The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-07-17
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
ssln Good Humor With Our Cir
CumStanceS."
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE YESTERDAY
58rooklyn's Divine Enforces the Duty of
CONFERENCE.-The Works of Man In
significant Compared With Gods.

cumstances." His text was Hebrews, CHI. IS,
y.5 "Be content with such things as We
have" The great preachers discourse was as
follows:
If should ask some one, "Where is Brook
Ign today?' he would say, cat Brighton
Beach, or East Hampton, or Shelter Island"
s'Where is New York today" cat Long
Branch" "Where Philadelphia" "Cape
May" "Where is Boston," cat Mar
Sha's Vineyard" "Where is Vir-
ginia ?" cat the Sulphur Springs"
"Where the great multitude from all parts of
the land?" cat Saratoga" the modern Be-
thesda, where the angel of health is ever stir
ring the waters. But, my friends, the largest
multitude are at home, detained by business
OR circumstances. Among them all newspaper
men, the hardest worked and the least COM
pensated; city railroad employees, and ferry
masters, and the police, and the tens Of thou
sands Of clerks and merchants waiting for
their turn of absence, and households with
an invalid who cannot be moved, and
others hindered by stringent circum-
stances, and the great multitude of
well-to-do people who stay at home because
they like home better than any other place, re-
fusing to go away simply because it is the
fashion to so. When the express wagon, with
its mountain OF trunks directed to the Cat
stand at our window envious and impatient,
and wonder why we cannot go as well as
others. Fools that we are, as though one could
not be as happy at home as anywhere else. Our
grandfathers and grandmothers had as good
time as we have, long before the first snring
was bored at Saratoga, or the first deer shot in
the Adirondacks. They made their wedding
tour to the next farm house, or, living in New
York, they celebrated the event by an extra
walk on the Battery"
Now, the genuine American is not happy
until he is going somewhere, and the passion is
so great that there are Christian people with
their families detained in the city, who come
not to the house of God, trying to give people
the idea that they are out of town; leaving
the door-plate unsecured for the same
reason, and for two months keeping the front
shutters closed while they sit in the
back part of the house, the thermometer at
ninety! My friends, if it is best for us to go,
let us go and be happy. Ii it is best for us to
stay at home, let us stay at home and be hap
Ply, There is q great deal of good common
sense III Panls advice to the Hebrews: "Be
content with such things as ye have" To be
content is to be in good hunOr with our cir
cqmstances, not picking quarrel with our OBJ
security, Ga our poverty, or our social position.
There are four or five grand reasons why we
Should be content with such things as we have.
The first reason that | mention as leading to
this spirit advised in the text is the considera-
tlOH tlitl LlG poorest OIL q all Is lnClS
pensable in life. We make q great ado about
our hardships, but how little we talk of our
blessings. Health of body, which is given in
largest quantity to those who have never been
petted, and fondled, and spoiled by fortune we
take as a matter Of course. Rather have this
luxury, and have it alone, than, without it,
look out OF a palace window upon parks
of deer stalking between fountains
and statuary. These people sleep sounder
OF straw mattress, than fashionable invalds
on a couch of ivory and eagles down. The
dinner OF herbs tastes better to the appetite
sharpened on woodman's AK or q reaper's
scyth9, than wealthy indigestion experiences
seated at a table covered with partridge, and
venison, and pineapple. The grandest luxury
God ever gave man is health. He who
trades that OIL Tor all the palaces OF the earth
is infinitely cheated We look back at the
glory OF the last Napoleon, but who would have
taken his Versailles and his Tuileries if with
them we had been obliged to take his govt?
"Oh," says someone, 1T isn't the groSser
pleasures L covet, but 1t is the qualification of
an artistic and intellectual taste. Why, my
brother, you have the original from which
these pictures are copied.
What is sunset on wall compared with
sunset hung in loops of fire on the heavens?
What is cascade silent on canvas compared
with cascade that makes the mountain trem-
BILE. its spray ascending like the departed
spirit of the water slain on the rocks? Oh,
there is great deal of hollow affection about
a fondness for pictures on the part of those
the pictures are taken. AS though a parent
should have no regard for his child, but go
into ecstasies over its photograph. Bless the
Lord today, . man! o woman! that though
you may be shut out from the works of
church Bierstadt, q Ruben, and q Raphael,
you still have free access to a gallery grander
than the Louvre, or the Luxemburg, or the
Vatican-the royal gallery OF the MONDAY
heavens, the Kings galley OF the midnight
sky.
Another consideration leading us to a spirit
of contentment is the fact that our happiness
is not dependent upon outward circumstances.
You see people happy and miserable amid all
circumstances In a family where the last loaf
Is on the table, and the last stick of wood on
the fire, you sometimes find cheerful cent?
dence in God, while in very fine place yoa
will sec and hear discord sounding her war
Whoop, and hospitality freezing to death in
Cheerless parlor. Istopped one day on Broad
way at the head of Wall street, at the foot OF
Trinity church, to see who seemed the lIappiest
people passing. judged from their looks the
happiest people were not those who went
down into Wall street, for they had on their
brow the anxiety of the dollar they expected
80 make; nor the people who came out of Wall
street, for they had on their brow the anxiety
of the dollar they had lost; nor the people who
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