Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-09-20
LIES DISADVANTAGES.
REV. TAIINIAGE CHEERS UP THE
DEPRESSED.

Witt Talmage, D. D., preached In the
Brooklyn Tabernacle this morning on the
subject, "Disadvantages of Some People"
The opening hymn was:
blow We the trumpet! Blow
The yladiy solemn sound.
Let all the nations know,
To earths renotCst bound
After expounding appropriate passages
OF Scripture DR.. Talmage took his text
from Genesis xiii, So: "All these things
are against me-" and preached the follow
ing sermon:
Father Jacob, you are wrong! You
think your son Joseph is dead. but he Is
Prime Minister of Egypt, and has the
KEYS of the great corn crib. You think
that circumstances are all averse, but
they Will turn out well. In all your life
you never made a greater mis- axe than
when YOU said: "All these things are
against me-"
A great multitude Of people are under
seeming disadvantages, and Will to-day,
in the swarthiest Anglo-Saxon that L can
manage, treat their cases; not as nurse
counts out eight or ten drops of pre-
scription, and stirs them in half glass
OF water; but as when man has by mis-
take taken large amount of strychnine,
or Paris green, or belladonna, and tae pa
tient is walked rapidly round the room,
and shaken up. and pounded until be gets
vide awake. Many OF you have taken
large draught of the poison of discour-
igement, and ! come out by the order OF
he Divine Physician to rouse You out OF
hat lethargy.
l. First, many people are under the dis
advantage of an unfortunate name given
them by parents who thought they wire
doing a good thing. Sometimes at the
baptism of children, while have held up
one hand in prayer | have held up the
other hand In amazement that parents
should have weighted the babe with such
q dissonant and Tepulsive nomenclature.
i have not so much wondered 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
afflIct children with an undesirable
name because 1t happened to be
possessed by parent or rich uncle
IRON whom favors are expected, or some
prominent man of the day who may end
his life in disgrace. 1t is no excuse be-
cause they are Scripture names to call
child Jehoiakim, or Tiglath-Pileser. At
this very altar baptized one by the name
of Bathsheba. Why, under all the cir
cumambient heaven, any parent should
want to give to a child the name of that
loose and Infamous creature of Scripture
times / cannot imagine. l have often
felt at the baptismal altar, when names
were announced to me, like saying, asdid
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?"
Impose not upon that babe name sug-
gestive OF flippancy or meanness. There
is no excuse for such assault and battery
on the cradle when our language is opu-
lent with names musical in sound and
suggestive in meaning, such as John,
meaning ''the gracious gift of Cod" or
Henry, meaning "the chief of a house.
hold" or Alfred, meaning "good coun-
eellor;" or Joshua, meaning "God, our
ealvation;" or Nicholas. meaning "vIc-
tory Of the peoples" or Ambrose. meaning
t'immortal;" or Andrew, meaning imam
9y;" or Esther, meaning "a STAR" or
Abigail, meaning "my fathers joys" or
Anna, meaning "grace;" or Victoria,
meaning "victory;" or Resale, meaning
~'beautiful as a rose;" or Margaret, mean
ing "a PEARL" or Ida, meaning "god-
1ike;" or Clara, meaning "illustrious; :"
or Amelia, meaning busy" or Bertha,
meaning ''beautiful," and hundreds OF
other names just as good, that are help
rather than u 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 name which mort
cages all the generations with a great
disadvantage. You say: 81 wonder if he
is any relation to 80 and so, mentioning
some family celebrated for crime or de-
ception. II is wonder 10 me that in all
sucn families some spirited young man
a nd
sisters: "lf you want to keep this nuis-
ance or standardization OF a name, l will
keep it no longer than until by quickest
course of law l can slough off this
gangrene." When the General Assembly
OF the Presbyterian church Of the
United States met in this building in 1876,
two estimable men OF the sweetest DISCO
sition stopped at the same house, and one
had the misnomer OF being Mr.. Sour and
the other the misnomer or being Mr..
Pickle. And your city directory has hun
dreds of names, the mere pronunciation
OF which mas been life long obstacle. II
you have started lite under a name, viii ch
either through ridiculous photography or
vicious suggestion has been an encIm.
braGce, resolve that the next generation
shall not be so weighted.
1t is no bemeaning to change a name
Saul OF Tarsus became Paul the Apostle
Hadassah, 1.-THE myrtle" become Esther
f'the star" We have in America, and
suppose 1t is so in all countries, names
which ought to be abolished. and can be
and will be abolished for the reason thai
they are libel and a SANDER. But if fol
any reason you are submerged either by q
gwen name or by a family name that you
must bear, God will help you TO overcome
the outrage by life cOnsecrated to the
good and useful. You may erase the curse
from the name. You may somewhat
change the significance. II once 1t stood
Tor meanness, you can make ii stand fol-
generosity. II once it stood for pride, you
can make it stand tor humility. If it once
stood for fraud, you can make it stand fol
honesty. IL once it stood for wickedness
you can make il stand for purity. There
have been multtudes OF instances where
men and women have magnificently con
quered the disasters Of the name inflicted
upon them.
ii. Again: Many people labor under
the misfortune Of incomplete physical
equipment. We are by our Orator Sc
economically built that we cannot al
ford the obliteration OF any physical fac.
ulty, We want our two eyes, our two
cars, our two hands, our two feet, oul
eight fingers ana two thumbs. Yet what
multitudes Of people have but one eve, OF
but one foot. The ordinary casualties Of
life have been quadrupled, quintupled,
sextupled, aye centupled, in our time by
the civil war, and at the North and South
great multitude that no man can mum