News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-10-14
THE SUNDAY PULPIT.
WORLDLY DISADVANTAGES AND DIS.
COURAGENIENTS.
A Synopsis of DIR. TaImage's Sunday Ser.
mon in the Tabernacle.

DR.. Talmage spoke to an immense
throng Sunday morning upon worldly
disadvantages and discouragements,
| Said he:
There are q vast multitude of people
in seemingly disadvantageous circum
! stances, and in the sWarthiest ANGLO
| Saxon that can manage propose this
morning to address them, not as a nurse
counts out the eight OF ten drops of a
prescription and st1rs them into half
| glass of water, but as when some one
by mistake has taker~s large drauoht
of opium, or Paris green, or bella don
ma, and the patient walked rapidly
around, and he is sha--S lp, and he is
pounded until he gets vide awake The
fact is that some of yen have taken
poisoning draught of discouragement,
and the greatest of all doctors sends me
to-day to rouse you out of the lethargy.
In the first place, there are many who
are laborlng under the disadvantage of
an unfortunate name given by parents,
who thought they were doing. good
thing. Many a time at the baptism
font, while l have lifted one hand in
prayer, l have lifted the other
hand in amaZement that parents
should atf1ict a child with such a disso-
nant and repulsive nomenclature. 1t
has not been so much wonder to me
that some children have cried at the
baptismal font as that others have
Smil1ngly received the names which
would be lifelong obstacle. It is no
excuse, because parents or rich uncle
have unfortunate names that therefore
they should atflict child with it. Be-
cause they are Scripture names is NJ
reason why you should entitle child
Jehoiakim or Tiglathpileser. At this
very altar have baptised one bv the
name of Bathsheba. What under all
the circumambient heavens could be a
reaso / for parent giving to child the
name of that loose and infamous crea-
ture of Bible times Is to me beyond i'm
agination. l have sometimes at the
baptismal font felt like the Rev. DR..
Richards of Morristown, n. j., who,
when a child was presented for baptism,
and the name announced, said:
Hadn't you better call him something
else" You have no right to impose
upon child name sugges i've of
tlippancy or meanness. When we have
so many names in our language that are
agreeable, why this frequent assault and
battery of the cradle If we suffer a
loss, it is terrible loss. And yet what
multitude of people are under these
disadvantages Cheer up, my brother.
God will make it up to you in some
other way. If resources are taken from
one part of your nature, they will be
added somewhere else. Oh, how much
has been accomplished by men of sub
stracted physical equipment. S. S.
Prentiss, the orator of the Southwest,
went limping all his days, but no foot
put on any platform of his day resound-
ed so far as his club foot. Beethoven
was SO deaf he could not hear the crash
of the orchestra rendering his own ora
torios. Then there are a great MANY
people under the disadvantage OF lack
of early education. In the next genera
ton ignorance will be crime Through
free schools and multiplied educational
opportunities there will be no excuse
for ignorance. | believe in compulsory
education, and if in these times parents
do not put their children under educa
tional advantages they have only one
right left and that is the penitentiary
DuI tI0lo 10 SIedI nu! u!IlIuue OF people
who have come to mldlife WHO had no
early advantages. They tell me so.
Many of the successful merchants of our
time and men high up in political pre-
ferment could not write an accurate
letter on any subject, and they are en-
tirely dependent upon their clerks and
their deputies and their stenographers
to make things right. l had friend
many years ago, who lived in Washing
ton and made his fortune by writing
speeches for Congressman, or fixing
them up for the Congressional Record
after they were delivered The million
aire illiteracy of this country is beyond
measurement. But, now, suppose a
good, sensible hearted man finds himself
in midlife with this lack of early advan-
tages-What shall he do Do his best.