The Brookhaven leader., 1889-03-07
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The impossible, the Unfathomable,
the Insurmountable,
Questions which Neither Science Nor Die
cussion Can Answer, But All VIII
BE Made Clear Amid the beau
tiful Music of Heaven,

subject OF recent sermon at the Brook
Iyn Tabernacle ozark Sayings on the
Harp" His text was:
1 viii open my dark sayings on q harp
Psalm xix, L.
The world is full of the inexplicable, the
impossible, the unfathomable, the insur.
lnountable. We can not go three steps in
any direction without coming up against a
hard wall Of mystery, riddles, paradoxes,
profundities, labyrinths, problems that
we can not solve, hieroglyphics that we
can not decipher, anograms we can not
spell out, sphinxes that will not speak.
For that reason. David in my text pro-
poses to tale up some of these somber
ana DARK things, and try TO set them to
sweet music: 81 will open my dark say
angS on a harp"
|. SO l look off upon society, and find peo-
pie in unhappy conjunction of circum-
stances, and they do not know what it
means, and they have right to ask: Why
is this? and why is that! And think
will be doing good work by trying to ex.
plain some of 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.
Interrogation the first: Why does God
take out OF this world those who are use
full and whom we can not spare and leave
alive and in good health SO many who are
only a nuisance or positive injury to the
world: l thought would begin with the
very toughest of all the seeming inscru-
tables. 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 workmen in the
Lords vineyards" Similar questions are
often asked. Here are two men. The one
is noble character and Christian man;
he chooses for lifetime companion 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 mechanic, or artists, he tolls to educate
and rear his children; he is succeeding, but
he has not established for his family a
competency; he seems absolutely indis-
pensable to that household, but one day,
his house, he is coming home through a
strong northeast wind, and chill strikes
through him, and four days of pneumonia
end his earthly career, and the wife and
children go into a struggle for shelter and
food. His next-door neighbor is man
who, though strong and we'll, lets his wife
support him; he is round at the grocery
store or some general loafng place in the
evenings while his wife sews; his boys
are initiating his example, and lounge,
and swagger, and swear; all the use
that man is in the house is to rave be-
cause the coffee is cold when he comes to
late breakfast, or to say cutting things
about his wife's looks when he furnishes
nothing 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 no iced that many of the useful
are early cut off while the para ties Of So
ciety have great vital tenacity.
take up this dark saying on my harp
and give three or four thrums on the
strings in the way Of surmising and hope
full guessing. Perhaps the useful man
.was taken out of the world because he and
his family were so constructed that they
could not have endured some great pros
perity that might have been just ahead,
and they altogether might have gone down
in the vortex of worldliness which every
year swallows up ten thousand house,
holds. And so 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 the throne, they will ac-
knowledge that, though the furnace 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 USE
less man lived to fifty, or sixty, or seven
ty 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 a single loafer 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 rap
turous worship. Not on the river bank,
for that is the place where the conquerors
zrecline. 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 gu I'd would
not allow the place to be blacked up with
idlers. If the good and useful go early,
rejoice 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 a good
many years before their final incarcera-
ton,
Interrogation the second: Why do so
many good people have so much trouble ;
sickness, bankruptcy, persecution, the
three black vnltures sometimes putting
their fierce -beaks into one set of tangled
nerves? think now Of a good friend l
once had. He was a cOnsecrated Christian
man, an elder in the church and as pol
ished a Christian gentleman as ever
walked Broadway. First his general
health gave out and he hobbled around on
a cane, an old man at forty. After awhile
paralysis struck him. Having by poor
health been compelled suddenly to quit
business, he lost what property he had.
Then his beautiful daughter died. Then a
son became hopelessly demepted. An
other son, splendid of mind and COM
manding of presence, resolved that he
would take care of his fathers household,
but under the swoop of yellow fever at
Fernandina, Fla, he suddenly expired.
So you know good men and women who
have had enough troubles, you think, to
crush fifty people. No worldly philosophy
could take such a trouble and set it to
music, or play it on violin, or flute, or
dulcimer, or sackbut, but dare to open
that dark saying on Gospel harp.
You wonder that very consecrated peo-
pie have trouble! Did you ever know