The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1894-07-25
Is LIFE WORTH LIVING9
Rev. DR.. Talmage Answers the
Question In a Sermon.
of UnselHshness, Useful Life, Chris
tlAn Life, Is Always Worth
LiVing-The Truo Value
of Existence.

Rev. DR.. Talmage, who is now in
Australia, chose as the subject for a
recent sermon through the press,
Worth Living" the text being
taken from Lamentations iii, 80:
Wherefore doth a living man com
plain?"
If we leave to the evolutionist to
guess where we came from and to the
theologians to prophesy where we are
going to, we still have left for consid-
Grafton 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 sailing on. SO am not sur
prised that everybody asks the ques-
tion, SIS life worth living?"
Solomon in his unhappy moments
says it is not. Vanity" "Vexation OF
spirit" mo good" are his estimate.
The fact is that Solomon was at one time
polygamist, and that soured his dispo-
sition. One wife makes happy man;
more than one makes him wretched.
But Solomon was converted from po-
lygamy to monogamy, and the last
words he ever wrote, as far as we can
read them, were the words, mountains
OF spices" But Jeremiah says in my
text life is worth living.
In book supposed to be doleful, and
lugubrious, and sepulchral, and en-
titled Lamentations" he plainly init
mates that the blessing of merely liv-
ing is 50 great and grand blessing
that though man have piled on him
all misfortunes and disasters he has
no right to complain. The author of
my next text cries out in startling in
tonation to all lands and to all CEN
turies: "Wherefore doth living man
complaint" A diversity of opinion in
our time as well as in olden time. Here
is young man OF light hair, and blue
eyes, and sound digestion, and gen
erous salary, and happily afiianced, and
on the way TO become partner in a
commercial firm of which he is an inn
portant clerk. Ask him whether life is
worth living. lie will laugh in your
face ane say: YES, yes, yes" lie is n
man who has come TO the fortieS. He
is at the tip-top of the hill of life.
Every step has been a stumble and a
bruise. The people he trusted have
turned out descrters 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 has
been TO him like climbing the Matter
horn. and there are forty miles yet to
90 down, and descent is always more
dangerous than ascent. Ask him
whether life is worth living and he will
drawl ont in shivering and lugubrious
and appalling negative: mo, no, nor
How are we to decide this matter
righteously and intelligently? You
will find the same man vacillating, os'
cillating in his opinion from detection
to exuberance, and II he be very mer'
curial in his temperament it will de
| pend very much upon which way the
wind blows. If the wind blow from
the northwest and you ask him, he will
say. "Yes;" and If it blow from the
northeast and you ask him, he will say
mo" How are we then TO get the
question righteously answered? Sup
pose we call all nations together in a
great convention on eastern or western
hemisphere, and let all those who are
in the affirmative say aye" and all
those who are in the ne gative say mo y
There would be hundreds of thousands
who would answer in the affirmative
there would be more millions who
would answer in the negative, and be
cause Of the greater number who have
sorrow and misfortune and trouble the
"noes" would have 1t. The answer
shall give will be different from either
and yet it will commend itself to al
who hear me this day as the right an
swer. If you ask me, SIS life worth
living?" | answer it all depends upor
the kind of life you live.
In the first place, remark, that {
life of mere money-getting is always
failure, because you will never get a
much as you went. The poorest people
in this country are the ric hest, ant
next to them those who are half as rich
There Is not a scissors-grinder on tht
streets of New York or Brooklyn VIII,
is so anxious to make money as thest
men who have piled up fortunes yea
after year in storehouses, in govern
ment securities, in tenement houses, II
whole city blocks. You ought to Sc,
them Jump when they hear the firc-bel
ring. You ought TO see them in thei
excitement when some bank explodes
You ought to see their agitation wheI
there is proposed a refor nation in tn,
tariff. Their nerves tremble like harp
strings, but no music in the vibration
They read the reports from Wall stree
in the morning with concernmen
that threatens paralysis or apoplexy
or, more probably, they have a tele
graph or a telephone in their owl
house, so they catch every breath o
change in the money market. The dis
ease Of accumulation has eaten int
them-eaten into their heart, into thei
lungs, into theirspleen, into their liver
into their bones.
Chemists have sometimes analyzet
the human body, and they say it is s.
much magnesia, so much lime, so mucl
chlorate Of potassium. If some Chris
tian chemist would analyze one o
these financial behemoths he woul,
find he is made of copper, and gold, an,
silver, and zinc, and lead, and COAL an,