The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-09-24
WHAT Is YOUR LIFE9
Rev. DR.. Talmage Gives Some Sage
and Christian Advice.
A Life Devoted to Mere Money Getting
Falls Far Short of Being Success
full, and Can Navar be
Truly Happy One.

VIII 1dludSe luulcdCeS now 10 live
life that is worth living. 1t is based
on the text:
What is your life?-James w., H.
II 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 consid-
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 am not
surprised that everybody asks the
question: us life worth living?"
Solomon. in his unhappy moment,
says it is not. Vanity" ''vexation of
spirit" mo good" are his estimates.
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, SO far as we
can read them, were the words noun
tains of spices" But jeremiah says
life is worth living. In a book sup
posed to be doleful, and lugubriOus,
and sepulchral, and entitled "Lamen-
tations," he plainly intimates that the
blessing 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 COM
plain. The ancient prophet cries out
in startling intonation to all lands and
to all centuries. Wherefore doth a
living man complaint"
A 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 digestion, and generous sal
airy, and happily afianced, and on the
way to become partner in a CONNER
cjal 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 man
who has come to the 4Os. He is at the
tip-top of the hill of life. Every step
has been a stumble and a bruiSe. The
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
and the food he does eat
does not assimilate. Forty miles
up the hill of life have been
to him like climbing the MatterhOrn,
and there are forty miles yet to go
down, and descent is always more
than ascent. Ask him
whether life is worth living, and he
will drawl out in shivering and lugu-
briOus and appalling negative: mo,
no, no!'
How are we to decide this matter
rightly and intelligently? You will
find the same man vacillating, oscil-
lating in his opinion from detection to
and if he be very mercurial
in his temperament it will depend very
much on which way the wind blows.
If the wind blow from the northwest,
and you ask him, he will say, Yes"
and if it blow from the northeast, and
you ask him, he will say, No" How
are we, then, to get the question right
eously answered? Suppose we call
all nations together in great conven-
tion on eastern or western hemi-
sphere, 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 thousands who would answer in the
affirmative, there would be more mil
lions who would answer in the mega
tive; and, because Of the greater num-
Der who have sorrow, and misfortune,
and trouble, the Noes would have it.
The answer | shall give will be differ
ent from either, and yet it will COM
mend itself to all who hear me this day
as the right answer. If you ask me,
us life worth living?" l answer, it all
depends upon the kind of life you live.
In the first place, l remark that
life Of mere money-getting is always a
failure, because you will never get as
much as you want. The poorest peo-
pie in this country are the millionaires.
There is not 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 bells ring. You ought
10 see GueIu III JHelT eACIGSuSnG
when a bank explodes. You ought to
see their agitation when there is pro-
posed a reformation of the tariff.
Their nerves tremble like harp strings,
but no music in the vibration. They
read the reports from Wall street in the
with a Government that
threatens paralysis or apoplexy, or,
more probably, they have a telegraph
or telephone in their own house, SO
they catch every breath of change in
the money market. The disease of &C
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 magnesia, SO much lime, SO much
chlorate of potassium. If some Chris
tian chemist would analyze one of
these financial behemoths 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 liv-
ing. There are too many earthquakes
in it, too many agOnies in it, too
many perditions in it. They
build their castles, and they open
their picture galleries, and they
summon prima donnas, and they
offer every inducement for hap
piness to come and live there, but hap
piness will not come. They send foot
and postillioned equippage to
bring her; she will not take their arm.
They make their gateways triumphal
arches; she will not ride under them.
They set a golden throne before gold
en- plate; she turns away from the ban
quet. They call to her from uphol-
stored balcony: she will not listen.
Mark you, this is the failure of those
who have had large accumulation.
And fhav3 49, s-%@