Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-03-07
ANSWERING DOUBTERS.
Dr.. Talmage on the Mysterious
Ways Of the Deity.
Why the Good Are Taken and the Bad
Observation-Disclosures Through Troubles
Trials Here Bring Greater Re-
wards Hereafter.

c
q In late sermon a. Brooklyn DR.. Talma =,
o preached on the subject: Dark Saving.
s on Harp" Text-Psalms Xix 4: 81 will
open my dark saying upon the harp" HI
said:
The world is full of the inexplicable, the
, impossible, the unfathomable, the insur.
! mountable. We can not 90 three steps in
any direction without coming up against
hard wall of my stery. riddles. paradoxes
profundities, labyrinths, problems that we
can not solve, hieroglyphics that we car
: not declpher, anagrams we can not spell
out, sphinxes that will not speak. Fol
that reason, David in my text, proposed
to take up some of those somber and dark
things and try to set them to sweet music:
Il will open my dark saying upon the
harp"
So look off upon society and find people
in unhappy conjunction of circumstances
and they do not know what it means. and
they have right to ask why is this? and
why is that? and l think l will be doing a
good work by trying to explain some of
these strange things and make you 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 l try to set these mysteries
to music and open my own dark sayings
on harp.
Interrogation the first: Why does God
take out of this world those that are USE
! full und whom we can not spare and leave
| alive and in good health many who are
only nuisance or positive injury to the
world? thought l would begin with the
very toughest of all the seeming inscrut-
ables. 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 Care
less wrote to Bradford, who was soon to be
| put to death, saying: why doth Col
suffer me and such caterpillars to live that
can do nothing but consume the aims of
! the Church, and take away so many
worthy workmen in the Lords vineyard?"
Similar questions are often asked. Here
are two men. The one is noble character
and Christian man; he chooses for life
time companion one who has been tenderly
reared, and she is worthy of him and he is
worthy of her; as a merchant, or farmer,
or professional man, or mechanic or artist,
he tolls to educate and rear his children;
he is succeeding. but he has not yet estab-
lished for his family a full competency; he
seems absolutely indispensable to that
household, but one day before he has paid
off the mortgage on his house he is coming
home through strong northeast wind and
a chill strikes through him and four days
of pneumonia end his earthly career and
the wife and children go into struggle
fo1 shelter and food. His next door neigh
Dor is man who, though strong 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 swagger and swear; all the
use that man is in that 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 ami on and on. So we
have all noticed that many of the useful
are early cut off while the parasites of So
ciety have great vital tenacity.
l take up this dark saying on my harp
and give three or four thrums on the string
in the way of surmising and hopeful
guess. Perhaps the useful man was taken
out of the world, because he and his
were 81 COuSbIuCOcu IudC EH6Y COulu
not have endured some great prosperity
and might have gone down in the vortex
of worldliness which every year swallows |
up 10000 households. 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 anEnnXSlad 90 that oh ha I'm 1
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 there
fore, begrudge him his earthly longevity. |
in all the ages there has not single loafer
entered Heaven. There is no place there |
for him to hang around Not in the tenn
piles, for they are full of the most yigor-
Gus, alert and rapturous worship. Not on
the river bank, for that is the place where
the conquerors 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 go early, rejoice for them that thew
have so soon got through with human life
which at best is a struggle And if the
useless and 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.
bankruptcy, persecution, the
three black vultures sometimes putting
their fierce beaks into one set of tangled
nerves: l think now of a good friend l
once had. He was consecrated Christian
man, an elder in the church and as pol
ished 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
the paralysis struck him. Having by poor
health been compelled suddenly to quit
he lost what property he had
Then his beautiful daughter died. Then
a son became hopelessly demented An
other son, splendid Cs mind and command
ing of presence, resolved that he would
Jake care of his fathers household, but :
lnder the swoop of yellow fever at Fer
nandina. 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
AXE such a trouble and set it to music, or
play it on violin or flute or dulcimer or {
'ackbut, but 1 dare to open that dark say
ng on a gospel harp.
GU wonder that very consecrated peo-
Die have trouble? Did you ever know any
Tery consecrated man or woman who had {
l.