The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1894-07-27
WHAT Is LIFE WORTH
REV. Or. TALMAGE SAYS IT DEPENDS
UPON CIRCUMSTANCES.

UPON CIRCUMSTANCES.
If 1t 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. DIR. Tai
mage, who is now touring in the Aus
tralian cities, has chosen as the subject
for today's sermon through the press
Worth Living" the text being taken
from Lamentations iii, 80, Wherefore
10th 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 am not surprised
that everybody asks the question, SIS
life worth living?"
! Solomon in his unhappy moments says
1T is not. Vanity" ''vexation of
spirit, " ''no good" are his estimate.
The fact is that Solomon was at one
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
can read them, were tie words "moun-
tains Of spices" But jeremiah says in
my text life is worth living.
In book supposed to be 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
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 In 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 affianced
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, yesr' Here is
b man who has come to the forties. He
is at the tiptop Of the hill of life. Ev-
cry step has been a 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 60 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, ono, 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 Facilitating, oscillat-
ing in 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 call
all nations together in a great con-
vention on eastern or western hemi-
sphere and let all those who are in the
affirmative say aye" and all those
who are in the negative say ''No. "
While there would be hundreds Of
thousands who would answer in the af-
frmative, 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
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 If you ask me, lis life worth liv-
ing?" answer, it all depends upon the
kind of life you live.
In the first place, 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 tt
them those who are half as rich. There
is not a scissors grinder on the streets o.
New York or Brooklyn who is SO anx
ious to make money as these men who
have piled up fortunes year after veal
in storehouses, in government securities
i'm tenement houses, in whole city
blocks
| You ought to see them jump whel
they hear the firebell ring. You ough
to see them in their excitement whel
some bank explodes. You ought to SCI
their agitation when there is proposed
reformation in the tariff. Their nerve
tremble like harp strings, but no must
i'm the vibration. They read the report
from Wall street in the morning with
concernment that threatens paralysis o
apoplexy, or, more probably, they have
telegraph or telephone in their house
so they catch every breath of change il
the money market. The disease of &C
cumulation has eaten into them-eatel
into their heart, into their lungs, int
their spleen, into their liver, into thei
bones
| Dominant Ideas.
Chemists have sometimes analyze
the human body, and they say it is S
much magnesia, SO much lime, SO muc
chlorate of potassium. If some Christial
chemist would analyze one of thes
financial behemoths, he would find h
is made up of copper and gold and sill
yer and zinc and lead and coal an
iron. That is not life worth living
There are TOO many earthquakes in il
too many agonies in it. too many per
ditions in it, They build their castles
and they open their picture galleries
and they summon prima donnas, an
they offer every inducement for happi