Milford chronicle., 1891-10-09
THETABERNACLEPULPTT
DR.. TALMAeE ASKS THE QUESTION
"WHAT WERE YOU MADE FORr

WHAT WE'RE YOU MADE rum
His Text Taken from John xviii, 81 ITO
This End Was Born''-An Able Dis
course Preceded by an Impressive
Scene.
BROOKLYN, Oct. A most impressive
scene is that witnessed in the Brooklyn
Tabernacle, when at the opening OF the
morning service seven thousand persons
on the main floor in the two galleries and
the adjoining rooms, rise and sing the
Doxology This morning in addition to
the congregational singing Professor Henry
Eyre Browne rendered from the orgap'
'Theme and Variations IN A, by Kramer.
9 DR.. Talmage's text was taken from John
xviii, 81, "To this end was l born"
After PLATE had suicided, tradition says
that his body was thrown into the Iiber'
and such storms ensued on and about that
river that his body was taken out and
thrown into the Rhone, and similar dis
turbances swept that river and its banks.
Then the body WAS taken out and re-
moved TO Lausanne and put into deeper
pool. which Immediately became the center
of similar atmospheric and aqueous dis
turbances. Though these are fancitul ana
false traditions they show the eXecration
with which the world looked upon PLATE.
II WAS before this man when he WAS In tull
life and mower that Christ WAS arraigned as
in a court Of oyer and terminer Plate
said to his prisoner, Art thou king,
then?" and Jesus answered, TO thls eno
was | born" Sure enough, although all
earth and hell arose to keep him down, he
is today empalaced, enthroned and coro-
mated king of earth and king OF heaven.
"To this end was ! born" That is what
he came for and that was what he accom-
plished.
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 childs lips: What am to be!
What am l going to be7 What was !
made forR" 1t is a sensible and righteous
question, and the youth ought to keep on
asking it until it is so fully answered that
the young man or the young woman can
say with as much truth as its author,
though on less expansive SCALE TO this
end was ! born"
AN UNANswERABLE QUESTION.
There is too much divine skill shown IN
the physical, mental aud moral constitu-
nose that he was constructed without any
divine purpose If you take me out on
some vast plain and show me a pillared
temple surmounted by dome like st,
Peters, and having a floor of precious
stones. and arches that must have taxed
the brain of the greatest craftsman to de-
sign. and walls scrolled and niched and
paneled and wainscoted and painted, and
should ask you what this building was
put up for, and you answered, For moth
ing at all ," how could believe your
And it is impossible for me to believe
that any ordinary human being who has
in his muscular. nervous seld cerebral or
oapization more wonders than Christopher
Wren lifted in st. PaulN, or Phidias ever
cbiseled on the Acropolis. and built i'll such
a way that it shall last long after St. Pauls
cathedral is as much ruin as the Parthe-
non-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
helm YOU TO find out what you are made
for, and help you find your sphere, and as
sist YOU into that condition where you can
saw with certainty and emphasis and en-
thusiasm and triumph, ITO this end was
born"
THINGS you ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR.
First, discharge you from all RESPONSE
biljty for most of your environments. You
are not responsible for your parentage or
grandparentage. You are not responsible
for any of the craeiis that may have llVeq
in your ancestral line, and who hundred
wears before you were born may have lived
a style of life that more or less Affects you
today You are not responsible for the
,n,vsurn asauaf 10
or melancholic or bilious or Emphatic or
nervous. Neither are you responsible for
he place Of your nativity, whether among
the granite bills Of New England, or the
cotton plantations Of Louisiana, or on the
hanks Of the Clyde, or the Dnieper, or the
Shannon. or the Seine. Neither are you re-
sponsible for the religion Taught IN your
fathers house, nor the irreligion. 10 not
bother yourself about what you cannot
help. or about circumstances that you did
Take things as they are and decide the
question so that you shall be able safely 70
saw ITO this end was ! born" How VIII
YOU decide ita BY direct application to the
only Being in the universe who is compe-
tent TO tell you--the Lord Almighty. DO
Won know the reason why he is the only
one who can tellP Because he can see
everything between your cradle and your
grave. though the grave be eighty years
of And, besides that. he is the only be
ing who can see what has been happening
for the last five hundred years in your an-
cestral 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 aneeted
YOUR character and even old Adam him
self will sometimes turn up In your dispo-
sition. The only being who can Jake All
things that pertain to you into consldera-
tion is God, and he is the one you can ask
Life is so short we have no time TO expert
ment with occupations and professions.
The reason we have so many dead IAN
ures is that parents decide for children
what they shall do, or children themselves,
wrought on by some whim or fancy, decide
for themselves without any iniploration
Of divine guidance So we have now IN
pulpits nls,n making sermons who ought to
be in blacksmith shops making plowshares,
and we have in the law those who Instead
of running the cases Of their clients ought
to be pounding shoe lasts, and doctors VINO
are the worst hindrances to their patients
copvalescence, and artists trying to paint
landscapes who ought to be whitewashing
hoard fences. While there are others MAX
ing bricks who ought to be remodeling
constitutions, or showing planes who ought
to be transforming literatures. ASK God
about what worldly business you shall I'M
dertake until you are SO positive you can
in earnestness smite your hand on your
piow handle. or your carpenters bench or
vour Blaekstones commentaries" or
your medical dictionary, or your Dr.
Dicks "Didactic Theology" saying. FOR
this end was born"
There are children who early develop
natural afinities for certain styles Of work.
When the father Of the astronomer Forbes
was going to London he asked his children
what present he should bring each one OF
them. The boy who was TO be an astrono-
mer cried out, Bring me teleseopep'
And there are children whom you find all
by themselves drawing on their states, or
on paper, ships or houses or birds, and you
know they are to be craftsmen or artists OF
some kind. And you find others cypher-
ing out difficult problems with rare inter
est and success, and YOU know they are TO
be mathematicians And otherA4naking
n