Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1888-07-27
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Toe Weekly Discourse of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
Subject: ''In Good HumOr with
Our CircumsIances."

IExT:-"Bs content ,oith such things as
ye haze. Hebrews xiii, 5.
If should ask some one: "Where is Brook
Ign to-dayp he would say, 'At Brighton
Beach, or East Hampton, or Shelter Island"
"Where is New York today" "At Long
Branch" "Where Philadelphia?' "At Cape
May" Where is BOstonr "At Martha's
Vineyard" Where is Virginia. "At the
SULPHUR Springs" where the great multi
tude from all parts of the landPF Eat Sara
toga,n 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 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 who
cannot be moved, and others hindered by
stringent circumstances, and the great mul
titude of well to do people who stay at home
because they like home better than any other
place, refusing TO go away simply because it
Is the fashion to go. When the express
wagon, with its mountain of trunks directed
TO the Catskills or Niagara goes through the
streets, we stand at our window envions 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 any.
where else. Onr grandfathers and grand
u,
before 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 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 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 better for us to go,
let us go and be happy If it be best for us
to stay at home, let us stay at home and he
happy. There is a great deal of good COM
mon sense in PauPs advice to the Hebrews:
BE content with such things as We haven
To 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
sderation that the poorest of us have all that
is indispensable in life We make n 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 fonded and
spoiled by fortune, we take as matter of
course. Rather have this luxury, and have
it alone, than without it, look out of
palace window upon parks of deer stalking
between fountains and Statuary. These PEG
pie sleep Sounder. on a straw mattress
than fashionable invalids on a couch
of ivory and eagles down. The dinner
OF herbs tastes better to the appetite sharp
ened on woodmans ak or a reaper's scythe
than wealthy indigestion experiences seated
at a table covered with partridge and veni-
son, and pineapple The grandest luxury
God ever gave a 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
gouts "Oh," says some one sit isn't the
grosser pleasures | covet but it is the gratifi-
cation 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
a sunset hung in loops of fire on the heavensl
What is a cascade silent on a canvas COM
pared with cascade that makes the noun
tain tremble, its spray ascending like the
departed spirit of the water slain on tho
rockss Oh, there is great deal of hollow
atfectatlon about 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, oh, mani
oh, womanl that though you may be shut
out from the works Of a Church, Bierstadt
a RubenS and Raphael, you still have free
access to 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 q
spirit of contentment is the fact that our hap
piness is not dependent upon outward cir
cumstances You see people happy and mis-.
cradle amid all circumstances In family
where the last loaf is on the table, and the
last stick of wood on the fire, you sometimes
find cheerful confidence in God, while in
very fine place you will see and hear discord
sounding her war whoop, and Hospitality
freezing to death in the 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.
judged from their looks the happiest peo-
pie were not those who went down into Wall
street, for they had on their brow the ankle
ty Of the dollar they expected to make; nor
the people who came out of Wall street. foy
they they had on their brow the anxiety
of the dollar they had lost; nor the people
who swept by in splendid equpage, for they
met carriage that was finer 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-
lieve real happiness oftener looks out of the
window of an humble home than through
the opera glass of the gilded box of theatre.
l find Nero growing on the throne. | find
Paul singing in dungeon. | find King Ahab
going to bed at noon through melancholy,
while near by is Naboth contented in the pos
session of a vineyard. Hannah, 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
hmself, 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 declared in his last
hours that he had never seen more than twelve
happy days in all his life do not believe
he had seen twelve minutes of thorough sat
isfaction. Napoleon l. said: II turn with
disgust from the cowardice and selfshness of
men; ! hold life a horror death is repose.
What have suffered the last twenty days is
beyond human comprehension" While, on
the other hand, to show how one may be
happy amid the most Instantaneous cir
cumstances, just after the Ocean Monarch
had been wrecked in the English channel,
steamer was cruising along in the darkness
when the captain heard a song, a sweet song,
coming over the water, and he bore dowD
toward that voice, and found it was Chris.
tian women on plank of the wrecked
steamer, singing to the tune of "St, Mar
tlns:h
Jesus, lover OF my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the pillows near me roll,
While the tempest still ID high
The heart right toward God and man, we
are happy. The heart wrong toward God
and man, we are unhappy.
Another reason why we should come to
this spirit incucated in the text Is the fact
that all the differences of earthly condition
IRE transitory. The houses you build, the