Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-10-10
REV. DR.. 7ALMAGH
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.


Subject: "why Was Born
TEXT: ITO this end res 5oiu.--John
xviii, 81.
After PLATE had suicide3, tradition saws
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 deeper
pool, which Immediately became the centre
OF similar atmospheric and aqueous dis
turbances, Though these are fanciful and
false traditions, they show the execratiou
with which the world looked upon PLATE. Il
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 king, Them
and Jesus answered, 10 this end was I
born" Sure enough. although all earth and
hell arose to keep Him down, He is to-day
empalaced, enthronei and coronatsd king OF
earth and king of heaven. 80 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 chiId,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 be- What was | made forsp 1t
is sensible and righteous question, an 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
There is too much divine skill shown in thu
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 pain
and show me pillared temple surmounted by
Come like St Peters, and having a floor
of precious stones, and arches that must have
| taxed the brain of the greatest craftsman to
design, and walls scroilei and niched and
paneled and wainscoted and painted, and
should ask you what this building was ont
up for. and YOU answered, For nothing 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 and cer ebral organization
more wonders than Christopher Wren lifted
IN st. Paups. or Phidias ever chiseed on the
AcropollS and built in such a way that it
shall last long after st. Paui's cathedral is
as much ruin as the Parthenon that such
being 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 for, ana 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
style of life that more or less aft scts you to-
day. You are not responsible for the fact
that your temperament is sanguine or melan-
cholc or bilious or Emphatic or nervous.
Neither are you responsible for tine 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 | born" How will
you decide itf 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 tell? 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 neen happening for the last five hun
dred years in 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 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 plowshares, and we have
in the law those who instead OF running tina
cases of their clients ought to be pounl ling
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, or
showing planes who ought to be transform
ing literatures. Ask God about what worldly
business you shalt 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 'Commsn-
taries, or your 1ledicll dictionary, or your
DIR. Dicks "Didactc Theology saying,
For this end was born
There are children who early develop nat
ural affinities 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 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 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 mathena-
tic;ans And others making wheels and
strange contrivances, and you know they
are going to be machinists. And others are
found experimenting with hoe and pillow AMI
SICKLE and you know they will bs farmers.
And others are always swapping iackknives
or balls or bats and making something by
the bargain, and they are going to b mer-
chants.
When Abbe 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
scholar But in almost every lad there
comes times when he does not know what
he was made for and his parents do not
know and it Is a crisis that Col only can
decide. Then there are those born for some
especial work, and their fitues; DOES not de-
velop until quite late. When Philip Dod-
bridge whose sermons and books have har-
vested uncounted souls for glory, began to
study the ministry, DR.. Calamy, one of the
wisest and best men, advised him to turn his
thoughts to some other work. Isaac Barrow,
an eminent clergyman and Christian scieu-
tist-his 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 boyhoo
or girlhood have turned ont the mightiest
benefactors OF benefactresses of the human
race.
These things being 50, am | not right in
aging that in many cases God only knows
what is the most appropriate thing for you
TO do, aud He is the One to ask And let all
parents and all schools and all universities
aud all colleges recogRjz9 this, AMI large
number of those who spent their best year,
in stumbling about among businesses ant