Daily Yellowstone journal., 1889-03-03
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON.
oDmE OF THE QUESTIONS THAT
MEN ARE ALWAYS ASKING.

MEN ARE ALWAYS ASKING.
rwAy DO Useful Human Beings Die Youngf
why DO So Many Good People Have So
mach rroubiee-why Is There Sin In the
> werid?-other Problems.
BRooKLYN, Feb. 2l.-The audience
GAat crowded the immense auditorium
81 the Brooklyn Tabernacle and the
adjoining lecture and parlors
tnday united in singing;
Sun of my soul thou Saviour dear.
II is not night IL thou be near.
On. Talmage preached on the sub
10: Ozark Sayings on a Harp" Text
Xix Psalm Of David, verse A.: ~
will open my dark sayings on a harp"
The world is full OF the inexplicable,
ehs impossible, th0nnfathomable, the
3nmrmountable. We cannot go three
caps in any direction without coming
mp against q hard wall of mystery,
riddles, paradoxes, profundities, laby-
rinths, problems that we cannot solve,
Aieroglyphics that we cannot decipher,
anagrams we cannot spell out
Rhinxes 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
ayings on a 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 a right
10 ask, why is thisi and why is thati
and I think ! will be doing a good
work by trying TO explain 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
al asked ourselves, while i try to set
these mysteries to music and open my
dark sayings On q 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 O nuisance or a
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 o TO be put to death, saying:
sNWhy doth God suffer me and such
other caterpillars to live that can do
nothing but consume the aims of the
church, and take away 70 many
worthy workmen in the Lords vine
yardf" Similar questions IN often
asked. Here are two men. The one
h Q noble character and a 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, Dr. 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 one day before he has paid
Oh the mortgage on his house he is
coming home through a strong north
east wind and a 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 a
man who, though strong and well, lets
his wife support him; he is round at
the grocery store or some general loaf
ing 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 because the coffee is
cold when he comes TO a late break
Inst 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
b that mans funeral: but he declines
tDdie; he lives on and ON and on. So
Va have all noticed that many of the
useful are early cut off while the
parasites Of society have great vital
~tsnacity.
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 use
full man was taken out of the world,
because he and his family were so con-
structed that they could not have n
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
fwallows up ten thousand households.
And SO he went while he was humble
and c~onsecrated, and they were by the
seventies of life kept close TO Christ
and fitted for usefulness here and high
Beats 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 of
glory and reward for which no other
kind of life could have fitted them.
On the other hand, the useless man
lived on 10 fifty, or sixty, or seventy
years, because all the ease he ever can
have he must have in this world, nnd
you ought not, therefore, begrude him
his earthly longevity. In all the ages
there has not a single loafer ever en-
tered heaven. There is NO place for
himthere 10 hang around. Not in the
temples, for they are full Of the most
vigorous, alert and rapturous wor-
dim MOI nm fha river hank for that's