News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-08-02
SUNDAYS SERMON.
ONE OF REV. DIR. TALNIAGES
STERLING DISCOURSES.
Subject: "In Good Humor With Our
Circumstances"
TEXT:-"Be content 1Cith such tyiros ms
ne hare r-HebreyyS vii :

circumstances.
TEXT:-"Be content Nth such tIinqs q.
ye haze. Hebrews xiii, 5.
If should ask some one: ''Where is Brook
Iyn today" he would say, ''At Brighton
Beach, or East Hampton, or Shelter Island.
Where is New Y Ork today" '.At lone
Branch" "Where Ihiladelphia?' cat Cam
May" Where is BostonH' ''At Martha.
Vineyard" "Where is Virginia." "At tine
SULPHUR Springs" "Where the great multi
tude from all parts of the landlS AT Sara
toga," the modern Bethesda, where the ange
OF health IS ever stirring the waters. But,
my friends, the largest multitude are at home
detained by business or circumstances
Among them ali newspaper men, the hardest
worked and the least compensa ed: CITY rail.
road employees, and ferry masters and the
police, and the tens of thousands OF clerks
and merchants waiting for their turn of alb
sence, and households with an invalid VINO
cannot be moved, and others hindered by
stringent circumstances, and the great null
tltude of well to do people who stay at home
because they like home better than any other
place refusing to go away simply because 1t
Is the fashion to 60. When the express
wagon, with its mountain of trunks directed
10 Ihe CatskIlis or Niagara, goes through the
SJreetS, we stand at our window enViouS and
impatient, and wonder why we cannot 20 as
well as others. Zoos that we are as though,
one could not be as happy at home as any
where else. Onr grandtathers and grand
mothers had as good a time as we have long
before the first spring was bored at Sara
toSa, or the first deer shot in the Adiron-
dacks. They made their wedding tour TO
the next farmhouse, or, living in New York
the celebrated they event by an extra walk on
the Battery.
Now, the genuine American is not happy
until he Is como SOmpwharn and tbo
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 tho 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! Ny friends, if it is better for us to go
let us go and be happy. If it be best for us
to stay at home, leJ US stay at home and be
happy. There is Il great deal of good COM
mon sense in Paups advice to the Hebrews:
BE content with such things as We have
10 be content Is to be in good humor with
our circumstances, not picking a quarrel
with our obscurity, or 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 devised in the text, is the con.
slderatiOn that the poorest of US have all that
is indispensable in life. We make a great
ado about our hardships but how little we
talk of our blessings Health and body.
which is given in largest quantity to those
who have never been petted, and fondIed and
spoiled by fortune, we take as a matter of
course. Rather have this luxury and have
1t alone, than, without it, look out of a
palace window upon parks of deer stalking
between fountains and Statuary. These peo-
pie sleep sounder on a straw mattress
than fashionable invalids on q couch
of ivory and eagles down. The dinner
of herbs tastes better to the appetite sharp
ened on woodman's AK or a reaper's scythe
than wealthy indigestion experiences seated
at table covered with partridge, and veni-
son, and pineapple. The grandest luxury
God ever gave n man is health. He who
trades that OFF for 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 Tuilerics if
with them We had been obliged to take his
gout! oh, says some one, sit isn't the
grossCT pleasures | COvet, but it is the gratii-
cation OF an artistic and intellectual taste"
why, my brother you have the original
from which these pictures ara copied.
What is a sunset ON a vail compared with
a sunset hung IN loops of fire on the heavensi
w hat is cascade silent on a canvas COM
pared with a cascade that makes the noun
tain tremble, its spray ascending like the
departed spirit of the water slain on the
rocks! Oh, there is a great deal of hollow
affectation about a fonineSs for pictures on
the part of those who never a preciate the
original from which the pictures are taken.
AS though parent should have no regard
for his child, but go into ecstaSieS over its
photograph. Bless the Lord to-day, oh, mani
oh, woman. thIt though you may be shut
out from the works of Church, a Bierst4dt,
a Rubens and a Raphael, You still have free
access TO a gallery grander than the Louvre
or the Luxemhurg or the Vatican-the royal
gal cry of the monday heavens, the Kings
gallery of the midnight sky.
Another consiierat on leading us to
spirit of cOntentment is tae f act that our hap
piness is not dependent upon outward cir.
cumstances. You e people happy and m s.
cradle amid all circumstances. In a fam Y
where the last loaf is on the table, and the
last stick of wood on the tire you sometime,
find cheerful! confidence in God, while IN a
very fine place you will see and hear dscOrd
her war whOop and Hospitality.
freezing to death in the cherries parlor |
stopped one day on Broadway at the head of
Wal street, at the foot of Trinity churC b, to
see who seemed the happiest people passing.
| judged from their looks the happ.eSt peO
pie were not those who went uOwn INTO Wa
street. for they had on tn ir brow the anxp-
ty of the dollar they expected to make: ?
the people who came "-f. a' r.
they they had on their brow the anxiety
of the dollar they hal lost nor the people
who swept by in splendid equjpage, for they
met carriage that was inner than theirs.
The happieSt person in all that crowd, Judg
ing from the countenance, was the woman
who sat at the apple stand knitting. | be
leve real happiness Oftener looks out of the
window of an humble home than through
the opera glass of the glded box of a theatre
L find Nero growing on the throne. l lind
Paul singing in a dungeon. l find King Ahab
going to bed at noon through melancholy,
while near by is Naboth contentei in the pos
session of a vineyard. Haman, Prime Minis
ter of Persia frets himself almost to death
because poor Jew will not tip his hat; and
Ahithophel, one of the greatest lawyers OF
Bible times, through fear of dying, hangs
h mSelf The wealthiest man, forty years
ago, in New York, when congratulated over
his large estate, replied: "Ah! you don't
know how much trouble l have in taking
care of it." Byron declare in his last
hours that he had never seen more than twelve
happy days in all his life. l do not believe
he had seen twelve minutes of thorough sat
Napoleon |. said 81 turn with
disgust from the cowardice and seltishness of
men; l hold life n horror; death is repose.
What l have suffered the last twenty days is
beyOnl human comprehension" While, on
the other hand, to show how one may be
happy amid the most disadvantageous cir
Just after the Ocean Monarch
had been wrecked i'll the English channel, a
steamer was cruising along in the darkness,
when the captain heard song, a sweet song,
coming over the water, and he bore down
toward that voice, and found it was Chris
tian women on n plank of the wrecked
steamer, singing to the tune of ''St. Mar
tins:n
Jesus, lover of my soul
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the pillows near roll,