The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-07-20
HAPPINESS AT HOME.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE DIScoURSEs AT
THE BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.
Health the Grandest Luxury Given to
Man-Happiness Not Dependent on Out
ward umstances-''GodIiness with
Contentment Is Great Gain"

/
Man-Happiness Not Dependent on Out
ward cumstances-"Godliness with
Contentment Is Great Gain"
BRooKLyN, July 15.-The Rev. T. De Witt
Talmage, d. D., took for his subject today:
"In Good Humor with Our Circumstances"
His text was Hebrews xiii, 8: "Be content
with such things as ye have" The great
preachers discourse was as follows:
II should ask some one, "Where Is Brook
Ign todayF' he would say, "At Brighton
Beach, or East Hampton, or Shelter Island"
"Where is New York todayp "At Long
Branch" "Where Philadelphia" Sat Cape
Mayp' "Where is Bostonr AT Martha's
Vineyard" 'Where is VirginiaY" eat the
Sulphur Springs" "Where the great multi
tude from all parts of the landT' cat Sara
| toga," 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 null
| 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 envious and
| i'm patient, and wonder why we cannot go as
well as others. Fools that we are, as though
one could not be as happy at homo as any
where else. Our grandfathers and grand
mothers had as good 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
farmhouse, OF, living in New York, they cele-
brated the event by an extra walk on the
Battery.
Now, tho 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 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 O great deal Of good COM
mon sense in Pauls 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 q quarrel
with our obscurity, or our poverty, or our
social position. There are four or five grand
| cxubx t,oa c1aol
things as we have.
The first reason that mention as leading
to this spirit devised in the text, Is the con-
sideration 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 fondled, and
spoiled by fortune we take as a matter Of
course. Rather have this luxury, and have
1t alone, than, without 1t, look out Of q
palace window upon parks Of deer stalking
between fountains and statuary. These peo-
| pie sleep sounder on q 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 a wootlman's ak or a reaper's scyths
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
gout3 "Oh," says some one, sit isn't the
grosser pleasures covet, but it is the gratif-
cation of an 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
a sunset hung in loops of fire on the heavens7
| What is cascade silent ON a canvas COM
pared with q cascade that makes the noun
tain tremble, its spray ascending like the
departed spirit Of the water slain on the
rocksi Oh, there is a great deal of hollow
affectation 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 today, oh, mani
oh, womanl that though you may be shut
out from the works of Church, a Bierstadt,
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 contentmsnt 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 a 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 a
very fine place you win see and hear discord
sounding her war whoop, and hospitality
| freezing to death in the cherries parlor. I
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 were not those who went down
into Wall street, for they had oatheir 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, for they
met q carriage that was finer than theirs.
| The happiest person in all that crowd, judg-
| ing from tho countenance, was the woman
who sat at tho 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 a theacer.
find Nero growing on throne. l find
| Paul singing in o 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 tho greatest lawyers OF
| Bible times, through fear of dying, hangs
= ,;acf fp,.fxy
| ego, in New York, when congratulated over
his large estate, replied: "Ahl you don't
tnow how much trouble have in taking
care of it.' Byron declared in bis 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
lsfaction. Napoleon ! said: 81 turn with
disgust from the cowardice and selfishness Of
man. hold life 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 disadvantageous cir
cumstances, just after the Ocean Monarch
had been wrecked in the English channel, a
steamer was cruising along in the darkness,
when the captain heard a song, sweet song,
coming over the water, and he bore down
towards that voice, and found it was Chris
tian woman on plank Of the wrecked
steamer, singing to the tune of "St Mar
tin's:"
Jesus, lover Of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly,
| While the pillows near me roll
While the tempest still is 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 inculcated in the text is the fact
that all the differences of earthly condition
are transitory. The houses you build, the
land you culture, the places In which you