The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1891-10-21
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
You Should Ask God About Your
Y Worldly Business.
Do the Right Thing at the Right Time an,:
Go About 1t in the Right Way,
and AL Will Be Well.

taken from John Xviii, 81: 10 this
end was I born"
After Plate had suicided tradition saws
that his body was thrown into the Tibel,
and such storms ensued on and about
that river that his body was taken out
and thrown into the Rhone, and similar
disturbances swept that river and its
banks. Then the body was taken out
and removed to Lausanne and put in a
deeper pool, which Immediately became
the center of similar atmospheric and
aqueous disturbances. Though these
are fanciful and false traditions they
show the execration with which the
world looked upon PLATE. 1t was be-
fore 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
q King, them" and Jesus answered.:
ITO this end was born" Sure enough,
although all earth and hell arose to keep
Him down, He is to-day empalaced, en-
throned and coronated King of earth
and King of Heaven. "To this end was
/ born 1" That is what he came for, and
that was what He accomplished.
By the time 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 be? What am going to do?
What was made for? 1t is sensible
and righteous question, and the youth
ought to keep on asking it until it is SO
fully answered that the young man or
young woman can say with as much
truth as its author. though on less
expansive scale: "To 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 sur
mounted by dome like St Peter, and
having floor of precious stones, and
arches that must have taxed the brain
of the greatest draughtsman to design,
and walls scrolled and niched and pam
eled and wainscotted and painted, and
should ask you what this building
was put up for, and you answered, 'for
nothing at ALL" how could l believe
you? And it is impossible for me to
believe that any ordinary human be-
ing who has in his muscular, nervous
and cerebral organization more Won
ders than Christopher Wren lifted in
st. Paul, or Phidias ever chiseled on
the Acropolis, and built in such a way
that it shall last long after st. Paul
Cathedral is as much ruin as the Par
thenon-that such a being was con-
structed for no purpose, and to execute
no mission, and without any Divine in
tention 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
intu that condition where you can say
with certainty and emphasis and enthu-
siasm and triumph: $40 this end was ]
bern" FFH
First discharge you from all re-
sponsibility for most of your environ
ments. You are not responsible for
your parentage, or grandparentage.
You are not responsible for any Of the
cranks that may have lived in your an
cestral line, and who hundred years
before you were born may haye lived q
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, o,
Emphatic, or nervous. Neither, are
you responsible for the place Of YOU
nativity, whether the granite hills O.
New England or the cotton plantations
of Louisiana, or. on, the banks OF the
Clyde, or the Dnieper, or the Shannon
or the Seine. Neither are You respon
sible for the religion taught in your ia
theirs house, or the irreligion. Do no
bother yourself about what you can no
help, or about circumstances tina
you did not decree. Take things a
they are and decide the question s.
that you shall be able safely to say
''To this end l was born" How will
you decide it? By direct application t
the only being in the universe who
competent to tell you-the Lord Al
mighty. Do you know the reason VIII.
He is the only one who can tell? BE
caused He can see every thing betwee
your cradle and your grave, thong
your grave be eighty years off. An
besides that, He is the only being VIII
can see what has been happening fo
the last five hundred years in you
ancestral line, and for thousands c
wears clear back to Adam, and Their
is not one person in all that ancestrf
line of six thousand years br
has somehow affected your cha1
acter and even old Adam himsel
will sometimes turn up in your dispt
sition The only being who can TAX
all things that pertain to you into COZ
sideration is God, and He is the one yo
can ask Life is so short we have L
time to experiment with occupation
and professions. The reason we ha,
so many dead failures is that paren
decide for their children what the
shall do, or children themselve
wrought on by some whim or fame.
decide for themselves without any in
ploration of divine guidance. So v
have now in our pulpits men makir
sermons who ought to be in blacllsmi'
shops making plowshares, and we ha'
in the law those who, instead of rui
ing the cases of their clients, ought to
pounding shoe lasts. and doctors wi
are the worst hindrances to their p
tents convalescence, and artists tryil
to paint landscapes who ought to
| xrb;.aur,Sl;pr hoard fapceS Whi