The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1894-07-27
WHAT rs LIFE WORTH
REV. DR.. TALMAGE SAYS 1T DEPENDS
UPON CIRCUMSTANCES.


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
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 am not surprised
that everybody asks the question, "Is
life worth living?"
Solomon in his unhappy moments says
1t 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
disposition. One wife makes 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 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
living man complaint" A diversity of
opinion in our time as we'll as in olden
time. Here is young man of light hair
and blue eyes and sound digestion and
generous salary and happily atfianced
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, yesP' 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 a stumble and
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 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 mo"
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 mo"
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, 'Is life worth liv-
ing?" 1 answer, it all depends upon the
kind of life you live
In the first place, remark that life
of mere money getting is always 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 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. l
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
in the tariff. Their nerves
tremble like harp strings but Nc music c
In the vibration. They read the reports G
from Wall street in the morning with
that threatens paralysis or
apoplexy, or, more probably, they have '
telegraph or telephone in their house, !
30 they catch every breath of change in
the money market. The disease of &C. !
emulation has eaten into them-eaten !.
into their heart, into their lungs, into :
their spleen, into their liver, into their I