The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1888-03-01
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Seventh Sermon of the Series to the
Women of America.
ssWhat Can and What Can Not Make .
Woman Happy"-T''" Home Circle
Mere Social Position Does Not
Insure III ppIness,

Insure III ppiness,
For the seventh discourse Of his series
20 the women OF Am -ica, at the Brook
lyn Tabernacle, Rev. T. Dewitt Talmags
took for his subject; "What Can and
What Can Not Make Woman Happy"
His text was:
She that liveth in pleasure Ia dead while she
nveth.
He said:
The editor Of Boston newspaper o few
days ago wrote asking me the terss ques-
tions: "What is the road to happiness"
and: "Ought happIffsss be ths chief aim of
life" Ny answer was: ''Ths road to
happiness Is the continuous effort TO
make others happy. The chief aim of
life ought to be usefulness, not hsppi-
ness; but happiness always follows use
fulness." This mornings text in Q strong
way sets forth the truth that q woman
who seeks In worldly advantage her chief
enjoyment will come to disappointment
and death.
She that liveth In pleasure is dead while she
liveth.
NV friends, you all want to be happy.
You have had q great many recipes by
which it is proposed to give you satisfac-
q thorough unrest. You know as we'll as
older people what it is to be depressed.
AS dark shadows sometimes fall upon the
geography of the school girl as on the
page of the spectacled philosopher Ihave
seen as cloudy days in May as in Novem-
ber. There are no deeper sighs breathed
by the grandmother than by the grand
daughter. l correct the popular impress.
sion that people are happier in childhood
and youth than they ever will be again.
If we live Alright, the older the happier.
The happiest woman that ever
knew was a. Christian octogenarian;
her hair VIII to as white could be; the
sunlight of Heaven late in the afternoon
gliding the peaks of snow. / have to say
to great many of the young people that
the most miserable time iyOu are ever to
have is just now. AS you advance in life, as
you come out into the world and have
your head and heart all full of good,
honest, practical Christian work, then
you will know what it is to begin to be
happy. There are those who would have
us believe that life is chasing thistle
down and grasping bubbles. We have
not found it so. To many OF US it has
been discovering diamonds larger than
the Kohinoor, and | think that our Joy
will continue to increase until nothing
short of the everlasting jubilee Of Heaven
vii be able to express it.
Horatio Greenough, at the close Of the
hardest life a man ever lives-the life Of
an American artist-wrote:
81 don't want to leave this world unit II
give some sign that, born by the grace
of God in this land, Ihave found life to be
a very cheerful thing, and not the dark
nd VI
prospects were clouded."
Albert Barnes, the good Christian,
known the word over, stood in his pu pit
in Philadelphia, at seventy or eighty
years of age, and said:
"ThS world is so very attractive to me,
am very sorry l shall have to leave it,"
know that Solomon said some very
dolorous things about this world, and
three times declared: "Vanity of vani.
ties, all is vanity" l suppose it was q
reference to those times in his career when
his seven hundred wives almost pestered
the life out of him. But l would rather
turn to the description he gave after his
conversion, when he says in another
place:
"Her ways are ways Of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace"
1t is reasonable to expect 1t will be
SO. The longer the fruit hangs on the
tree, the r;per and more mellow it ought
to grow. You plant one grain of corn,
and il will send up stalk with two ears,
each having go grains, so that one grain
planted will produce 1900 grains. And
ought not the implantatiou of grain of
Christian principle in a youthful soul
develop into large crop of gladness on
earth and to a harvest Of eternal joy in
ALow, l. Il It,
course upon some of the mistakes which
young people make in regard to happf-
ness, and point out to the young women
what l consider to be the source Of COM
plete satisfaction.
And, in the first place, I advise you not
to build your happiness upon mere scocial
position. Persons at your age, looking
off upon life, are apt to think that IL, by
some stroke of what is called good luck,
you could arrive in an elevated and af-
fluent pos iton. little higher than that
in which God has called you to live, you
would be completely happy. Infinite
mis- take! The palace floor of Ahasuerus
is red with the blood Of Vashti's broken
heart. There have been no more scald-
ing tears wept than those which coursed
the cheeks of Josephine. II the sob of
unhappy womanhood in the great cities
could break through the tapestried walls,
that sob would come along your streets
to-day like the simeon of the
desert. Sometimes have heard
in the rustling of the robes on tfs CITY
pavement the hiss of the adders that fol-
lowed in the wake. You have come out
from YOU home, and you have looked up
at the great house, and covet a life under
those arches, when, perhaps, at that very
moment, within that house, there may
have been the wringing of hands, the
start of horror and the very agony of
hell.
All that this world can do for you in sill
YER in gold, in Administer plush, in
Gobelin tapestry, in wide halls, in lordly
acquaintanceshp, will not give you the
ten-thousandth part of a grain OF solid
satisfaction. An English lord, moving
in the very highest sphere. was one day
found seated with his ohin on his hand
and his elbow on the window-sill, looking
out and saving:
"Oh, l wish I could exchange places
with that dogp
Mere social position will never give
happiness to a woman's soul. l have had
wide and continuous observation, and
| tell the young women that they who
build on mere social position their souls
immortal happiness are building on the
sand.
Suppose that a young woman expends
the brightness of her early life in this un'
satisfactory struggle aud omits the pres
| ent opportunity of usefulness in the home
circle; what q mistaket
| So surely as the years roll around. that
home in which you now dwell ill become
| IN wi the