Connecticut western news., 1897-06-03
THE CONTRARY WIND
DR. TALMAGE'S SERMON OF ENCouR- AaEMENT TO STRUGGLING SOULS.

DR. TALMAGs'S SERMON OF ENcouR-
 AaEMENT TO STRUGGLING SOULS. The Disciples on the Lake of Galilee-A
 Draft of Dtsoouragement-The Disad-
 vantage of an Unfortunate Name-Early Mistakes That Cloud the Life.
 WASHINGTON, May 80.-Dr. Tal- mage's sermon this week is one of good cheer. It will give encouragement to many struggling souls The subject is Contrary Winds, and the text Mathew xiv, 24, "The wind was contrary.
 AS I we'll know by experience on Lake Galilee, one hour all may be calm and 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 stress of weather and the sails bent and the ship plunged, for ''the wind was contrary" There is in 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 un- der seeming disadvantage, and will today, in the swarthiest Anglo-Saxon that can manage, treat their cases not as nurse counts out eight or ten drops of prescription and stirs them in a half glass of water, but as when man has by mistake taken 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 large draught of the poison of discouragement, and 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 have held up the other hand in amazement that parents should have weighted the babe with such dissonant and repulsive nomenclature. 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 ti- tie that will be the burden of their life time. It is outrageous to afflict children with an undesirable name because 1t happened to be possessed by parent or 8 rich unclo from whom favors are ex- pected or some prominent man of the day who may end his life in disgrace. It is no excuse. because they are Scrip ture names, to call child Jehoiakim or Tiglath- -PiIeser. J baptized one by the name Ba5hsheba. Why, under all the circumambient heaven, any parent should want to give to child the name of that loose creature of Scripture times I cannot imagine. have 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 baptism and the name given, Hadn't you better call it something else?"
 Impose not upon that babe name suggestive of flippanoy or meanness. There is no excuse for such assault and battery on the cradle when our lan- 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 honnehold," 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 "vio- tory,'' or Rosalie, meaning beautiful as rose," or Margaret, meaning "a pearl" or Ida. meaning 'godlike," or Clara, meaning "illustrious, or Ame- 1ia, meaning tbusy," or Bertha, mean ing beautiful" and hundreds of other names just as good that are 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 name which mort gages all the generations with great disadvantage. You say, 1T wonder if he is any relation to So-and d-so, mention ing some family celebrated for crime or deception. It is wonder to me that in all such families some spirited young man does not rise, saying to his broth CTS and sisters, eff you want to keep this nuisance or scandalization of a name, will keep it no longer than un- 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 life long obstacle. If you have started life under name which either through ri diculous orthography or vicious sugges- tion has been an incumbranoe, resolve that the next generation shall not be so weighted. 1t is not demeaning to change name. Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle. Hadassah, the myrtle" became Esther, "the star. !" We have in America, and I suppose it IS so in all countries, names which ought to be abolished and can be and will be abolished for the reason that they are libel and islander. But if for any reason you are submerged either by a given name or by 8 family name that you must bear, God will help you to overcome the outrage by life conse- crated to the good and useful. You may erara the nurce from the payna If if 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 .itudes of instances where men and wo- men have magnificently conquered the disasters of the name inflicted upon them.