in
meaning such as John. meaning 1.-THE gra-
cious gift of God, or Henry, meaning "the
chief of a household or Alfred, meaning
good counselor" or Joshua, meaning "Goi
our salvation" or Nj holas meaning "vic-
tory of the people" or Ambrose, meaning
immortal" or Andrew, meaning ''manly,n
or Esther, meaning "a STAR or Abigail,
meaning "my fathers joy,n or Anna, mean
ing ''grace, or Victoria, meaning victory"
or Rosale, meaning beautiful as rose," or
Margaret, meaning "a pc arl,n or Ida, mean
ing "Godlike," or Clara, meaning "illustri-
GUS" or Amelia, meaning busy, or Bertha,
meaning beautiful" and hundreds of other
names Just as good that are help rather than
hindrance.
But sometimes the great hindrance in life
is not in the given name but in the family
name. While legislatures are willing to lift
such incubus there are families that keep a
name which mortgages all the generations
with great disadvantage You say: II
wonder if he is any relation to so and so,n
mentioning some fam ly celebrated for crime
or deception. 1t is wonder to me that in
all such families some spirited young man
does not rise, saying to his brothers and SIS
ters: IF you want to keep this nuisance or
standardization Of name, l will keep it no
longer than unit. by qui ,kest course of law
can s'olgh of the gangrene." When tho
general aSse e.nbly of the Presbyterian church
of the United States met in this building in
1876 two estimable men of the sweetest dis
position stopped at the same house, and one
had the misnomer of being Mr.. Sour and the
other the misnomer of being Mr.. Pickle. And
your city directory has hundreds of names the
mere pronunciation of which has been life
long obstacle. If you have started life under
name which either through ridiculous or
biography or vicious suggestion has been an
tion shall not be so weighted.
1t is no benieaning to change aname. Saul
of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle Hadas-
sab 'the myrt Q" became Esther the star "
We have in America, and suppose it is so
in all countries, names whi h ought to be abol-
ished and can be and viii be abolished for
the reason that they are libel and SIAN
der But ii for any reason you are sub
merged either by given name or by fam
lily name that you must bear, God will help
you to overcome the outrage by life conse-
Grated to the good and useful You may
erase the curse from the name. You may
| somewhat change the significance. il occe
1t stood for meannesS you can make it sta d
for generosity If once it stood for pride you
can make it stand for humility. If it once stood
| Tor fraud you can make it stand for honesty.
If once it stood for wickedness you can make
it stand for purity. There have been multi.
tudes of instances where men and women
have magniicently conquered the disasters
Of the name inHi ted upon them
Again, many peonle labor under the mis-
fortune of incomplete physical Equipment.
| We are by our Creator so Q onomiCally built
that we cannot afford the obliteration of any
| physical faculty. We want cur two eyes
our two ears, our two b ,nds, our two feet
our eight fingers and two thumbs Yet how
many people have but one arm or but on
eye or but one foot. The ordinary casual
ties of life have been quadrupled, quintuplei
sextupled, aye centupled in our times by til
Civil War, and at the North and South
great multitude that no man can numbc
are fighting the battle of life with half o
less than half the needed physical armament
do not wonder at the pathos of a soldie
during the war, who, when told that he mus
have his hand amputated, said: doctor
can't you save its' When told that it wa
impossible, said, with tears rolling down hi
chn niyc. all hos, L,-n al l. nj
hate to part with you. You have done me
good service for many years but seems yo1
must go. Good-byer'
A celebrated surgeon told me of scene II
the clinical department of one OF the New
, York hospitals when a poor man with ,
wounded leg was brought in before the stu
dents to be operated on and the surgeon wa
pointing out this and that to the students AM
handling the wounded leg, and was about t.
proceed to amputation the poor man leap
from the table and hobblei to the door AM
said: Gentlemen, am sorry to disappoin
you, but by the help of God l will die witt
my leg on" What a terrific loss is the los
of our physical faculties The way the bat
tie of Crecy was decided against the Fren
was by the Welshmen killing the Frencl
horses and that brought their riders to tn
ground. And when you cripple this body
which is merely the animal on which tn
soul rides, you may sometimes defeat tn
soull Yet how many suffer from this phys
ical taking off Good cheer, my brothers
God will make it up to you somehow. TIL
grace, the sympathy of God will be more Il
you than anything you have lost II Goo
allows part Of yonr resources to be cut off il
one place, He will add it on somewhere else
As Augustus, the emperor, took off dal
from February, making it the shortest mont
in the year, and added it to August, tn
month named after 'mself, so advantage
taken from one part Of your nature will b
added on to another part.
But it is amazing how much OF the world
work has been done by men Of subtracte'
physical organization. S. s. Preston, tn
great orator of the Southwest, went limpin'
all his life, but there was no foot put dow
upon any platform of his day that resoundet
so far as his club foot Beethoven was s
deaf that he could not hear the crash Of tn
orchestra rendering his oratorios. T
Thomas Carlisle, the dyspeptic martyr, wa
given the commission to drive cant out of th
worlds literature Rev. Thomas Stockton
of Philadelphia, with one lung raised his AT
diences nearer heaven than most minister
can raise them with two lungs. In the bank
the insurance companies, the commercial e
Establishments, the reformatory associations, IL
churches, there are tens of thousands OF me
and women to-day do olbled upof rheumtisn
or stabbed by neuralgias or with only frai