Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1891-10-09
REV. DR.. TALMAGH.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
Subjccr "why Was l Born"

tuiONu lulO iut iNuOutA duu uth7
turbances swept that river and its banks,
Then the body was taken out and re-
moved TO Lausanne and put into q deeper
pool, which Immediately became the centre
of similar atmospheric and aqueous dis
turbances. Though these are fanciful and
false traditions they show the execration
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 a court of oyer and terminer. Plate said
to his prisoner, art Thou a king, then"
and Jesus answered, 80 this end was
born" Sure enough, although all earth and
hell arose to keep Him down, He is to-day
empalacej, enthronel and coronatedking 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 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 ! 10 be- What am
going to be- What was / made forT' lt
is a sensible and righteous question: AMI 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 a less expansive
scale, ITO this end was | born"
There is too much divine skill shown in tho
physical, mental and moral constitution Of
the ordinary human being to suppose that
he was constructed without any divine pur'
pose. If you take me out on some vast plain
and show me pillared temple surmountod by
dome like st. Peters and having floor
of precious stones, and arches that must have
taxed the brain of the greatest craftsman to
design, 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 nothing at
all" how could believe YOU
And il is impossible for me to believe that
any ordinary human being who has in his
muscular. nervous and cerebral organization
more wonders than Christopher Wren lifted
in St. Pau's, or Phidias ever chiseled on the
Acropolis, and built in such way that it
shall last long after St PaufS cathedral is
as much a ruin as the Parthenon that such
q being was constructed for no purpose, and
10 execute no mission, and without any d.
vine intention toward some end. The object
Of this sermon is to help you to find out what
you are made for, and help you to find your
sphere. and assist you in that condition where
you can say with certainty and emphasis and
enthusiasm and triumph, 10 this end was
born
First, discharge you from all response
bility Tor most of your environments. You
are not responsible for your parentage or
grandparentage. You are not responsible
for any of the cranks that may have lived
in your ancestral line and who hundred
years before you were born may have lived
n 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-
cholc or bilious or Emphatic or nervous.
" he 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 | born" How will
you decide it: By direct application to the
only Being in the universe who Is competent
10 tell you-the Lord Almighty. Do you
know the reason whv He is the only one who
can teiis 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 Being who can see what
has cen happening for the last 1--WE hun
dred years in your ancestral line and Tor
thousands of wears clear back to Adam, AMI
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 II you into consideration
is God. and He Is the one you can ask. Lie
is so short we have no time TO experiment
with occupationj and professions
The reason we have so many deal failures
is that parents decide for children what they
shall do, or children themselves, wrought on
by some within or fancy, decide for them
selves without any imploration Of divine
guidance. So we have now in pulpits men
making sermons who ought to be IN black
smith shops making powshares, and we have
in the law those who instead OF running th3
cases of their clients ought to be pounding
shoe lasts and doctors who are tho worst
hindrances to their patients convalescence,
and artists trying to paint landscapes WHO
ought to be whitewashin. board fenc IS.
While there are others making bricSs who
ought to be remodeling constitutions, or
showing planes who ought to be transform
ing literatures Ask God about what worldly
business you shall undertake until You are
80 positive YOU can in earnestness smit9 your
hand on your pillow handle. or your carpsn-
ter's bench. or your Blackstone's "Commsn-
taries, or your medical dictionary, or your
DR.. Dicks "Didactic Theology" saying
For this end was born"
There are children who early develop nat
ural afiinities for certain styles OF WORK
When the father of the astronomer FORBES
was going 10 London he asked his children
what present he should bring each one OF
A. 9 l.n netT
omer called out, Bring me a telescopeT
And there are children whom you find all
bv 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. and you know they are 70 be mathema-
tic.ans. AMI others making wheels ana
strange contrivances, and you know they
are going to be machinists. AMI others are
found experimenting with hoe audplow and
sickle, and you know they will be farmers
And others are always swapping jachknives
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 in
studying Greek that he could translate
Anacreon at twelve years OF age, there was
no doubt left that he was intended for a
scholar. But in almost every lad tnere
comes times when he does not know what
be was made for, and his parents do not
know. and it is n crisis tnat God only can
decide Then there are those born Tor some
especial work, and their fitness does not de-
velop until quite late When Philip Dol
bridge, whose sermons and books have har-
vested uncounted souls for glory, began to
study the ministry, Dr. Calamy, one OF the
wisest AMI best men, advised him TO turn his
thoughts to some other work. Isaac Barrow,
an eminent clergyman and Christian scien-
tist-h;s books standard now, thought he
had been dead over two hundred years-was
the disheartenment Of his father, who used
TO say that if it pleased God to take any OF
his children away he hoped it might be his
son Isaac So some of those who have been
characterized for their stupidity in boyhood
or girlhood have turned out the mightiest
benefactors or benefactreSses OF the human
race.
These things being so. am l not right in
caying that in many cases God only Knows
what is the most appropriate thing for you
TO do, and He is the One TO ask. And let all
parents and all schools and all universities
and all colleges recognize this, and large
number of those who spent their best years
in stumbling about among businesses and
occupations, now trying this and now trying
that, and failing in all, would be able to 60
ahead with definite, decided ami trenen1-
Gus purpose, saying, 10 this enl was
born"
But my subject now mounts into tde
momentous. Let me say that you are made
for usefulness and heaven. judge this from