The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1889-02-28
DIR. TALMAGGES SERMON.
SOME OF THE QUESTIONS THAT
MEN ARE ALWAYS ASKING.


Why Do Useful Human Beings Die Young?
why do So Many Good People Have SO
Much Troubie?-,yhy Is There Sin In the
world?-ot Problems.
BROOKLYN, Feb. 24.-The audience
that crowded the immense auditorium
OF the Brooklyn Tabernacle and the
adjoining lecture room and parlors
today united in singing:
Sun Of my soul, thou Saviour dear,
1t Is not night If thou be near.
DIR. Talmage preached on the sub
Ject: Dark Sayings on Harp Text
Xix Psalm of David, verse A: II
will open my dark sayings on harp"
The world is full of the inexplicable,
the impossible, the unfathomable, the
insurmountable. We cannot 20 three
steps III. any direction without coming
up against hard wall of mystery,
riddles, paradoxes, profundities, laby-
rinths, problems that we cannot solve,
hieroglyphics that we cannot decipher,
anagrams we cannot spell out,
sphinxes that will not speak. For
that reason, David in my text pro
posed to take up some Of these somber
and dark things and try to set them to
sweet music: II will open my dark
sayings on harp"
So / look off upon society and find
people in unhappy conjunction OF
circumstances and they do not know
what 1t means and they have O right
to ask, why, is this1 and why is that2
and / think ] will be doing q good
- 10 Is
these strange things and make you
more content with your lot, and shall
only be answering questions that have
often been asked me; or that we have
all asked ourselves, while try to set
these mysteries TO music and open my
dark sayings 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 arc only a nuisance or q
positive injury to the world2 thought
! would begin with the very toughest
of all 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 soon to be put to death, saying:
"Why doth God suffer me and such
other caterpillars to live that can do
nothing but consume the aims of the
church, and take away so many
worthy worlmen III the Lords vine
yard?' Similar questions are often
asked. Here arc two men. The one
is "a noble character and Christian
man; he chooses for lifetime COM
panion one who has been tenderly
reared and she is worthy of him and
he is worthy OF her; as merchant, or
farmer, or professional man, or me
chanic, or artist, he tolls to educate
and rear his children; he is succeeding,
but he has not yet established for his
family a full competency; he seems
absolutely indispensable to that house
hold, but ono day before he has paid
off the mortgage on his house he is
coming home through u strong north
east wind and n chill strikes through
hun and four days of pneu.nonia end
his earthly career and the wife and
children go into n struggle for shelter
and food. His next door neighbor is q
man who, though strong and well, lets
his wife support him; he is round at
the grocery store or some general loaf
ing place III the evenings while his
vito sews; his boys are initiating his
example and lounge and swagger and
swear; all the use that man is in that
house is to rave because the coffee is
cold when he comes to u late break
fast, or TO say cutting things about his
wife's looks when he furnishes moth
ing for her wardrobe. The best thing
that could happen to that family would
be that mans 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
tenacity.
/ take up this dark saying on my
harp and give three or four thrums
on tho string in the way of surmising
and hopeful guess. Perhaps the use
full man was taken out Of the world,
because he and his family were so con-
structed that they could not have en-
dured some great prosperity that might
have been Just ahead and they alto
gether might have gone down in the
vortex of worldliness which every year
swallows up ten thousand households.
And so ho 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 the Throne, they will ac
knowledge that though the furnace
was hot, it purified them, and pre-
pared them for an eternal career o1
glory and reward for which no Other
kind of life could have fitted them
On the other hand, tho useless maI
lived on TO fifty, or sixty, or seventy
years, because all the ease he ever car
have he must have in this world, anc
YOU ought not, therefore, begrudc hin
his earthly longevity. In all the age'
there has not a single loafer ever en-
tered heaven. There is no place fol
him there to hang around. Not in th'
temples, for they are full of the mos
vigorous, alert and rapturous wor
ship. Not on tho river bank, for that i:
the place where the conquerors rechne
Not in the gates, because there ar,
multtudes entering, and we are tolC
that at each of the twelve gates, ther,
is an angel, and that celestial guar
would not allow the place TO be block
ed up with idlers. If the good anC
useful 60 early rejoice for them tina
they have so soon got through Will
human life, which at best is a strug
gle. Andif the useless and the bad stay
rejoice that they may be out in TIA
worlds fresh air a good many year
before their final incarceration.
AN INsoRUTABLE MYSTERY, But I
HAS ADVANTAGES.
Interrogation the second: Why d,
so many good people have so mucl
trouble; sickness, bankruptcy, perse
cution. tho three black vultuI'es some
times putting their fierce bealls int
one set of tangled nervesl l thin
now Of a good friend once had. ID
was a consecrated Christian man, a
elder in the church and as polished
Christian gentleman as over Wake
Broadway. First his general healt
gave out and he hobbled around on
cane, an old man at forty. After
while paralysis struck him. Havin
by poor health been compelled SUI
denly TO quit business, he lost VIII:
property he had. Then his beautifl
daughter died. Then q son becan
hopelessiy demented. Another sol
splendid of mind and commanding
presence, resolved that he would tai
care of his fathers household, b.
under the swoop of yellow fever
Fernandina, Fla, he suddenly e
pirod So you know good men al
women whohave had enough trouble
you think, TO crush fifty people, \
worldly philosophy could take sach
trouble and set it to music, or play
A..t Il, L..