Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1897-09-17
WHAT is YOUR LIFE?
REV. DR.. TALMAGE DISCUSSES THIS
MOMeNTOUS QUESTION.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12.-In this ser
mon Rev DR.. Talmage discusses a sub
iect vital to all, and never more timely
than now, when the struggle for power,
position, wealth and happiness IS so abb
sorbing. The text is James iv, IA,
What is your life?"
If we leave to the eyolutionists TO
guess where we came from and to the
theologians to prophesy where we are
going to, we still have left for consid-
eration 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 sur
prised that everybody asks the ques-
tion, lis life worth living?"
IL Life Worth Living?
Solomon, in his unhappy moments,
says it is not. VANITY, " "vexation. OF
spirit" "no 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 noun
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 he
has no right to complain. The ancient
prophet 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
we'll as in olden time. Here Is young
man of light hair and blue eyes and
sound digestion and generous salary
and happily affianced and on the way
TO become q partner in commercial
firm Of which be is an important clerk.
Ask him whether life is worth living.
He will laugh in your face and say,
"Yes, yes, yesp" Here is man who
has come to the forties He is at the
tiptop of the hill of life. Every step
has been stumble and a brulse. Ihe
people he trusted have turned out de-
serters. and the money he has honestly
made he has been cheated out OF. lis
nerves are ont Of tune. He has poor ap-
petite. and 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 20 down, and descent Ii
always more dangerous than ascent
Ask him whether life is worth living
and he will drawl out in shivering anc
lugubrious and appalling negative
mo, no, nol'
How are We to decide this matter
righteously and intelligently! You VII
find the same man vacillatiDg, osclllat
ing in his opinion from detection to ex
uberapce. and if be be very mercurla
in his temperament it will depend very
much on which way the wind blows
If the wind blow from the northwes
and Won ask him, he will say, Yes,
and if it blow from the northeast ah'
Won ask him be will say, mo. How
are we. then, to get the question night
eously answered? Suppose we call al
nations together in great convention
OH eastern or western hemisphere, an'
let all those who are in the afhrmatlV
saw. AVE" " and all those who are Il
the negative say, mo" While ther
would be hundreds Of thousands VIII
would answer in the affirmative, ther
would be more millions who would an
swer in the negative, and because c
the greater number who have sorroN
c and misfortune and trouble the noe
would have it. The answer | shall CIV
will be different from either, and yet
will commend itself to all who hear III
this day as the right answer. II 20
. ask me. "Is life worth living" ~
d swer. 1T all depends upon the kind
= = life you live. "
n Money Getting.
d In the first place, remark that III
!, OF mere money getting is always a fai
IS ure, because you will never get as muc
: as YOU want. The poorest people III IN
- country are the millionaires- Ihere
a not a scissors grinder Oh the streets
a New York or Brooklyn who is so am
If ions 10 make money as these men WI
a have piled up fortunes year after ye'
IS in storehouses, in government secur
ties. in tenement houses, in whole eli
blocks. You ought to see them Jun
when they hear the fire bell ring. &c
oupht 10 see them in their excitemei
when q bank explodes. You ought
see their agitation when there Is pr
posed a reformation in the tariff. Inc
nerves tremble like harp strings, but
music in the vibration. They read q
renorts from Wall street in the mornil
! with a concernment that threatens pa
- alrsis or apoplexy, or more prooao
they have telegraph or telephone
their own house. so they catch eve
breath of change in the money mark'
We The disease Of accumulation has eau
lie into tbem-eaten into their heart IN
ic, their lungs, into their spleen, into the
he liver. into their bones
=, Chemists have sometimes analyz
., the human body, and they say It Is
much magnesia, so much lime' so nlu
W chlorate Of potassium. If some Chr
tian chemist would analyze one OF the
financial behemoths, he would find
II is made up Of copper and gold ana
- yer and zinc and lead and coal and lro
n That is not life worth living. Inc
are too many earthquakes in IT,
many agonies in it, too many perditio
IN il. They build their castles, a
IS IS thew open their picture galleries. a
If thsv summon prima donnas' ana ID
u ,ffer every inducement for happiness
er come and live there, but happiness "
ig NOT come. They send footmanneo . .
nostiIioned equipage to bring her :
he i~;,I not ride to their door. They Sc
m. w vr;ncelv escort She will not take IN
arm They make their gateways
umnhal arches. She will not ride un'