Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-10-09

ought to be Transforming literatures.
Ask God about what worldly business
you shall undertake until you are so
positive you can in earnestness smite
yoar hand on your p ough- handle, or
your carpenters bench, or your Black
stones Comment ares, or your medical
dictionary, or your DIR. Dicks Didac tic
Theology, saying: 'Eor this end was
born" There are children who
early develop natural afinlties 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 u
telescopes" And there are children
whom you lind 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 mathematicians. Others
making wheels and strange con-
trivances, and YOU know they are
going to be machinists And others
are found experimenting with hoe and
| 1ha oAShAS1 anu pu my
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 a bbe 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 the comes tine when
he does not know what he was made
Tor, and his parents do not know, and
IL 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, DIR. 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 scientist-his books standard
now though he has been dead over two
hundred years-was the dishearten-
ment 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 mighties, benefactors
or benefactresses of the human race.
These things being so. am 1 not right
in saying that IN many cases 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 n
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 go ahead with
definite, decided and tremendous
purpose, saying, ITO 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
workman's foot on n treadle. and you
say TO Yourself Here is something
good being done, yet on small
scale;" but if you go 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 Dewildering with activi-
ties, driven by water, or steam or
electric power, you conclude that the
factory was put up TO do great work
and OH vast scale. Now, look at
you, and ii / should find that you had
only one faculty of body, on y muscle,
only one nerve. If you could see but
could not hear or could hear and not
see, if you had the use of
only one foot or one hand, and.
as TO your higher nature, if
you had only one mental faculty
and you had memory but no Judgment,
or Judgment Tut no will. and If you
had soul with only one capacity,
would. say not much is expected of you.
But stand up, oh man, and let me look
you squarely in the face. Eyes capable
of seeing every thing. Ears capable of
hearing everything. Hands capa ole 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
outlive all heaven if the life. of other
immortals were a moment short of the
eternal. Now, wnat mas the world 10
rig.t 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 uselessly, and
for what purpose did 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 kim
dred cannot certainly know. God
knows, and you ought TO know. A
factory running at an expense of $780,
900 year, and turning out goods
worth seventy cents year would not
be such an incongruity as you, oh
man, with such semi-infnite 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
IL may be smooth path, "a long path
or short path. 1t may be on q mount
of conspicuity. or in valley unob-
served, but it is path on which you
can start with such fail and such sat
isfa- lion and su Ii certainty that you
can cry out in the face of ear6h and
Il. Ill Il L. - -