Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-07-24
WHAT Is LIFE WORTH
fEV. DR.. TALMAGE SAYS 1T DEPENDS
UPON CIRCUMSTANCES.

TfIt Opens to Life That Shall Never End,
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 the Aus
ITALIAN cities, has cHosen as the subject
r today's sermon through the press
Worth Living, the text being taken
from Lamentations iii, 80, Wherefore
doth living man complaint"
IL 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 am not surprised
that everybody asks the question, els
life worth living?"
Solomon in his unhappy moments says
it is not. Vanity" ''vexation of
spirit, " mo good" are his estimate.
4 4 iiG luNb ~ Nlltlb hJOLOlllOll was ub OUG
time polygamist, 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
Gun read them, were the words ''moun.
tains of spices. But jeremiah says in
my text life is worth living
In a book supposed to he doleful and
lugubrious and sepulchral and entitled
'Lamentations" he plainly intimates
that the blessing Of merely living is so
great and grand blessing that though
man have piled on him all misfor-
ines and disasters he has no right to
complain. The author of my text cries
ont in startling intonation to all lands
and to all centuries, Wherefore doth a
living man complaint" A diversity of
opinion in our time as well rs i'll Olden
time Here is young man Of light hair
and blue eyes and sound digestion and
generous salary and happily affianced
and in the way to become the partner
i'll commercial firm of which he is aD
important clerk. Ask him whether life
is worth living. He will laugh i'll your
face and say, Eyes, yes, yesP' Here is
Is man who has come to the forties. He
is at the tiptop of the hill Of life. Ev
cry step has been stumble and a
bruise. The people he trusted have
turned out deserters, and the money he
has honestly made he has been cheated
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
than ascent. Ask him whether life is
worth living, and he will drawl out in
shivering and lugubrious and appalling
negative, "No, no, nop'
1t Depends Upon the Kind of Life.
How are we to decide this matter
righteously and intelligently? You will
find the same man vacillating, oscillat-
ing III his opinion from detection to ex
flberance, 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 call
all nations together in great con-
yention on eastern or western heml-
sphere and let all those who are in the
affirmative say Aye and all those
who arc in the negative say 'No.
While there would be hundreds Of
thousands who would answer in the af-
trmatiye, there wonld be more millions
who would answer in the negative, and
because of the greater number who have
sorrow and misfortune and trouble the
noes would have it. The answer ]
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 IT you ask me, rs life worth liv-
ing?" | answer, it all depends upon the
kind Of life you live.
III the first place, ! remark that life
Of mere money getting is always fail
urc, because you will never get as much
as you want The poorest people III this
country are the richest, and the next TO
them those who are half as rich. There
is not a 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
in storehouses, in government securities,
in tenement houses, in whole city
blocks.
You ought to see them jump when
they hear the firebell ring. You ought
to see them in their excitement when
some bank explodes. You ought to see
their agitation when there is proposed a
reformation in the tariff. Their nerves
tremblo like harp strings but no music
in the vibration. They read the reports
from Wall street in the morning with
concemment that threatens paralysis or
fpoplexy, or, more probably, they have
Telegraph or a telephone in their house,
20 they catch every breath of change in
the money market. The disease of ac-