Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-04-07
rs LIFE WORTH LIVING /? /"
INDIVIDUAL AND GENERAL AS
PECT OF THE SUBJECT.
Reply of the Rev. John f. Won
Herrlich TO Mallock's Great
Question.

PART 1.-THE INDIVIDUAL ASPECT.
Considering what love for life and
what shrinking from death there is in
the common heart of humanity, this alone
would seem to answer the query-for
surely that must be regarded as very good
and precious which we so much prize and
cling to. 1t is, indeed, a rare case where
death is really preferable, and then it
is, the unusual and abnormal one-gen-
orally the instance of broken health,
blighted hopes or gloomy prospects, and
never the successful life or vigorous body
and well-balanced intellect
Yes, even among the birds and animals
we find this love of live-this clinging to
it. Let an animal suspect that he is about
to be killed, and he will shudder and
| tremble in every fiber of his body.
| The heart of the little bird will beat with
pulse almost audible, and it's little eyes
will throw out their deep, earnest plead
ings
We may all know of single instances
| where we might say such life is not worth
living or wonder at the all-wise purpose of
its existence. But from the standpoint of
the freedom of will and human volition
may not the good and all-wise purpose of
God in its creation been turned aside and
defeated. If | make life blight and fail
ure where does the blame lie? With God.
who placed me in this beautiful world,
with its scenes of beauty and sources of
happiness, but which l, by my failure to
cultivate the capaci " to enjoy and appre-
ciate, have not made use of? Or with me,
realizing my neglect of opportunities, the
breaking of Gods laws of life and health,
realizing "what am and what ! might
! have been," morbidly exclaim, Z" Is life
worth living"
| Let us look for a moment at the bright
| and redeeming features of nearly every
| individual existence. / believe that God
| intended that we should be bright, con-
tented and happy. A great many are con-
| tinually looking on the dark side of life
and human nature and they generally find
what they are seeking for. They will pom
der and dwell upon the few sins of domes-
tic and social life and forget the myriad of
sweet, happy homes where there is love,
joy and responsive tenderness They will
read about sin and vice-the deaths and
| disasters and forget the noble deeds and
silent charities. The reporter will care
| fully look up the divorce details and the
domestic sorrows, while the sweet, sacred
| joys and blessings of ten thousand homes
will go unspoken and unnoticed. The
hours that bring tears do not come SO often
to most of us, and if we could realize their
meaning in most of the cases, we would
not shed them. Not many days pass
that do not bring smiles and hap
| piness to the great majority, and
We generally find that gloom and melan-
choly is of personal cultivation or the re-
suit of bodily ailments self-iniiicted by
disregard of the answering laws of life
and nature, and not by any Divine ap-
pointment. If we look deeply, we will
find that life is pretty much what we
make it. We get what We give; we find
what we are seeking for.
| The kindest sociable nature generally
receives kindness and sociability and cor
dial treatment, and the seeker after that
which is noble and good generally finds it.
while the unamiable nature generally re-
pels, and the seeker after evil easily finds
| it--iust as the buzzard will cross twenty
| Wucal utldS W ilblStl Vi
The morbid disposition will forget hun
dred bright days to ponder over a dark
one. There is a column of laughter in
most every weekly newspaper, because
men and women recognize that laughter is
better and healthier than groaning and
crying, and that the dismal brooding
taught by false religious sentiment or
morbid superstition is a mere delusion and
mistaken nonsense.
The person who gets all the Joy and hap
piness out of life, in accordance with the
laws of health, and their highest intellect
ual and spiritual interest, is the best and
wisest.
Blessed the home and the hearthstone
where the hours come and go, ripping and
smiling like the play of the sunbeams
upon the waters; where JOY and happiness,
like an electric flash, goes from heart to
heart from child to parents
How much more blessed this than where
austerity and gloom prevail, and deluded
souls call it religion. But this thing of
making life bright and joyful or dark and
dismal is much matter of individual re-
sponsibility.
God may scatter the flowers all about US
but he cannot compel us to stoop and
pluck them. Life seems so different to
different people, not from external things,
but from conditions internal. We may
have eyes but see not; We may have ears
and hear not. If we have no music in the
heart there will be no music on the out
side.
A grateful, cheerful heart will see love
and beauty in every flower that blooms in
the meadows, or grows by the wayside :;
will hear music in the storm, low toned
and dirge-like, or go out in rapturous re-
spouse to the songs of birds or the voices
of nature.
The difference is not so much in the
landscape as the difference in the persons
who gaze upon it. The gloom and the
darkness may only be the reflection of the
hues within us-the shadows of our own
minds cast on the outside. If peace dwells
in the soul, we will find it in the world
and in all about us. "Summer must come
within" or spring, with its buds and flow
ers, its birds and foliage, will not move
and stir us with responsive feelings.
How many of us fail to make the best of
life How many good things lie right in
our path which we never catch sight of !
How many songs go unheard, and how
many flowers We pass by. but which never
cheer us with their beauty and fragrance !
How many sorrows go uncontrolled, while
Gods angelic comforter stands right beside
us, but we never hear his words of peace
and comfort We are SO absorbed in self,
so determined to be miserable or unhappy
that all Gods ministries, in soul and
nature, are overlooked or neglected.
/ believe that if we could only grasp
the whole true meaning of life we would
| find that JOY and happiness is the most
evenly distributed of all earthly posses
sions. The sun shines, the rains fall, the
stars flash, the thunder rolls, and the
landscape is just as beautiful for the peas
ant as for the nobleman, Health makes
no human distinctions, and abides with
those who best treat it; while sleep cannot
be bought with gold, and if the rich man
has the daintiest dishes, the poor man has
often the keenest appetite.
If we examine deeply we will find that
the sources of real happiness are the COM
mon property of all of Gods children, or
else spring from subjective conditions
which are largely in the power of our own
cultivation or controlling Are we not all
under the same laws-are we not all sub
ject to the same standards-are we not all
offered the same heaven and the same