Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-07-27
HAPPINESS AT HOME.
Rev. 7. De Witt Talmage DiScourSes
at the Brooklyn Taber-
naCle.
Health the Grandest Luxury Given to Man
Happiness Not Dependent on Out
ward Circumstances.

The Rev. T. De Witt Talmage. D. D.
took for his subject: In Good Humo
with Our Circumstances. His text was
Hebrews xiii, 5: BE content with sucl
things as We have" The great preacher!
discourse was as follows:
1t should ask some one, Where i
Brooklyn today" he would say, "At
Brighton Beach. or East Hampton. o.
Shelter Island where is New York
to- day." AT Long Branch" Where
is Philadelphia?" AT Cape May
where is Boston?" AT Martha's Vine
yard" Where is Virginia." cat the
Sulphur Springs" Where is the great
multitude from all parts of the land?'
AT Saratoga" the modern Bethesda,
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 compensated; city
railroad employees, and ferry masters.
and the police and the tens Of thousands
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 we'll
to-do people who stay at home because
they like home better than any other
place, refusing to go away simply be-
cause it is the fashion to go. When the
| express wagon, with its mountain of
trucks directed to the Catskills or
Niagara, goes through the streets, we
stand at our window envious and i'm
patient, and wonder why we cannot go
as we'll as others. Fools that We are, as
though one could not be as happy at
ole n,,,,
fathers and grandmothers had as good a
time as we have long before the first
spring was bored at Saratoga or the first
deer shot in the Adirondacks. They
made their wedding tour to the next
farm house, OF, 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 de-
tanned i'll the city, who come not to the
house of God, trying to give people the
idea that they are out of town; leaving
doorplate 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
| *
best for us to stay at home, let us stay at
home and be happy. There is great
deal of good common sense in Paul's adj
vice to the Hebrews; BE content with
such things as you have" To be con-
tent is to be in good humor with our
circumstances, not picking quarrel
with our obscurity, or our poverty, or
our social position. There are four or
five grand reasons why we should be con-
tent with such things as we have.
The first reason that mention as lead
ing to this spirit advised in the text, is
the consideration that the poorest of US
have all that is indispensable in life.
We make great ado about our hard
ships, but how little we talk of our
blessings. Health of body, which is
have never been petted, and fondled,
and spoiled by fortune, we take as a
matter of course. Rather have this lux
ury, and have it alone, than, without it.,
look out of palace window upon parks
of deer stalking between fountains and
statuary. These people sleep sounder
on straw mattress than fashionable in
yalids on a couch Of ivory and eagles
down. The dinner of herbs tastes bet
ter to the appetite sharpened OH wood
mans ax or a reaper's scythe than
| wealthy Indigestion experiences seated
at a table covered with partridge, and
yenison, and pineapples. The grandest
luxury God ever gave a man is health.
He who trades that off forall the palaces
of the earth is infinitely cheated. We
look back at the glory of the last Napo-
leon, but who would have taken his YER
had been obliged to take his govt? oh, 7"
says some one, it isn't the grosser pleas
ures covet, but it is the qualification of
All artistic and intellectual taste" Why,
my brother, you have the original from
which these pictures are copied.
| What is a sunset on a wall compared
! with sunset hung in loops of fire on
the heavens? What is a cascade silent
on a canvas compared with cascade
that makes the mountain tremble, its
spray ascending like the departed spirit
OF the water slain on the rocks? Oh,
there is great deal of hollow atfecta-
ton about a fondness for pictures on
the part Of those who never appreciate
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, 0 man! 0 woman! that
though you may be shut out from the
works of a church, a Bierstadt, Rubens,
and a Raphael, you still have free access
to a gallery grander than the Louvre. or
the Luxembourg, or the Vatican-the
royal gallery Of the MONDAY heavens,
the Kings gallery 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 circun-
stances. In a family where the last loaf
is on the table, and the last stick of
wood on the fire, you sometimes find a
cheerful confidence in God, while in a
very fine place you will see and hear dis
cord sounding her war-whoop, and hos
pitality freezing to death in q cherries
parlor; stopped one day on Broadway
at the head Of Wall street, at the foot Of
Trinity Church, to see who seemed the
happiest people passing. I Judged from
their looks the happiest people We're
not those who went down into Wall
street, for they had on their brow the
anxiety Of the dollar they expected to
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 swept by in splendid
equipage, they met carriage that was
finer than theirs. The happiest person