The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1888-03-02
TALMAGES SERMON.
Seventh Sermon of the Series to the
Women of America.
"vVI,at Can and What Can N OF Make a
Woman HaPPy'-The Home Circle
Mere Social Position Does Not
Insure Happiness


took for his suldoct: ''What Can and
What Can Not Make a Woman Happy"
His text was:
She that Iveth in pleasure is dead while she
iveth.
He said:
The editor of Boston newspaper q few
days ago wrote asking me the terse ques-
tions: "What is the road to happiness"
and: :"Ought happiness be the chief aim of
Iife?" Ny answer was: ''The road to
happiness is the continuous effort to
make others happy. The chief aim of
life ought to be usefulness, not happi-
ness; but happiness always follows use
fulness." This mornings text in a strong
way sets forth the truth that a woman
who seeks in worldly advantage her chief
enjoyment, will come to appointment
and death.
She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she
Iveth.
MY friends, you all want to be happy.
You have had a great many recipes by
which it is proposed to give you satisfac-
tion-solid satisfaction. At times you feel
thorough unrest. You know as well 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 spectacIed philosopher. Ibave
seen as cloudy days in May as in Novem-
Der. There are no deeper sighs breathed
by the grandma ther than by the grand
daughter. I 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 1 think that our joy
will continue to increase until nothing
short of the everlasting jubilee of Heaven
will be able to express it.
Horatio Greenough, at the close Of the
hardes t life man ever lives-the life OF
an American artist wrote:
"l don't want to leave this world until
] give some sign that, born by the grace
of God in this land, have found life to be
a very cheerful thing, and not the dark
| prospects were clOuded."
Albert Barnes, the good Christian,
| known the world over, stood in his pulpit
in Philadelphia, at seventy or eighty
| years of age, and said:
''This world is 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" 1 suppose it was a
reference to those times in his career when
his seven hundred wives almost pestered
the life out of him. But I 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 it will be
so. The longer the fruit hangs on the
tree, the riper and more mellow it ought
to grow. You plant one grain of corn,
and it will send up a stalk with two ears,
each having $50 grains, so that one grain
planted will produce 1900 grains. And
ought not the impantatiou 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
Heaven? Hear me, then, while l dis :
course upon some of the mistakes which
young people make in regard to happi-
ness, and point out to the young women
what | consider to be the source Of COM
plete satisfaction.
And, in the first place, I advise you not
to build your happiness upon mere social
position. Persons at your age, looking
off upon life, are apt to think that if, by
some stroke of what is called good luck,
/ yoU could arrive in an elevated and af
fluent ncs ;tiou, a little higher than that
in which God has called you to live, you
would be completely happy. Infinite
mis- take! The pa ace floor of Ahasuerus
is red with the blood of Nashtps broken
heart There have been no more scald-
! ing tears wept than those which coursed
the cheeks of Josephine. If the sob of
I unhappy womanhoo1 in the great cities
could break through the tapes tried 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 the city
pavement the hiss of the adders that fol-
lowed in the wake. You have come out
from your home, and you have looked up
at the great house, and cOvet 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. / knew such an one. Hersfather's
house was plain, most of the people who
came there were plain; but, by q change
in fortune such as sometimes comes, a
hand had been offered that led her into q
brilliant sphere. All the neighbors
congratulated her upon her grand
prospects; but what an ex-
change! On her side it was a
heart full Of generous impulse and af-
fection. On his side it was a soul dry
and witbered the stubble of the field.
On her side it was fathers house, where
God was honored and the Sabbath light
flooded the rooms With the very mirth OF
Heaven. On his side it was a gorgeous
res idence and the coming Of mighty men
to be entertained there but within il
were revelry and godlessness. Hardly
had the orange blossoms Of the marriage
feast lost their fragrance, than the night
of discomfort began to cast here and
there its shadows. Cruelties and un-
kindnesses changed all those splend ID
trappings to a hollow mockery. The
platters Of solid silver, the casket Of pure
gold, the head-dress Of cleaning dia
monds. were there; but no God, nC
peace, no kind words, no Christian sym
pathy. The festal music that broke or
the captiveis ear tArned out x
be dirge and the wreath in the plush
was a reptile coil, and the upholstery
that swayed ia the wind was the wing oi
q destroying angel, and the bead-dropi
on the pitcher were the sweat Of ever
lasting despair. o how many riyalrie'
and unhappinesses among those who seel
in social life their chief happinessl I
matters not how fine you have things
there are other people who have it finer
Taking out your watch TO tell the hour oi
the day, some one viii correct your time
pieces by pulling out watch more richly
chased and jeweled. Ride IN a carTiage
that cost you $500, and before you &c
around the park you viii meet with on
that cost s., 600. Have on your wall & pict
ure OF Gopley, and before night You viii
hear Of some one who shas q picture frssl
from .ths studio Of Church or BierstadE