Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-07-23
WHAT Is LIFE WORTH
REV. DR.. TALMAGE SAYS 1T DEPENDS
UPON CIRCUMSTANCES

Then 1t Is Worth Living-A Strong,
Breezy and Optimistic Discourse by the
Great Preacher.
BROOKLYN, July 22.-Rev. Dr.. Tai
mage, who is now touring in Che Aus
Eralian cities, has chosen as the subject
for today's sermon through the press
t'Worth Living" the text being taken
from Lamentations iii, 80, Wherefore
doth living man complaint"
If we leave to the evolutionists to
guess where we came from and to the
theologians to prophesy where we are
going to, we still have left for consider
alton the important fact that we are
here. There may be some doubt about
where the river rises and some doubt
about where the river empties, but there
can be no doubt about the fact that we
are sailing on it. So I am not surprised
that everybody asks the question, els
life worth iving?''
Solomon III his unhappy moments says
it is not. 'fVanity,'' ''vexation of
spirit, - mo good,'' are his estimate
The fact is that Solomon was at one
time q polygarnist, and that soured his
disposition. One wife makes a man
happy; more than one makes him
wretched But Solomon was converted
from polygamy to monogamy, and the
last words he ever wrote, as far as we
can read them, were the words "moun-
tains of spioes.'' But jeremiah says in
my text life is worth living.
In book supposed to be doleful and
iugubrious and sepulchral and entitled
demonstrations he plainly intimates
that the blessing of merely living is SO
great and grand q blessing that though
a man have piled on him all misfor-
tunes and disasters he has no right to
complain. The author Of my text cries
out in startling information to all lands
and to all centuries, Wherefore doth a
living man complaint A diversity Of
opinion III our time as well as in olden
time. Here is a young man Of light hair
and blue eyes and sound digestion and
generous salary and happily afianced
and in the way to become the partner
IN commercial firm of which he is an
important clerk. Ask him whether life
is worth living He will laugh in your
face and say, Eyes, yes, yesI' Here is
u man who has come to the forties. He
is at the tiptop of the hill of life. Ev-
cry step has been q stumble and 4
bruise. The people he trusted have
turned out deserters, and the money he |
has honestly made he has been cheated 1
out of. His nerves are out of tune. He
has poor appetite, and all the food he
does eat does not assimilate. Forty miles
climbing up the hill of life have been
to him like climbing the Matterhorn,
and there are 40 miles yet to go down,
and descent is always more dangerous
ArI- IL 20 SC,
worth living, and he will drawl out in
shivering and lugubrious and appalling
negative, '<No, no, no!''
1t Depends Upon the Kind of Life.
How are we to decide this matter
Fighteously and intelligently? You Will
find the same man vacillating, oscillat-
ing i'll his opinion from detection to ex-
uberance, and if he be very mercurial in
his temperament it will depend very
much upon which way the wind blows.
If the wind blow from the northwest,
and you ask him, he will say, eyes, "
and if it blow from the northeast, and |
you ask him, he will say ''No. =
How are we, then, to get the question
righteously answered? Suppose we cali
all nations together in a great con-
vention on eastern or western heni-
sphere and let all those who are in the |
affirmative say ''Aye,'' and ali those
who are in the negative say ''No."
While there would be hundreds of
thousands who would answer in the az
firmative, there would be more millions
who would answer in the negative, and
because of the greater number who have
sorrow and misfortune and trouble the
is'noes" would have it. The answer i
shall give will be different from either,
and yet it will commend itself to all
who hear me this day as the right an
swer. If you ask me, ''Is life worth liv:
fng?'' I answer, it all depends upon the
kind of life you live
In the first place. 1 remark that life
of mere money getting is always a fail
ure, because you will never get as much
as you want The poorest people in this
country are the richest and the next to
them those who are half as rich. There
is not scissors grinder on the streets Of
New York Or Brooklyn who is SO anx-
ious to make money as these men who
have piled up fortunes year after year
I'm stOrehouses, in government securities,
lin tenement houses, in whole city
blocks.
You ought to see them jump when
they hear the frebell ring You ought
TO see them in their excitement when
some bank explodes. You ought to see
their agitation when there is proposed
reformation in the tariff. Their nerves
tremble like harp strings, but no music
fn the vibration. They read the reports
from Wall street in the morning with
lconcernment that threatens paralysis OF
hpoplexy, or, more probably, they have
telegraph or a telephone in their house,
30 they catch every breath of change in