Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-12-05
LIES MINOR CHORD.
DR. TN.MAGE TALKS OF MANS COM
PGNSATlON FOR SUFFERING.

The kiEcsopIiy That Comes of Faith.
Firc-Sfa No Accftient In Gods Plan.
BLESSINGS I'm Disguise.
ECopyraght- ISsS by American Press Asso-
ciatons1
WASHINGTON. Dec. An this dis
course DR.. Talmage takes an optimistic
view Of many things that are usually
accounted as inexplicab BILE in human ex-
perience and shows us that even trouble
and affection may not be wholly with
out their brighter side; text. Psalm
XIX. 4. 81 will open my dark saying
upon the harp.
The world is full of the inexplicable,
the impossible, the unfathomable, the
insurmounta6le. We cannot go three
steps in any direction without coming
up against hard wall of mystery. rid
dies, ps-adoxes, profundities, laby-
rinths, problems that we cannot solve,
hierogly phics 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 sGnber and dark things
and try to set them to sweet music. Il
will open my dark sayings on a harp"
So 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 a right to ask,
Why is this? Why is that? and 1 think
i will be doing good work by trying
to explain some Of these strange things
al
lot. and I4shall only be answering ques
lions 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 a 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?
thought / would begin with the very
toughest of all the seeming inscrutables.
Many of the most useful men and wom-
en- die at 80 or 40 years of age, while
you often find useless people alive at go
and 70 and so john Careless wrote to
Bradford, who was soon to be put to
death, saying, why doth God suffer
me and such other caterpillars to live,
that 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 a
noble character and Christian man
He chooses for lifetime com anion one
who has been tenderly reared, and he
is worthy of him and he is worthy of
L Co. rnfn
sional 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
potency. He seems Indispensable to that
household; but one day, before he has
paid off the mortgage on his house, he
is coming home through strong north
east wind, and chill strikes through
him, and four days of pneumonia end
his earthly career, and the wife and
children 60 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
ing place in the evenings while his wife
sews. His boys are imi tat ting his exam
pie, and lounge and swagger and swear.
All the use that man is in that house is
TO rave because the coffee is cold when
ne comes to 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
man s 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.
/ take up this dark saying Ola 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 wor1dliness
which every year swallows up 10, 900
households. And SO he went while he
was humble and consecrated, and they
were by the seventies 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 so or 60 Or 20 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
ola lnafnr ever aritornd hnauon Thnro