The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-07-27
rs LIFE WORTH LIVING?
The Question Is Answered by DR..
Talmage.
Life of Sin, OF Indulgence, of worldliness
an Infinite Failure-A Life of Pre-
paration for Eternity Is Al
ways a Success.

press by Rev. I. Dewitt Talmage wa:
upon the subject: Worth Living" the
text being taken from Lamentations
iii, 80: Wherefore doth living man
complaint" Following is the sermon:
If we leave to the evolutionists tc
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 am not
surprised that everybody asks the
question: 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 a ,polygamist, and that soured
his dispotion. 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 mount
aims of spices" But jeremiah says in
my text life is worth living.
In a 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 a blessing that though
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 young man of
light hair and blue eyes, and generous
salary, and sound digestion, and hap
PLY affianced, and on the way to be-
come 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, yes! Here is 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 bruise. The
people he trusted have turned out de-
serters, 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 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 more dangerous
than ascent Ask him whether life is
worth living, and he will drawl out in
shivering and lugubrious and appal-
ling negative: NO. no, no!'
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 is 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: Yes" 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? 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 negative say
No" 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 num-
Der who have sorrow and misfortune
and trouble the noes" would have it.
The answer l shall give will be differ
ent from either, and yet it will COM
mend itself to all who hear me this
day as the right answer. If you ask
me: rs life worth living?" l answer,
it all depends upon the kind of life you
live.
In the first place, remark, that a
life of mere money-getting is always a
failure, because you will never get as
much as you want. The poorest peo-
Pile in this country are the richest, and
next to them those who are half as
rich. There is not a scissors-grinder
on the streets of New York or Brook
lyn who is so anxious to make money
as these men who have piled up for
tunes 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 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
a reformation in the tariff. Their
nerves tremble like harp-strings, but
no music in the vibration.
Chemists have sometimes analysed
t.le human body, and they say it is so
much magnesia. so much lime, so much
chlorate of potassium. If some Chris
tian chemist would analyze one of
these financial behemoths he would
find he is made up of copper, and gold,
and silver, and zinc, and lead, and coal,
and iron. That is not life worth liv-
ing. There are too many earthquakes
in it. too many agonies in it, too many
perditions in it.
And then you must take into consid-
Grafton that the vast ma ority of those
who make the dominant idea of life
money-getting fall far short of affiu-
ence. 1t is estimated that only about
two out of a hundred business men
have anything worthy the name OF
success A man who spends his life
with the one dominant idea of fnan-
cial accumulation spends life not
worth living.
So the idea of worldly approval. II
that be dominant in mans life he is
miserable. The two most unfortunate
men in this country for the six months
of next presidential campaign will be
the two men nominated for the presi-
deney. The reservoirs of abuse, and