Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-03-06

adjoining lecture room and parlors to-day
united in singing:
Sun of soul, Thcu Saviour dear,
1t is not night II thou be near.
DR.. Talmage preached on the subject
Ozark Sayings on a Harp" Text-xlix
Psalm of David, verse 4: II will open my
dark sayings on a harp"
The world is full of the inexplicable, the
impossible, the unfathomable, the iDsur-
mouptable. We cannot go three steps in
any direction without coming up against a
hard wall of mystery, riddles. paradoxes,
profundities, labyrinths, problems that we
cannot solve, hieroglyphics that we cannot
decipher, anagrams we cannot spell out,
sphinxes that will not speak. For that rea-
son, David in my text proposed to take up
some of these somber and dark things and
try to set them to sweet music: ~ will open
my dark sayings on harp"
So look off upon society and find peo
pie in unhappy conjunction of ofciIcumstsnces
and they do not know what it means and
they have right to ask, why is this ? and
why is that ? and | thiuk | will be doing a
good work by trying to explain some OF
these strange things and make yam more
content with your lot, and l shall only be
answering questions that have often been
asked me. or that we have all asked our
selves, while try to set these mysteries to
mus snG open my dark savings on harp.
A QUESTION THAT is OFTEN ASKED
Interrogation the first: Why does God
take out of this world those who are useful
and whom we cannot spare and leave alive
and in good health so many who are only u
nuisance or positive Injury to the world :?
I thought | would begin with the very
toughest of ali the seeming inscrutables.
Many of the most useful men and women
die at thirty or forty years of age, While You
often find useless people alive at sixty and
seventy and eighty. John Careless wrote
to Bradford who was soOu TO be put to
death, saying: "Wby doth God suffer me
and such other caterpillars to live that can
do nothing but consume the aims OF tue
church, and take away SO many worthy
workmen in the Lords vineyard ?" SINH
lar questions are often asked. Here are
two men The one is 8 noble character and
a Christian man; be chooses for lifetime
companion one who has been tenderly rear
ed and she is worthy of him, and be is
worthy of her; as merchant, or farmer, or
professional mao, Or mechanic, Or artist, he
tolls to educate and rear his children; he is
succeeding, but he has not yet established
for his family full competency; he seems
absolutely indspensa bic to that household,
but one day before he has paid off the
mortgage on his house, he is coming home
through a strong northeast wind and chill
strikes through him, and four days of pDeu-
moDia end his earthly career, and the wife
and children go into struggle for shelter
and food. His next door neighbor is man
who, though strcug and we'll, lets his wife
support him; he is round at the grocery
store or some general loafing place in the
evenings while his wife sews; his boys are
initiating his example and lounge and
swap ger and swear; all the use that man is
in that house is to rave because the coffse
is cold when he comes to a late breakfast,
or to say cutting things about his wife's
looks when he furnishes nothing for her
wardrobe. The best thing that could nap
pen to that family would be that man s
funeral; but he declines to die: he lives on
and on and On. So we have all noticed that
many of the useful are early cut off while
the parasites of society have great vital te-
nacity.
l take up this dark saying on my harp
and give three or four tbrums on the string
in the way Of surm!sing aud hopeful guess.
Perhaps the useful man was taken out of
The world, because be and his family were
so constructed that they could not have en-
dured some good prosperity that might have
been lust ahead and they altogether might
have gone down in the vortex of worldiness
which every year swallows up ten thousand
households Aud 80 he went while he was
humble and consecrated. and they were by
the seventies Of life kept close to Christ and
fitted for usefulness here and high seats in
heaven; and when they meet at last before
che Throne, they will acknowledge that
though the furnacs was hot, it purified
them, and prepared them for an eternal
career of glory and reward for which no
other kind of life could have fitted them.
On the other hand, the useless man lived on
to fifty or sixty, or seventy years, because
all the ease he ever can have he must have
| in this world, and you ought not, therefore,
begrudge him his earthly longevity. In all
the ages there has not single loafer ever
entered heaven There is no place for him
there TO hang around. Not in the temples,
for they are full of the most vigorous, alert
and rapturcns worship. Not on the river
bank, for that is the place where the con
uuerors recline. Not in the gates because
there are multitudes entering, and we are
told that at each of the twelve gates there
is an angel, and that celestial guard would
not allow the PLACE to be blocked up with
idlers. If the good aud useful 60 early, re-
ioice for them that they have so soon got
through with human life, which at best is a
struggle. And if the useless and the bad
stay, rejoice that they may be out in the
worlds fresh air good many years before
their final incarceration.
Interrogation the second: Why do sc
many good people have SO much trouble
sickness, bankruptcy, persecution, the threa
black vultures sometimes putting their fierce
breaks into one set of jaDgied nervess
think now of 8 good friend once bad. He
was cpnsecrated Christian man. an elder
in the church and as 'spolished a Chris
tian gentleman as ever walked Broad
way. FIRST his general health gave out ane
he hobbled around on cane, an old man a.
forty. After while paralysis struck h'm
Having hY door health been rnnalled aud