Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-10-09
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
Or. TALMAGE ON THE MISSION
OF CHRIST.
The Text Taken from John is: 81
tito this End was 4 Born''-A
Chapter from the Great Preachers
Everyday Life.

1000 persons on the main floor, in the
two galleries, and the adjoining
rooms rise and sing the DoXology. This
morning in addition to the congrega-
tional singing, Prof. Henry Eyre
Browne rendered from the organ,
Theme and Variations in A." by
Kramer. DR.. Talmage's text was
taken from John 1881 ITO this end
was | born"
After PLATE had sutcided. tradition
says that his body was thrown into
the Tiber. 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 Lau-
same, and put in a deeper pool, which
Immediately became the center of
similar atmospheric and aqueous dis
turbanees. Though these are fanciful
and false traditions, they Snow
the eXecration with which the world
looked upon Plate. 1t was before this
man when he was in full life and pow
err 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; "To this
end was | born Sure enough, al
though all earth and hell arose to
keep him down. He is to day empal-
aced, enthroned and coroneted king of
earth and king of Heaven. ITO this
end was I born" That is what he
came for, and that was what he ac-
complished.
by the time the child reaches ten
years of age the parents begin to dis
cover that childs destiny; but by the
time he or she reaches fifteen years of
age, the question is on the child lips:
"What am to be? What am going
to be? What was / made for?" 1t is II
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 expansive scale: 40
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 pillared temple surmounted
by dome like st. Peters, and having
floor of precious stones, and arches
that must have taxed the brain of
he greatest draughtsman to de-
sign, and walls scrolled and
niched and paneled and wainscotted
and painted, and | should ask you what
this building was put up for, and you
answered: For nothing at all" how
could believe you? sAnd it Is impos-
sible for me TO believe that any ordi-
L. l. L. 4
cular, nervous and cerebral organiza-
ton more wonders than Christopher
Wren lifted in ST. Pauls, or Phidias
ever chiseled on the Acropolis, and
built in such way that it shall last
long after st. Paul's Cathedral is rs
much ruin as the Parthenon-that
such being was constructed for'no
purpose. and to execute no mission,
and without any divine intention to-
ward some end. The object of this
sermon is to help you to find out what
you are made for, ana help you find
your sphere, and assist you into that
condition where you can say with GER
ttainty and emphasis and enthusiasm
and triumpR:''To this end was bora"
First, / discharge yoa from all re-
sponsibility for most of your environ
ments. You are not responsible for
your parentage, or grand-parentage.
You are not responsible for any of the
cranks that may have lived in your
ancestral line, and who a hundred
years before you were born, may have
lived 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,
or lymphatic, or nervous Neither are
you responsible for the place of your
nativity, whether 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, or the ir-
religion. Do not bother Yourself
about what you cannot help, or about
circumstances that you did not de-
cree. Take things as they are and de-
eide the question so that YOU shall be
able safely to say: ''1o this end was /
born" How will you decide it? 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 between your cradle and
your grave, though the grave be eighty
years off. And besides that, He
Is the only Being who can see
whas has been happening for
the last FIVE hundred years in
your ancestral line, and for thous ands
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 MP In your disposition. The only
Being who can take ell things that per-
tain to you into consideration is God.
and he is the one you can ask. Life is
so short that we have no time to ex-
pertinent with occupations and profess
sions. 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 within or fancy, decide for them
selves without any imploratiop of di-
vine guidance. So we have now in
pulpits men making sermons " hoought
TO be in blacksmith shops making
ploughshares, 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 N 'udrances 20 their patientsf