Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1891-10-22
REV. DIR. fALMAGE.
THE BNDoKLYN DIvINEs SUN,
DAY SERMON,
Subjects "what Were We Made For

TEXT: 40 This end was I 5orn.n-Johr
xviii, 81.
After Plate had suicided, tradition say:
that his body was thrown into the Tiher.
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 a deeper
pool, which Immediately became the centre
OF similar atmospheric and aqueous dis
turbances. Though these ara fanciful and
false traditions they show the execration
with which the world looked upon PLATE. Ii
was before this man when he was in full life
ana power that Christ was arraigned ms
in court of oyer and terminer. PLATE said
to his prisoner, "Art Thou a king, thens'
and Jesus answered, ITO this end was |
born" Sure enough. although all earth and
hell arose to keep Him down, He is to-day
empalace5, enthrone1 and coronated king OF
earth and king Of heaven. ITO this end was
born" 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 bep What was | made for?' II
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 expansi We
scale, 40 this end was borno
There is too much divine skill shown in the
physical, mental and moral constitution of
the ordinary human being to suppose that
he was constructed without any divine pur
pose. Ii you take me out on some vast plain
and show me pillared temple surmounted by
a dome ike st. Peters, and having a fool
OF precious stones, and arches that must have
taxed the brain of the greatest craftsman to
design, and walls scrolled and niched ana
paneled and wainscoted and painted, and ]
should ask you what this building was put
up for. and you answered, For nothing OF
all" how could believe you?
And il is impossible for ne to believe that
any ordinary human being who has in his
muscular, nervous and Ger ebral organization
more wonders than Christopher Wren lifted
in st. Paul's, or Phidias ever chseled on the
Acropolis, and built in such way that it
saall last long after St. Paurs cathedral is
beng was constructed for no purpose, and
to execute no mission, and without any di-
vine Intention toward some end. The object
OF this sermon is to help you to find out what
you are made Tor, ana help you to find your
sphere, and assist you in that condition wnere
you can say with certainty and emphasis and
enthusiasm and triumph, ITO this end was l
born.o
First discharge you from all response
bility for most OF your environments. You
are not responsible for your parentage or
grandparentage. You are not responsible
Tor any OF the cranks that may have lived
in your ancestral line, and who 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 melan-
chohc or bilious or Emphatic or nervous.
Neither are you responsible Tor the place of
your nativity, among the granite hills of
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 responsible for the religion
taught in your fathers house, nor the ire
ligion. Do not bother yourself about what
you cannot help, or about circumstances
that you did not decree.
Take things as they are and decide the
question SO that you shall be able safely to
say, 40 this end was l born" How will
you decide itS 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 tells Because He can see everything be-
tween your cradle and your grave, though
the grave be eighty years off. And, besides
that, He is the only Beng who can see what
has ceen happening for the last five hum
dred years i'll 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 character, and even old Adam
himself will sometimes turn up in your dis
position. The only being who can take all
things that pertain to you into consideration
is God, and He is the one you can ask. Life
is so short we have no time to experiment
with occupations and professions.
The reason we have so many dead failures
is that parents decide for children what they
shall do, or children themselves, wrought on
by some whim OF fancy, decide for them
selves without any imploration of divine
guidance. So we have now in pulpits non
making sermons who ought to be in black
smith 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 who are the worst
hindrances to their patients convalescence,
and artists trying to paint landscapes who
ought to be embarrassing board fences.
While there are others making bricks who
ought to be remodeling constitutions, OF
showing planes who ought to be transform
ing literatures Ask God about what worldly
business you shall undertake until you are
SO positive you can in earnestness smite your
hand on your pillow handle, or your carpen-
ter's bench, or your Blackstone's "Commen-
taries,n or your medical dictionary, or your
DR.. Dicks "Didactic Theology" saying,
For this end was born"
There are children who early develop nat
ural aiiinities 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 astron-
omer called out, Bring me telescopev'
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 cyphering out
difficult problems with rare interest and sue
cess, ana you know they are to be mathema.
ticians. And Others making wheels and
strange contrivances, and you know they
are going to be machinsts. And others are
found experimenting with hoe andplow and
sickle, and you know they will be farmers.
And others are always swapping Jackknlves
or balls or bats and making something by
the bargain, and they are going to be mer
chants.
When Able de Rance had so advanced il
studying Greek that he could translate
Anacreon at twelve years of age, there wa.
no Goubt left that he was intended for Q
scholar. But in almost every lad there
comes a times when he does not know wha1
he was made for, and his parents do moi
know, and it is crisis that God only can
decide. Then there are those born for som'