Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-09-13
WHAT is YOUR LIFE?
REV. DR.. TALMAGE DISCUSSES THIS
MOMENTOUS QUESTION.

ing and the Kind That Opens Into Eter-
nity-The Struggle For Wealth, Position
and Happiness.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12.-In this ser
mon Rev. DR.. Talmage discusses a SUBJ
Iect vital to all, and never more timely
than now, when the struggle for power,
position, wealth and happiness is so alb
sorbing The text is James iv, Il,
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-
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, hut
there can be no doubt about the fact that
we are sailing on it. So am not sur
prised that every body asks the ques
ton, lis life worth iving?"
Is Life Worth Livinse
Solomon, i'll 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 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, as far as we
can read them, were the words s'moun-
tains of spices. But jeremiah says life
is worth living. In a book supposed to
be doleful and lugu brious and sepulchral
and entitled Lamentations, " he plain
1y intimateG that the blessing of merely
living is so great and grand bless
ing that though man have piled on
him all misfortunes and disasters be
has no right to complain. The ancient
prophet cries out in startling information
to all lands and to all centuries,
-tW therefore, doth living man COM
plain?''
A diversity % 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 Oh the way
to become partner 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,
y y
has come to the forties He is at the
tiptop of the hill of life. Every step
has been stumble and 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 ap-
petite, and the food he does eat does
not assimilate. Forty miles climbing
up the hill Of life have been to him like
elm bing the Matterhorn, and there are
20 miles yet to go down, and descent is
always more dangerous than ascent.
Ask him whether life is worth living,
and he will drawl out iii shivering and
lugubrious and appalling negative,
mo, no, no!''
How are we to decide this matter
righteously and intelligently? You will
find the same man vacillating, oscillat-
ing in his opinion from detection to ex-
uberance, and if he be very mercuriaI
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 be will say, "No.' How
are w. tIis5I, ~ S5St tA6 QuSoGIOA
eously answered? Suppose we call all
nations together in great convention
on eastern or western hemisphere, and
let all those who are in the affirm ative
say, Aye and ali those who are il
the negative say, mo" While there
would be hundreds of thousands who
would answer in the affirmative, there
would be more millions who would an
swer in the negative, and because Of
the greater number who have sorrow
and misfortune and trouble the noes
would have it. The answer 1 shall give
will be different from either, and yet it
will commend itself to all who hear me
this day as the right answer. IF you
ask me, lis life worth living?" I an
swer, cit all depends upon the kind Of
life you live. -
Money Getting.
In the first place, I remark that life
of mere money getting is always fail
ure, because you will never get as much
as you want. The poorest people in this
country are the millionaires There is
not a scissors grinder on the streets of
New York or Brooklyn who is so anx-
ious to make money as these men who
have piled up fortunes year after year
in storehouses, in government securi-
ties, in tenement houses. in whole city
blocks. You ought to see them jump
when they hear the fire bell ring. You
ought to sec them in their excitement
when a bank explodes. You ought to
see their agitation when there is pro-
posed a 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 Government that threatens par
alysis or apoplexy, or more probably |
Fhey have telegraph or telephone in |
4. 4.