The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1894-07-28
IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?
The Question Is Answered by DR..
Talmage.
Life of Sin. of Indulgence. of Worldiiness
an Infinite Failure-A Life of Pre-
paration for Eternity Is Al
ways . Success.

The latest sermon given out to the
press by Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage was
upon the subject: Worth Living" the
text being taken from Lamentations
ILL.,, 49,. Wherefore doth a living man
complaint Following is the sermon:
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 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 are sailing On it. So l am not
surprised that everybody asks h
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 q rpolygamist, and that soured
his d~ispotion. One wife makes a man
happy; more than one makes him
wretched. But Solomon was converted
from p~olygamy to monogamy, and the
las words he ever wrote, as far as we
car read them, were the words mount
ains Of spices" But Jeremiah says in
my text life is worth living.
In q 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 q blessing that though
q 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 intonation to all lands
and to all centuries: Wherefore doth
q living man complaint" A diversity
Of opinion in our time a. well as in
olden time. Here Is q young man of
light hair and blue eyes, and generous
salary, and sound digestion, and hap
PLY afaanced, and ON the way to be-
come Q partner in the commercial firm
Of which he Is an important clerk.
Ask him whether life Is worth living.
He will laugh in your face and say:
"Yes, yes, yesr" Here In Q man who
has come to the forties. He Is ut the
tip-top Of the hill of life. Every step
has been q stumble and q bruise. The
people he trusted have turned out de-
s~erters, and the money he has honestly
made he has been cheated out OF. His
nerves are out of tune. He has a poor
appetite, and all the food he does eat
does not assimilste. Forty miles climb
ing Up the hill Of life have been to him
like climbing the Matterhorn, and
there are forty miles yet to go down,
and descent Is always mor dangerous
than ascent. Ask him whether life is
worth living, and he will drawl out In
shivering and lugubrious and appal-
ling negative: mo. no. mol"
How are we to decide this matter
~righteously and intelligently? You will
find the same man vacillating, oscillat-
ing in his opinion from detection to ex-
uberance, and il he is very mercurial
in his temperament it will depend
very much upon which way the wind
blows. II the wind blow from the
northwest, and you ask him, he will
say: "'Yes," and II 1t 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 AVE. and all
those who are in the negative say
mo" While there would be hundreds
Of thousands who would answer in the
affirmative, there would be more
millions who would answer In the neg
alive, and because Of the greater nnm,
Der who have sorrow and misfortune
and trouble the noes would have 1t.
The answer I shall give will be differ
ent from either, and yet 1t will COM
mend itself to all who hear me this
day as the right answer. II you ask
me: rs life worth livipg9" 1 answer,
It all depends upon the kind Of life you
live.
In the first place, l remark, that q
life Of mere money-getting is always u
failure, because you will never get Is
much as you want. The poorest peO-
pie In this country are the richest. and
next to them those who are half a.
rich. There is not q scissors-grinder
on the streets Of New York or Brook
lyn who Is 10 anxious to make money
- these men who have piled up for
tunes year after year In storehouses,
In government securities, In tenement
houses. Ia whole city blocks. You
ought to see them jump when they
hear the FIRE bell 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 hsrp-strings. but
m muetc In tho atiou
And then you must take into consid.
sration that the vast majority of those
who make the dominant idea Of life
money-getting fall far short of afiu-
ence. IT Is estimated that only about
two out Of q hundred business men
have anything worthy the name of
success. A man who spends his life
with the one dominant idea of finan-
cial accumulation spends q life not
worth living.
So the idea of worldly approval. II
that be dominant in a mans life he is
miserable. The two most unfortunate
Of next presidential campaign will be
the two men nominated for the presi-
iency. The reservoirs Of abpss, and
aiatribe, and malediction will grad
nally fill UP, gallon above gallon, hogs
head above hogshsaf, and about au-
kumn these two reservoirs will be
trimming full, and a hose viii be at
tached to each one, and 1t will play
away on these nominees, and they will
have to stand IL, and take the abuse,
and the falsehood, and the caricature,
and the anathema, and the caterwanl.
Ing, and the filth, and they will be
rolled in aud over and over in It unit
they are choked, and submerged, and
strangulated, and At every sign OF
returning consciousness they will
be barked at by all the hounds
Of political parties from ocean to
ocean. And yet there are a hun
dred men to-day struggling for tina,
privilege, G9d there are thousands OF
men who are helpiPg them In thu
struggle. Now, that Is lot 2 ~
worth living. You can get sla1de}oJ