The Monitor-register., 1897-06-04

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THE CONTRARY WIND
DR.. TALMAeE's SERMON OF gNcoUR-
AGEMeNT TO STRUGGLING SOULS.

DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON OF ENCOUR-
AGEMENT TO STRUGGLING SOULS.
The Disciples on the Lake of Galilee-A
Draft of Discouragement-The Disad-
vantage of an Unfortunate Name-Early
Mistakes That Cloud the Life.
wAsHINeToN, May so.-Dr. Tai
mage's sermon this week is one of good
cheer. 1t will give encouragement to
many struggling souls. The subject is
Contrary Winds, and the text Mathew
xiv, "a, "The wind was contrary.
AS I we'll know by experience on
Lake Galilee, one hour all may be calm
aid the next hour the winds and waves
will be so boisterous that you are in
doubt as to whether you will land on
the shore or on the BOTTOM of the deep.
The disciples in the text were caught in
such q stress of weather and the sails
bent and the ship plunged, for 1.-THE
wind was contrary" There is i'll one of
the European straits a place where,
whichever way you sail, the winds are
opposing. There are people who all
their life seem sailing in the teeth of
the wind. All things seem against
them. It may be said of their condition
as Of that of the disciples in my text,
"the wind was contrary.
A great multitude of people are I'M
der seeming disadvantage, and I will
today, in the swarthiest Anglo-Saxon
that I a manage, treat their cases not
as a nurse counts out eight or ten drops
of a prescription and stirs them in a
half glass of water, but as when a man
has by a mistake taken a large amount
of ~strychnine Or paris green or BELLA
donna, and the patient is walked rapid
ly round the room and shaken up until
he gets wide awake. Many of you have
taken a large draught of the poison of
encouragement, and I come out by the
order of the Divine Physician to rouse
you out of that lethargy.
Handicapped by a Name.
First, many people are under the dis
advantage of an unfortunate name given
them by parents who thought they
were doing a good thing. Sometimes at
the baptism of children while I have
held up one hand in prayer I have held
up the other hand in amazement that
parents should have weighted the babe
with such a dissonant and repulsive
nomenclature. I have not SO much won-
dered that some children should cry out
at the christening font as that others
with such smiling face should take a til
tie that will be the burden of their life
time. 1t is outrageous to aff1ict children
with an undesirable name because it
happened to be possessed by a parent or
a rich uncle from whom favors are ex-
peoted or some prominent man of the
day who may end his life in disgrace.
1t is no excuse, because they are Scrip
ture names, to call a child Jehoiakim
or Tiglath-Pileser. I baptized one by
the name Bathsheba. Why, under all
the circumambient heaven, any parent
should want to give to a child the name
of that loose creature of Scripture times
I cannot imagine. Ihave often felt at
the baptismal altar, when names were
announced to me, like saying, as did the
Rev. DR.. Richards of Morristown, N.
j., when a child was handed him for
0eRp4c ta4A t4lO AO1l H1fCdy a. v
you better call it something else?" Q
Impose not upon that babe a name
suggestive of %1ippancy or meanness.
There is no excuse for such assault and
battery on the cradle when our Ian
guage is opulent with names musical
and suggestive in meaning. such as
John, meaning "the gracious gift of
God," or Henry, meaning "the chief of
a household" or Alfred, meaning
"good counselor" or Joshua, meaning
"God, our salvation" or Ambrose,
meaning Immortal" or Andrew,
meaning "manly," or Esther, meaning
"star," or Abigail, meaning "my
fathers joy" or Anna, meaning
grace" Or Victoria, meaning "vic-
tory" or Resale, meaning beautiful
as a rose," OF Margaret, meaning "a
pearl" or Ida, meaning "godlike,' - or
Clara, meaning f'illustrious, =" or Anne
liza, meaning busy" or Bertha, mean
ing beautiful" and hundreds of other
names just as good that are a help
rather than a hindrance.
Names as Lifelong Obstacles.
But sometimes the great hindrance in
life is not in the given name, but in the
family name. While legislatures are
willing to lift such incubus, there are
families that keep a name which mort
cages all the generations with a great
disadvantage. You say, 81 wonder if he
is any relation to So-and-so, mention
ing some family celebrated for crime or
deception. 1t is a wonder to me that in
all such families some spirited young
man does not rise, saying to his broth
ers and sisters, 'fIf you want to keep
this nuisance Or standardization of a
name, I will keep it no longer than I'M
til by quickest course of law I can
slough off this gangrene." The city di-
rectory has hundreds of names the mere
pronunciation of which has been a life
long obstacle. If you have started life
under a name which either through ri
diculous photography or vicious sugges-
ton has been an incumbranoe, resolve
that the next generation shall not be
SO weighted. 1t is not demeaning to
change a name. Saul of Tarsus became
Paul the Apostle. Hadassah, "the
myrtle" became Esther, ''the star. 2"
We have in America, and I suppose it
is S O in all countries, names which
ought to be abolished and can be and
will be abolished for the reason that
they are a libel and a SANDER. But if
for any reason you are submerged either
by a given name or by a family name
that you must bear, God will help you
to overcome the outrage by a life conse-
Grated to the good and useful. You may
erase the curse from the name. If it
once stood for meanness, you can make
it stand for generosity. If once it stood
for pride, you can make it stand for hu-
mility. If it once stood for fraud, you
can make it stand for honesty. If once
it stood for wickedness, you can make it
stand for purity. There have been null
titudes of instances where men and wo-
men have magni6cently conquered the
disasters Of the name inflicted upon
them. 7
le The Crippled ~struggler.
Again, many people labor under the
misfortune Of incomplete physical equip
ment. We are by our Creator so eco
nomically built that we cannot afford
the obliteration Of any physical faculty.
We want our two eyes, our two ears,
our two hands, our two feet, our eight
fingers and twothumbs. Yet what null
tltudes of people have but one eye or
bat n footl The ordinary casualties
of life have been q%uadrupled, quintu-
pied, sextupled, aye, centupled, in u
time by the civil war, and at the north
and south a great multitude are fight
ing the battle Of life with half or less
than half the needed physical
ments. I do not wonder at the pathos