The Brookhaven leader., 1891-10-15
TALMAGE's SERMON.
Tho Mission of Individual Man on
Earth Discoursed Upon.
why We are Here and What We are Here
FOr-Every Man Has His work
Cut Out, hut All are
Not Faithful

seven thousand persons, taxing LOT MS
text:
To this end was born.-John xviii, 81
After PLATE had suicided, tradition
says that his body was thrown into the
Tiber, and such storms ensued on and
about that river that his body
was taken out and thrown into
the Rhone, and similar disturb.
ances swept that river and its
banks. Then the body was taken out
and removed to Lausanne and out in a
deeper pool, which Immediately be-
came the center of similar atmospheric
and aqueous disturbances. Though
these are fanciful and false traditions
they show the execrations with which
the world looked upon Plate. 1t was
before this man when he was in full
life and power that Christ was arraigned
as in court of oyer and terminer.
plate said to his prisoner: art thou
r. king, thsu?" and Jesus answered.:
ITO this end was born" Sure enough,
although all earth and hell arose to
keep Him down. lie is to-day empal-
aced, enthroned and coroneted King of
earth and King of Heaven. ITO this
end was l born" That is what He
came for, and that was what lie &C
complished.
BY the time a child reaches ten years
of age the parents begin to discover
that child's destiny, but by the time he
or she reaches fifteen years of age the
question is on the child's lips: What
am | to he? What am l going to be ?
What was | made for ~ 1t is sensi-
BILE and righteous question, and the
youth ought to keep on asking it until
it is 50 fully answered that the young
man or the young woman can say, with
as much truth as its author, though on
less expansive scale. ITO this end
was | born"
There is too much Divine skill shown
in the physical, mental and moral con-
stitution of the ordinary human being
to suppose that he was constructed
without any Divine purpose. If you
take me out on some vast plain and
show me a pillared temple surmountcd
by n dome like ST. Peters and having a
floor of precious stones, and arches
that must have taxed the brain of the
greatest draughtsman to design, and
walls scrollcd and niched and paneled
and wainscoted and painted, and l
should ask you what this building was
put up for, and you answered:
For nothing at ALL" how could
i believe you? And it is i'm
possible for me to believe that
any ordinary human being who has in
his muscular. nervous and cerebral or
ganization more wonders than Christie
phor Wren lifted in st. Pauls or Phi
dias ever chiseled on the Acropolis, and
built in such way that it shall last
long after st. Paul's cathedral is as
much a ruin as the Parthenon-that
such being was constructed for no
purpose, and to execute no mission, and
without any Divine intention toward
some end. The object of this sermon
is to help you to find out what you are
made for, and help you find your
sphere, and assist you into that condi-
ton where you can say with certainty
and emphasis and enthusiasm and
triumph: TO this end was l born"
First, I discharge you from all re-
sponsibility for most Of your environ
ments. You are not responsible for
your parentage and grand parentage.
You are not responsible for any of the
cranks that may have lived in your an
cestral line, and whom hundred years
before YOU were born may have lived a
style of life that more or less affects
you to-day. You are not responsible
for the fact that your temperament is
sanguine, or melanchOlic, or bilious, or
lymphatic, or nervous. Neither are
you responsible for the place of your
nativity, whether among the granite
hills of New England or the cotton
plantations of Louisiana, or on the
banks of the Clyde, or the Dnie Der, or
the Shannon. or the Seine. Neither are
you responsible for the religion taught
in your fathers house or the rreligion
Do not bother yourself about what
you can not help, or about circum-
stances that you did not decree.
Take things as they are and decide
the question so that you shall be
able safely to say: ''TO this end was |
born" How will you decide it? BY
direct application to the only being in
the universe who is competent to tell
you-the Lord Almighty. Do you know
the reason why He is the only one who
can tell? Because He can sec every
thing between your cradle and your
grave, though the grave be eighty
years off. And besides that He is the
only being who can see what has been
happening for the last five hundred
wears in your ancestral line, and for
thousands of years, clear back to Adam
and there is not one person in all that
ancestral line of six Thousand years
but has somehow affected your char
.s,tcr, and even old Adam himself will
sometimes turn up in your disposition.
The only being who can take all
things that pertain to you into consid-
GRAFTON is God, and He is the one you
can ask. Life is so short we have no
time to experiment with occupations
and professions.
Tho reason we have as many dead
failures IS that parents decide for chill
dren what they shall do, or children
themselves, wrought on by some within
or fancy, decide for themselves without
any imploration or Divine guidance. So
we have now i'll pulpits men making
sermons who ought to be in black
smith shops making piowshares, and
we have IN the law those who instead
of running the cases of their clients
ought to be pounding shoe lasts, and
doctors who are the worst hindrances
to their patients convalescence, and
artists trying to paint landscapes who