Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1897-09-17
TALMAGES SERMON.
INTERESTING THEME By The WASH.
McToN PREACHER.

are NuGNee-iul ana hNhsN- Nsh-t LILO
of Sin and Worldly Indulgence IL a
Dire Faiiure-The Life worth Living.
TEXT: What is your life;'-James iv.,
II.
IL We leave to the evolutionists 10 guess
where we came from and 90 the theologians
TO prophecy where We arc going TO, We still
have left for consideration 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 the fact that we are
sailing on il. So am not surprised that
everybody asks the question. us life worth
living?"
solomon, in his unhappy moments, says
Il is not, "Vanity, ''veNatiOn 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 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 mountains of spices"
But Jeremiah SAYS life is worth living. In
a book supposed To be doleful and lugu.
brious and sepulchral and entitled "Lamen.
tations," he plainly intimates that the
blessings of merely living is so great and
grand blessing 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 complain?'
diversity of opinion in our time as well
as in olden time. Here is "a young man of
| light hair and blue eyes and sound diges-
| ton and generous salary and happily
affianced and on the way to become part
ner in a 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 a man
who has come to the fOrtes. He Is at the
| tiptop of the hill of life. Every step has
| been stumble and 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 appetite, 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 forty miles vet to 20 down, and
descent is always more dangerous than as
| cent. Ask him whether life is worth living,
and he will drawl out in shivering and
lub1brious and appalling negative, mo,
no. not
How are we to decide this matter right
eOusly and intelligently? You will find the
| same man vacillating, oscillating in his
| opinion from detection to eXuberance, and
! il he be very mercurial in his temperament
il will depend very much on which way the
wind blows. II the wind blow from the
northwest and you ask him. he will say
Yes, and if it blow from the northeast
| andyou ask him he will say, "NO.' How
are we, then, to get the question righteous
| ly answered? suppose we call all nations
together in great convention on eastern
or western hemisphere, 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 thou
sands ofthose who would answer in the af-
firmative, there would be more millions
who would answer in the negative, and
because 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 vet 1t will
commend itself to all who hear me this day
as the right answer. If you ask me, rs
life worth Iiving?" 1t answer Il all depends
upon the kind of life you live
In the first place l remark that a life of
mere money getting Is always a failure, be-
cause you will never get as much as you
want. The poorest people in this country
are the mlliOnaires. There is not Il 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 Govern
ment 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 a bank eXplodes. You ought to see
their agitation when there is proposed
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 a concern.
ment that threatens paralysis or apOleXy
l,nI, thnN, 1, -,
telephone in their own houses, so they
catch every breadth of change in the money
market. The disease Of accumulation has
eaten into them-eaten into their heart
into their lungs, into their spleen, into
their liver into their bones.
Chemists have sometimes analysed the
human body, and they say it is SO much
MAGNETISM so much lime, so much chloratn
OF potassium. If some Christian chemist
would analyze one of these financial be.
hemOths, he would find he is made up of
copper and gold and silver and zinc and
lead and coal and iron. That is not life
worth living. There are too many earth.
quakes in it, too many agonies in it, too
many perditiOns in it. They build their
castles, and they open their picture gal
leries and they summon prima dOnnas
and they offer every inducement for happi.
ness to come and live there, but happiness
will not come. They send footmanned and
postilioned equipage to bring her. She
will not ride to their door They send
princely escort. She will not take their
arm. They make their gateways trium-
phal arches. She will not ride under them.
They set II golden throne before u golden
plate. She turns away from the banquet.
They call to her from upholstered balcony.
She will not listen. Mark you, this is the
failure of those who have had large accum-
ulatiOn.
| And then you must take into cOnsdera-
ton that the vast majority of those who
make the dominant idea of life money get
ting fall far short of af1luence. 1t is est.
mated that only about two out of a hun
dred business men have anything worthy
the namc of success. y man who spends
his life with one dominant idea of financial
accumulation spends life not worth liv
ing,
SO the idea of worldly approval. Ifthat
be dominant in mans life he is miserable
Every four years the two most unfortunate
men in this country are the two men nom.
mated for the Presidency. The reservoirs
of abuse and diatrbe and malediction
gradually fill up, gallon above gallon. hogs
head above hOgshead, and about midsnm-
mer these two reservoirs will be brimminr
full, and a hose will be attached to each
one, and 1t will play away on these two
nominees, and they will have to stand il
and take the abuse and the faIschood. and
the caricature and the anathema, and the
caterwaultng and the fifth and they will
be rolled in it and rolled over and over in
1t until they are chOked and submerged
and strangulated, and at every sign of re-
turning consciousness thoy will be barked
at by all the hounds of political parties
from ocean to ocean. And yet there are n
hundred men to-day struggling for that
privilege, and there are thousands of men
who are helping them in the struggle.
Now, that is not Il life worth living You
can get sIandcred and abused cheaper than
that. Take it on a smaller scale. Do not
be so ambitious to have a whole reservoir
rolled over on you.
nv ut ,,,,, an,