The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-03-22
TALMAGE'S. SERMON.
Seventh Sermon of the Series to the
Women of America.
"What Can and What Can Not Make 9
Woman Happy"-The Home Circle
Mere Social Position Docs Not
Insure Happiness,

For the seventh discourse of his series
TO the women of America, at the Brook
lyn Tabernacle, Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage
took for his subject: "What Can and
What Can Not Make a Woman Happy"
His text was:
She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she
liveth.
He said:
The editor of Boston newspaper a few
days ago wrote asking me the terse ques-
tions: "What is the road to happiness?"
and: fought happiness be the chief aim of
lifeW My answer was: ''The road to
happiness is the. continuous. effort to
make others happy. The chief aim of
life ought to be usefulness, not happi-
ness; but happiness always follows USE
fulness." This mornings text in a strong
way sets forth the truth that awoman
who seeks in worldly advantage her chief
enjoyment, will come to disappointment
and death. q
She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she
liveth.
My friends, you all want to be happy.
You have had a great many recipes by
which it is proposed to give you satisfac-
tion-solid satisfaction. At times you feel
thorough unrest. You know as well as
older people what it is to be depressed.
AS dark shadows sometimes fall upon the
geography of the school girl as on the
page of the specialized philosopher. Ihave
seen as cloudy days in May as in Novem-
Der. There are no deeper ighs breathed
by the grandma Their than by the grand
daughter. l correct the popular impress
sion that people are happier in childhood
and youth than they ever will be again.
If we live Alright. the older the happier.
The happiest woman that ever
knew was a Christian octogenarian;
her. hair swhitesas white could be; the
sunlight of Heaven late in the afternoon
gliding the peaks Of snow. have to say
to great many of the young people that
the most miserable time ,you are ever to
have is just now. As you advance in life, as
you come out into tine world and have
your head and Heart all~full of good,
honest, practical Christian work, then
you will know what it is to begin to be
happy. There are thos 9 who would have
us believe that life is chasing thistle
down and grasping bubbles. We have
not found it so. To many of us it has
been discovering diamonds larger than
the Kohinoor, and l think that our joy
III COAbihuo W IuCEctSo ditti NUN
short of the everlasting jubilee of Heaven
will be able to express it.
Horatio Greenough, at the close Of the
hardest life man ever lives-the life of
an American artist-wrote:
81 don't want to leave this world until
! give some sign that, born by the grace
very cheerful thing, and not the dark
hiftar fhinr with which oorIy,
prospects were clouded."
Albert Barnes, the good Christian,
known the world over, stood in his pulpit
in Philadelphia, at seventy or eighty
years of age, and said:
''This world is SO very attractive to me,
lam very sorry shall have to leave it,
Tknow that Solomon said some very
doIorous things about this world, and
three times declared: "Vanity of vani
ties, all is vanity" suppose it was a
reference to those times in his career when
his seven hundred wives almost pestered
the life out of him. But would rather
turn to the description he gave after his
conversion, when he says in another
place:
"Her ways fare ways Of pleasantness
and all her paths are peace"
It Is reasonable ito expect it will b.
so. The longer the fruit hangs on the
tree, the ripper and more mellow it ought
to grow. You plant one grain of corn
and it will send up stalk with two ears
each having $50 grains, so that one grain
planted win produce 1890 grains. AND
ought not the implantatiou of grain OF
Christian principle in youthful sou
develop into a large crop of gladness on
earth and to harvest of eternal joy in
Heaven? Hear me, then, while dis
course upon some of the mistakes which
young people make in regard to happi,
ness, and point out to the young women
what consider to be the source of com
plote satisfaction.
And, in the first place, advise you no
TO build your happiness upon mere scocia
position. Persons at your age, looking
off upon life, are aptSto think that il, by
some stroke Of what is called good luck
you could arrive in an elevated and af
fluent position. little higher than tina
in which God has called you to live, yo,
would be completely happy. Infinit,
mistake! The palace floor of Ahasueru
is red with the blood of Vashti's broker
heart. There have been no more scald
Ing tears wept than those which courset
the cheeks of Josephine. II the sob O.
unhappy womanhood in ths great cities
could break through the tapes tried walls
that sob would come along your street.
to-day like the simeon of tn
desert Sometimes have hear,
in the rustling Of the robes on the cit,
pavement the hiss of the adders that fol
lowed in the wake. You have come on
from your home, and you have looked VI
at the great house, and covet life unde
those arches, when, perhaps, at that yer,
moment, within that house, there ma,
have been the wringing of hands, tn
start OF horror and the very agony O
hell.
All that this world can do for you in si
yer. in gold, in Administer plush, Il
Gobelin tapestry, in wide halls, in lordl
acquaintanceship, viii not give you tn
ten-thousandth part of grain of soil
satisfaction. An English lord, movin.
in the very highest sphere. was one da
found seated with his chin on his han
and his elbow on the window.sill, iookin
out and saying:
.'Oh, ! wish could exchange place
with that dogw
Mere social position will never Civ
happiness to woman's soul. I have ha
wide and continuous observation, and
tell the youno women that thav ub