The Portland daily press., 1892-10-29
SAYINGS ON A HARP.
Sermon by Rev. DR.. I. Dewitt Tai
mage, D. D.
Some of the Sins and Troubles of Earth
Set to Music = Why God Seems to
Neglect and Prosecute the Good
and Reward the Bad.

mon was, Dark Sayings on Harp" and
his text, Psalms Xix, verse 4: 81 will
open my dark sayings on harp" Follow
ing is the sermon:
The world is full of the inexplicable, the
impossible, the unfathomable, the insur-
mountable. We can not go three steps in
any direction without coming up against a
hard wall of mystery, riddles, paradoxes,
iprofundities, labyrinths, problems that we
can not solve, hieroglyphics that we can not
decipher, anagrams we can not spell out,
sphinxes that will not speak. For that
reason, David in my text proposed to take
up some of these somber and dark things
and try to set them to sweet music 81 will
open my dark sayings on a harp"
So look off upon society and find people
In unhappy conjunction of circumstances
and they do not know what it means and
they have right to ask, why is this! and
why is thata and l think l will be doing a
good work by trying to explain some of
these strange things and make you more
content with your lot, and | shall only be
answering questions that have often been
asked me, or that we have all asked our
selves, while try to set these mysteries to
music and open my dark sayings on harp.
Interrogation the first Why does God
take out of this world those who are useful
and whom we can not spare and leave alive
and in good health so many who are only a
nuisance or positive injury to the worlds
thought would begin with the very tough
est of all the seeming inscrutables, Many OF
the most useful men and women die at thirty
or forty years of age, while you often find
useless people alive at sixty and seventy and
eighty. John Careless wrote to Bradford,
who was soon to be put to death, saying
"Why doth God suffer me and such other
caterpillars to live that can do nothing but
consume the aims of the church, and take
away so many worthy workmen in the
Lords vineyard?n Similar questions are
often asked. Here are two men. The one is
anobfe character and Christian man; he
chooses for lifetime companion one who
has been tenderly reared and she is worthy
of him and he is worthy of her; as merchant
or farmer, or professional man, or mechanic,
or artist, he tolls to educate and rear his
children; he is succeeding, but he has not yet
established for his family full competency;
he seems absolutely indispensable to that
household, but one day before he has paid
off the mortgage on his house he is coming
home through a strong northeast wind, and
chill strikes through him and four days of
pneumonia end his earthly career and the
wife and children go into a struggle for
shelter and food. His next door neighber
is a man who, though strong and well, lets
his wife support him; he is round at the
grocery store or some general loafng place
in the evenings while his wife sews; his
boys are initiating his example and lounge
and swagger and swear; all the use that
man is in that house is to rave because the
r. >,o11 ,hoy, hn To 1.,fn
breakfast, or to say cutting things about his
wife's looks when he furnishes nothing for
her wardrobe. The best thing that could
happen to that family would be that man'a
funeral; but he declines to die; he lives on
and on and on. So we have all noticed that
many of the useful are early cut off while
the parasites of society have great vital
tenacity.
/ take up this dark saying on my harp and
give three or four thrums on the string in
the way of surmsing and hopeful guess.
Perhaps the useful man was taken out of
the world, because he and his family were
SO constructed that they could not have en-
dured some great prosperity that might
have been just ahead and they altogether
might have gone down in the vortex of
werldliness which every year swallows up
ten Thousand households. And so he went
while he was humble and consecrated, and
they were by the seventies of life kept
close to Christ and fitted for usefulness here
and high seats in heaven; and when they
meet at last before the throne, they will &C
knowledge that though the furnace was hot,
it purified them, and prepared them for an
eternal career of glory and reward for which
no other kind of life could have fitted them.
On the other hand, the useless man lives on
to fifty, or sixty, or seventy years. because
all the ease he ever can have he must have
in this world, and you ought not there
fore, begrudge him his earthly Ion
gevity. In all the ages there has not a
single loafer ever entered heaven. There is
no place for him there to hang around. Not
in the temples, for they are full of the most
vigorous, alert and rapturous worship. Not
on the river bank, for that is the place
where the conquerors recline. Not in the,
gates, because there are multitudes enter
ing, and we are told that at each of the
twelve gates there is an angel, and that ce-
lestial guard would not allow the place to be.
blocked up with idlers. Ii the good and,
useful go early, rejoice for them that they
have so soon got through with human life,
which at best is struggle. And if the USE
less and bad stay, rejoice that they may be
out in the worlds fresh air good many
years before their final incarceration.
Interrogation the second: Why do so many
good people have so much trouble, sickness
bankruptcy, persecution, the three black
vultures sometimes putting their fierce
beaks into one set of tangled nerves? think
now of a good friend once had. He was
consecrated Christian man, an elder in the
church and as polished Christian gentle
man as ever walked Broadway. First his
general health gave out and he hoboled
around on cane, an old man at forty. After
a while paralysis struck him. Having by
poor health been compelled suddenly to
quit business, he lost what property he had.
Then his beautiful daughter died. Then
son became hopelessly demected. Another
son, splendid of mind and commanding of
presence, resolved that he would take care
of his fathers household, but under the
swoop of yellow fever at Fernandina, Fla,
he suddenly expired. So you know good
men and women who have had enough
troubles, you think, to crush fifty people.
No worldly philosophy could take such a
trouble and set it to music, or play it on
violin, or flute, or dulcimer, or sackbut, but
! dare to open that dark saying on gospel
harp.
You wonder that very consecrated people
have trouble? Did you ever know any very
or,r ho bod