The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-07-19
HAPPINESS AT HOME.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE DlSCOURSES AT
TIE BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.

REV. DR.. TALMAGE DlSCOURSES AT
TIE BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.
Health the Grandest Luxury Given to Man.
Happiness Not Dependent on Outward
Circunstances-"Godlin with Con-
tentment Is Great CAIN"
BROOKLYN, July 15.-The Rev. T. De
Witt Talmage, d. D., took for his SUBJ
iect today: 'sIn Good Humor with Our
Circumstances. His text was Hebrews
xiii, 5: '.Be content with such things as
ye have" The great preachers discourse
was as follows:
If should ask some one, "Where is
Brooklyn today?'' he would say, cat
Brighton Beach, or East Hampton, or
Shelter Island. '.Where is New York
today2'' eat Long Branch" ''Where
Philadelphia?' ''Cape May" "Where
is Boston2'' cat Martha's Vineyard -
'sWhere is Virginia?'' cat the Sulphur
Springs" "Where the great multitude
from all parts of the land?' cat
Saratoga" the modern Bethesda, where
the angel of health is ever stirring 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 circumstances, and
the great multitude of well-to-do people
who stay at home because they like
home better than any other place, refus-
ing to go away simply because it is the
fashion to CO. When the express
wagon, with its mountain of trunks di-
rected to the Catskills or Niagara, goes
through the streets, we stand at our win
dow 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 a time as we have, long be-
fore the first spring was bored at Sara
toga or the first deer shot in the Adiron-
dacks. 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 de
tanned 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 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 us to go, let
us go and be happy. If it is 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 advice to the
Hebrews ''Be content with such things
as ye have" To be content 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 content 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 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 for
tune, 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 statu-
airy. These people sleep sounder
on a straw mattress than fashionable IN
! valids on couch of ivory and eagles
| down. The dinner of herbs tastes better
| to the appetite sharpened on a wood
mans ak or reaper's scythe than
wealthy indigestion experiences seated at
| q table covered with partridge, and ven
ison, and pineapple. The grandest lux
ury God ever gave 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 Tuileries if with them we had
been obliged to take his gout2 "Oh, u
says some one, sit isn't the grosser pleas
ures I covet, but it 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 a wall compared
with sunset hung in loops of fire on the
heavens? What is cascade silent on q
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 g
great deal of hollow affectation about 6
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 hi
child, but go into ecstasies over its photo
graph. Bless the Lord today, 0 man!
woman! that though you may be shu
out from the works of church, Bier
stadt, Rubens, and Raphael, you still
have free access to gallery grander thai
the Louvre, or the Luxemburg, or th'
Vatican-the royal gallery of the noon
day heavens, the Kings gallery of tn
midnight sky.
Another consideration leading us to
spirit of contentment is the fact that on
happiness Is nOC uepenuenG upon OutWar'
circumstances. You~ ~see people happ.
and miserable amid all circumstances
In family where the last loaf is on tn
table, and the last stick of wood on tn
fire, you sometimes find cheerful con
fidence in God, while in a very fine plac
YOU will see and hear discord sounding
her war whoop, and hospitality freezinI
to death in cherries parlor. stoppe
one day on Broadway at the head of Wa
street, at the foot of Trinity church, t
see who seemed the happiest people pass
ing. judged from their look
the happiest people were not those VIII
!. went down into Wall street, for they ha
t on their brow the anxiety Of the dolla
they expected to make; nor the peopl
: who came out of Wall street, for the
had on their brow the anxiety of the do
| LoI hn yEl