The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-09-17
WHAT is YOUR LIFE?
REV. DR.. TALMAGE DISCUSSES THIS
MOMENTOUS QUESTION:.


The Kind of Life That Is Not Worth Liv-
ing and the Kind That Opens Into Etcr-
uity-The Struggle For Wealth, Position
and Happiness.
WASHINGTON, Sept. l2.-In this ser
mon Rev. Dr. Talmage discusses a sub
1ect vital to all, and never more timely
than now, when the struggle for power,
position, wealth and happiness is so alb
sorbing. The text is James iv, Ia,
"What is your life?'
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 consld-
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 sur
prised that every body asks the ques-
ton, lis life worth living?"
Is Life Worth Living?
Solomon, in his unhappy moments,
saws it is not. VANITY, "vexation of
spirit, "no good" are his estimate.
The fact is that Solomon was at one
time polygamist and that soured his
disposition One wife makes a 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 life
is worth living. In book supposed to
be doleful and lugubrious and sepulchral
and entitled Lamentations, " he plain
" intimates that the blessing of merely
living is SO great and grand bless
ing that though man have piled on
him all misfortunes and disasters be
has no right to complain. The ancient
prophet cries out in startling intonation
to all lands and to all centuries,
Wherefore doth a 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
sound digestion and generous salary
and happily affianced and Oh the way
TO become a 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, yes!" Here is a man who
has come to the forties. He is at the
tiptop of the hill of life. Every step
4 l. L. E,,, ln
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 ap-
petite, and tie 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 i'll shivering and
Iugubrious and appalling negative,
~sNo, no, mol"
How are ve to decide this matter
righteously and intelligently? You will
find the same man vacillating, oscillat-
ing i'll his opinion from detection to ex-
uberance, and if he be very mercurlal
in his temperament it will depend very
much on which way the wind blows.
Ii 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, enc" How
are we, tlen. to get the q,,>.,tion right
eously answered? Suppose we call all
nations together i'll great convention
On eastern or western hemisphere, and
let all those who are in the affirmative
say, AYE" and all those who are i'll
the negative say, "No." While there
would be hundreds of thousands who
would answer in tho affirmative, there
would be more millions who would an
swer in the negative, and because of
the greater number who have sorrow
and misfortune and trouble the noes
would have it. The answer l shall give
will be different from either, and yet it
will commend itself to all who hear me
this day as the right answer. If you
ask me, us life worth living?" 1 an
swer, 1T all depends upon the kind OF
life you live. "
Money Getting.
In the first place, remark that a life
of mere money getting is always fail
ure, because you will never get as much
as you want The poorest people i'll this
country are the millionaires. There is
not scissors grinder Oh 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 securi-
ties, in tenement houses, i'll whole city
blocks You ought to see them jump
when they hear the fire bell ring. You
ought to see them i'll their excitement
when a bank explodes You ought to
see their agitation when there is pro-
posed a reformation i'll 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 a Government that threatens par
alysis or apOplexy, or more probably
they have telegraph or telephone in
their own bOuSe so thew catch every