Connecticut western news., 1898-12-08
ILIFE'S MINOR CHORD.
lDR. TALMAGE TALKS OF MANS COM
 PENSATlON FOR SUFFERING.

lDR. TALMAGE TALKS OF MANS COM
 PENsATloN FOR SUFFERING.
 The Philosophy That Comes of Faith.
 Character Must Be Tempered by
 Ftre-Sin No Accident In Gods Plan.
 Blessings In Disguise.
 fCopyright, 1S9s by American Press Asso-
 WASHINGTON. Dec. 4.-In this dis course Dr. Talmage takes an optimistic view of mary things that are usually accounted as inexplicable in human ex- perience and shows us that even trouble and affliction may not be wholly with out their brighter side; text. Psalm xix. 4, 'I will open my dark saying rupon the harp"
 The world is full of the'inexplicable, the impossible, the unfathomable, the insurmountable. We cannot go three steps in any direction without coming up against hard wall of mystery, rid dles, paradoxes, profundities, laby- rinths, problems that we cannot solve, hisroglyphics that we cannot decipher, anagrams we cannot spell out, sphinxes that will not speak. For that reason David in my text proposed to take up some of these somber and dark things and try to set them to sweet music. 'l will open my dark sayings on harp. So l look off upon society and find peo- pie in unhappy conjunction of circum- stances, and they do not know what it means, and they have right to ask, Why is this? Why is that? and l think I will be doing good work by trying to explain some of these strange things and make you more content with your lot. and I shall only be answering qnes- tions that have often been asked me, or that we have all asked ourselves, while try to set these mysteries to music and open my dark sayings on harp.
 Interrogation the first: Why does God take out of this world those who are useful and whom we cannot spare and leave alive and in good health so many who are only a nuisance to the world! I thought would begin with the very toughest of all the seeming insorutables. Many of the most useful men and woIn en die at 80 or 40 years of age, while you often find useless people alive at 60 and 70 and 80. John Careless wrote to Bradford, who was soon to be put to death, saying, "Why doth God suffer mo and such other caterpillars to live, thSt can do nothing but consume the aims of the church, and take away so many worthy workmen in the Lords vineyard?' Similar questions are often asked. Here are two men. The one is noble character and Christian man. He chooses for lifetime companion one who has been tenderly reared, and he ia worthy of him and he is worthy of her. As merchant or farmer or profess sipnal man or mechanic or artist he tolls to educate and rear his children. He is succeeding but he has not yet established for his family full com pstenoy. He seems indispensable to that household; but one day. before he has pAid of the mortgage on his house. he ixcoming home through strong north e&stS wind, and a chill strikes through him, and four days of pneumonia end his earthly career, and the wife and children go into struggle for shelter and food. His next door neighbor is a man who. though strong and well, let's his wife support him. He is around at the grocery store or some general loaf inn place in the evenings while his wife sevs. His boys are initiating his exam ple, and lounge and swagger and swear. All the use that man is in that house IS to rave because the coffee is cold when ha comes to a late breakfast, or to say cutting things about his wife's looks, when he furnishes nothing for her wardrobe. The best thing that could happen to that family would be that mans funeral, but he declines to die. He lives on and on and on. So we have all noticed that many of the useful are early cut off, while the parasites have great vital tenacity.
 The Darker Way.
 I take up this dark saying on my harp and give three or four thrums on the string in the way of surmising and hopeful guess. Perhaps the useful man was taken out of the world because he and his family were so constructed that they could not have endured some great prosperity that might have been just ahead, and they altogether might have gone down in the vortex of worldliness which every year swallows up 10000 households. And so he went while he was humble and consecrated, and they were by the severities of life kept close to Christ and fitted for usefulness here and high seats in heaven, and when they meet at last before the throne they will acknowledge that, though the fur mace was hot, it purified them and pre- pared them for an eternal career of glory and reward for which no other kind of life could have fitted them. On the other hand, the useless man lived on to 50 or 60 or 70 years because all the ease he ever can have he must have in this world, and you ought not, there- fore, begrudge him his earthly longevi- ty. In all the ages there has not sim gle loafer ever entered heaven. There is no place for him there to hang around; not even in the temples, for they are full of vigorous, alert and rapturous worship. If the good and use- ful go early, rejoice for them that they have so soon got through with human life, which at best is struggle. And if the useless and the bad stay, rejoice that they may be out in the worlds fresh air good many years before their final incarceration.
 Interrogation the second: Why do good people have so much trouble, sick ness, bankruptcy, persecution, the three black vultures sometimes putting their fierce beaks into one set of tangled nerves? think now of good friend l once had. He was consecrated Chris tiaA man. an elder in the church, and las polished a Christian gentleman as ever walked Broadway. First his gen. eral health gave out and he hobbled around on a cane, an old man at 40. After awhile paralysis struck him. Having by poor health been compelled