Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1891-10-09

positive you can in earnestness smite
vour hand on your p ough- handle, or
your carpenters bench, or your Black
stones Commeni ares or your medical
dictionary, or yoar DR. Dicks Didactic
| Theology, saying: "tor this end was
| | born" There are children who
early develop natural atlinlties for
certain styles of work. When the
| father of the astronomer Forbes was
going To London, he asked his children
\ what presents he should bring each
one of them. The boy who was to be
an astronomer cried out, Bring me Il
telescope." 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 draughtsmen or artists
of some kind. And you find others
ciphering ont difficult problems with
rare interest and success, and you know
they will be matnematicians. Others
making wheels and strange con-
trivances, and Won know they are
going TO be marhinists. And others
are found experimenting with hoe and
| plough and sickle, and you know they
will be farmers. And others are al
ways swapping jack knives or balls or
bats, and making something by the
| bargain, and they are going to be mer-
chants When Able &c 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 the comes time when
he does not know what he was made
Tor, and HI, parents do not know, and
it is crisis that God only decide.
Then there are those born for some
especial work, and their fitness does
not develop until quite late. When
| Phillip Doddridge, whose serm ons
and books have harvested uncouuted
souls for glory, began TO study the
ministry, DR.. Calamy, one of the wisest
aud best men, advised him to turn his
| thoughts to some other work. Isaac
Barrow, the eminent clergyman and
Christian seize books standard
now though he has been dead over two
| hundred years-was the dishearten-
ment of his father who used TO say that
| ii it pleased cod 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 mighties5 benefactors
or benefactresses of the human race.
These things being SO, am | not right
in saying that IN many case, God only
! knows what Is the most appro-
| pirate 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 a
large number OF those who spent their
best years in STUN bling about among
businesses and occupations, now trying
| this and now trying that, and failing
in all, would be able to go ahead with
definite, decided and tremendous
purpose, saying, TO this end was
born.
But my subject now mounts into the
momentOus. Let me say that you are
made for usefulness and heaven. |
judge this from the way you are built.
You go into shop where there is
only one wheel turning and that by a
worllman's foot on treadle, and you
say to yourself: Here is something
good being done, yet on small
SCALE but if you 60 into a fac tory
covering many acres, and You find thou
sands OF bands pulling on thousands of
wheels and sh titles flying, and the
| whole scene bewildering with activi-
ties, driven by water, or steam or
electric power, you conclude that the
factory was put up to do great work
| and on a vast scale. Now, | look at
you, and If | should ind that you hal
only one faculty OF body, on muscle,
only one nerve. if you could see but
could not hear, or could hear and not
SEE, ii you had the use of
only one foot or one hand, and,
/ L
! you had only one mental faculty
and you had memory but no Judgment,
! or judgment ut no will. and if you
had a soul with only one capacity,
woalc say not much is expected of You.
But stand up, oh man, and let me look
| you squarelv in the face. Eyes capab BILE
of seeing everything. Ears capable of
! hearing everything. Hands capable of
grasping everything. Mind with more
! wheels than any factory ever turned,
more power than Corliss engine ever
moved. A soul that will outlive all the
universe except heaven, and wouio
outiive all heaven if the life of other
! immortals were a moment short OF the
| eternal. Now, wnat has the world "a
| right to expect of you? What has God
a right TO demand of YOU? Goa is the
greatest of economists in the universe,
and he makes nothing u,elessly, and
for what purpose id he build your
! body, mind and soul as they are
| built? There are only two beings in
the universe who can answer that
! question. The angels do not know.
| The schools do not know Your kin
dred cannot certainly know. God
| knows, and yon ought To know. A
factory running at an expense of $780,
600 a year, and turning out goods
worth seventy cents year would not
b. such an incongruity as you, oh
man, with such semiinfnitc equip
ment doing nothing, or next to moth
ing, in the way OF usefulness. What
shall do?' you ask. My brethren, my
sisters, do not ask me. Ask GOD.
There's some path of Christian useful.
ness open. 1t my be rough path or
it may be smooth path, a long path
or a short path. 1t may be on a mount
of conspicu,ty, or in n valley unob-
served, but it is a path on which you
! can start with such faith and such sat