The Bossier banner., 1894-09-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
En- Answer to the Question "Is
Life Worth Living"
a Life of Sin, of Indulgence, of Wordli
ness an Infinite Failure-A Life
of Preparation for Eternity
Always a Success.


1t is based on the text:
Wherefore doth living man complaint
Lamentations ill.,, 80.
II 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 I am not
surprised that everybody asks the
question: ''Is 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
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 mount
aims 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 so 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
text cries out in startling intonation,
to all lands and to all centuries:
Wherefore doth living man COM
plain?" 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 happily affianced, and
on the way to become 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: 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 a bruise. The people he
trusted have turned out deserters, and
the money he has mostly 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 as
simulate. Forty miles climbing up the
hill of life have been to him like climb
ing 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 appalling negative:
mo, no, no."
How are we to decide this righteously
and intelligently? You will find the
same man vacillating, oscillating in
his opinion from detection to exuber-
ance, 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 answered? Suppose We call
all nations together in a great conven-
tion on eastern or western hemis-
phere, 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
affirmative, there would be more mill
ions who would answer in the mega
tive, and because of the greater num-
Der who have sorrow and misfortune
and trouble the Noes would have it.
The answer ] 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 is 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 alwayG a
failure. because you will never get as
much as you want. The poorest peo-
pie il. this country are the richest, and
next to them those who are half as
rich There is not scissors-grinder on
the streets of New York or BROOKLYN
who is SO anxious to make money as
these men who have piled up fortunes
year after year in storehouses, in gov
ernment 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. They read
the reports from Wall street in the
morning, with eoncernment tfat
threatens paralysis or apoplexy, OF
more probably they have a telegraph
or telephone in their own house, SO
they catch every breath of change in
the mouey market. The disease of
Hc-umu.s6 IN has eaten into them
eaten into their heart, into their lungs,
into their spleen, into their liver, into
their bones