The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1888-08-30
Returns III Good Humor.
Rev. DR.. Talmase breaches Again In his Own
Pulpit, his Subject Being ssIn Good
Humor with Our circumstances" ;,

49, SeS ASoAA9 WYNN 5 t
Humor with Our Circumstances." !,
The Rev. T. Dewitt Talmnge, D. D, took
for his subject at his church in Brooklyn;
.In Good Humor with Our Circumstances. y
His text was Hebrews ch. ID v.5: BE con.
tent with such things as We have" The great
preachers discourse was az follows:
II / should ask someone, where is Brook.
lyn today7" he would say AT Brighton
Beach, or East Hampton, or Shelter Island
Where is New York today2 At Long
Branch" Where Philadelphia" "Cape
May" where is Boston," AT Martha'a
Vineyard" Where is virginia?" "At the
tude from oil parts of the land?' EAT 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; the city
railroad employees, md ferry masters, and
| the police and the tens of thousands of clerks
and merchants waiting for their turn of abb
sence. and households with On 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 h any other
is the fashion to go. When the express wagon,
! with it's mountains of trunks directed to the
Catskill or Niagara, goes through the streets,
| we stand at our windOw envious and impa-
| tient, 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 II g~randmothers
had as good q 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, 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 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
so! 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 ut home and be
happy. There is a great deal of good O
mon sense in Pauls advice to the Hebrews:
"Be content with such things as we 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 rea-
sons why we SHOULD be content with such
things as we have.
The first reason that I mention as leading
to this spirit advised in the text, is the con-
sideration that the poorest of us have all that
is indispensable in life. We make q great
ado about our hardships, but how little W
| talk of our blessing. Health of body, which
il given in largest quantity to those who
lave never been petted, and fondled, and
| spoiled by fortune, we take as q matter OF
course Rather have this luxury, and have
it alone, than, without it, look out of a pal
ace window upon parks of deer stalking be
tween fountains and statuary. These peo-
BILE invalids on a couch of ivory and
eagles down. The dinner of herbs tastes
better to the appetite sharpened on a wood.
ANS axe or q reaper's scythe. than wealthy
indigestion experiences seated at o table
covered with partridge, and v%enison, and
pineapple. The grandest luxury God ever
gave a man is health. He who trades that
cheated. We look back at the glory of the
last Napoleon, but who would have taken
his Versailles or his Tuileries if with them he
had been obliged to take his govt? "Oh,"
says someone. at isn't the grosser pleasures
/ covet, but it is the qualifications of an
artistic and intellectual taste" Why, my
brother, you have the original from which
these pictures are copied.
What is a sunset on the wall compared with
@ sunset hung in loops of fire On the heavens?
What is q cascade silent on canvas com
pared with a cascade that makes the oun
tain tremble, it's spray ascending like the de-
parted spirit of the water slain on the rocks?
Oh. there is a great deal Of hollow affectation
about q ondness for pictures on the part of
those who never appreciated the original
from which the pictures are taken. A~sthough
q parent should have no regard for his child,
but go into ecstacy over it's photograph.
Bless the Lord today, o mani! o woman!
that though you may be shut out from the
works of the Church, a Bierstadt, a Rubens,
gallery grander than the Louvre, or the
Luxembourg, or the Vatican-the royal gal
lery of the monday heavens, the Kings gal
lery of the midnight sky.
Another consideration leading us to a spir-
it ofcontentment is the fact that our happiness
is not dependent upon outward ~circumstan-
ces. You see people happy and miserable
the last loaf is on the table, and the last
stick of wood on the fire, you some
times find q cheerful confidence in God,
while in a very fine place you will see and
hear discord sounding her war whoop, and
hospitality freezing to death in a cheerless
parlor. l stopped one day on Broadway at
the head of Wall street, at the foot OF Trinity
Church, to see who seemed the happiest peo-
pie passing. Judged, from their looks the
happiest people were 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,
for they met a carriage that was finer than
theirs. The happiest person in all that
crowd, judging from countenance, was the
woman who sat at the apple stand knitting.
l believe real happiness oftener looks out of
the window of an humble home, than through
the opera glass of the gilded box of u theater.
find Nero growing On q throne. | find
Paul singing in a dungeon. / find King Ahnb
going to bed at noon through melancholy,
while near by is Naboth contented in the
possession of a vineyard. Haman, prime
minister Of Persia, frets himself almost 50
death because q poor jew win nott:ph ms hat;
and Ahithopel, one.sof greatest law
hangs hiD,ssil.gTh wealthiest a 40 years
ago, in NsN York, when congratulated over
Ills large estate, replied: ssAhl y0u don't
know how much trouble hare Ind in taking
care of it," Byron declared u his last hour rs
that he had not seen more than II happy
days in all his life: DO not believe he had
polean 1. said: Il turn with disgust from
cowardice and selfshness Of man. hold
lie a horror; death is repose, What l have
suffered the past 20 days Ia beyond human
comprehension" While, on the other hand,
to show how any one may b happy amid the
most Acknowledgements circumstances, just
after the Ocean Monarch had been wrecked in
the English channel, a steamer was cruising
along in the darkness, when the captain heard
q song, q sweet song, coming over the water,
and he bore down toward that voice and
it was a Christian woman on a plank of the
the wrecked steamer, singing to the tune of
st. Martins:
|g "Jesus, lover of my soul,
r a. n IN thv houoy, Hr