Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-07-27
WORTH THE LIVING.
LIVES THAT SHINE IN HIS
TORY'S PAGES.
Or. Talmage breaches an Eloquent
Sermon Through thS fress---Life
Is Always Worth Living when 1t Is
n Christian Life.


fore doth living man complaint
If.we leave to the evolutionists to
guess where we came from and to the
The ologians to prophecy where we
are going to, we still have left for con-
sideration this important fact that we
are here. There may be some doubt
about where the river rises and some
doubt 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, us 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
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 a book supposed to be doleful,
and iugubrious, 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 misfortunes and disasters he has
no right TO complain The author of
my text cries out in startling intona-
ton to all lands and to all centuries,
Wherefore does a living man COM
plain?" 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 gener-
Gus salary, and happily affianced, and
on the way TO become n partner in a
commercial firm of which he is an inn
portant clerk Ask him whether life
is worth living. He will laugh in
your face and say: Yes, yes, yes!"
Here is a man who has come to the
forties He is at the tip-top of the hill
of life. Every step has been a STUN
bic 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 appe-
tite, 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 forty miles vet 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 lugu-
brious and appalling negative, mo,
no, no."
How are we to decide this matter
righteously and intelligently? You
will find the same man vacillating,
oscillating in his opinion from dejec-
ton to exuberance, 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, 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 au-
swered? Suppose we call all nations
together in a great convention on
eastern or western he misphere, 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 negative. and be-
cause 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 it will commend itself to all who
hear me this day as the right answer.
II you ask me as life worth living?'
/ 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 q
failure, because you will never get as
much as you want The poorest peo-
pie in this country are the richest,
and next to them those who are hall
as rich. There is not scissors grind
err on the streets of New York OF
Brooklyn who is so anxious TO make
money as these men who have piled
up fortunes year after year in store
houses, in government securities, in
tenement houses, in whole city blocks
You ought to see them jump wher
they hear the fire bell ring. Yor
ought to see them in their excitement
when some bank explodes. You ought
to see their agitation when there il
proposed q reformation in the tariff
Their nerves trem3le like harp
strings, but no music in the vibration
They read the reports from Wal
street in the morning with concern
ment that threatens paralysis or apo
plexy, or, more probably, they have {
telegraph or a telephone in Their
own house, so they catch every
breath of change in the money mar
ket The disease of accumulation
/. has eaten into them-eaten into theil
hearts into their lungs into theiI
spleen, into their lives, into theii
bones
Chemists have sometimes analysed
the human body, and they say 1t is S,