The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-12-16
LIPE'S MINOR CHORD
DIR. TALMAGE TALKS OF MANS
CONFIRMATION FOR SUFFERING

Character Must be Tempered by Fire.
SIN No Accident I'm Gods Plan-Bless-
ings In Disguise
copyright 1898, by American Press
Association.)
In this discourse DR.. Talmage takes
an optimistic view of man, things that
are usually accounted as in~eplicable In
human experience and shows US that
even trouble and affection nay not be
wholly without their brighter side;
text, Psalm Xix, 4, Il will open my
dark saying upon the harp"
The word is full of the inexplicable,
the impossible, the unfathomable, the
dnsurmountable. We cannot go three
steps in any direction without coming
UP against a hard wall Of mystery, rid
dies, paradoxes, ~profundities, LADY
rinths, problems that we cannot solve,
hieroglyphics that we cannot decipher,
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. Il
will open my dark sayings on a harp
SO I look off upon society and find peo-
pie in unhappy conjunction of circum-
stances, and they do not know what 1T
means, and they have a right to ask,
Why is this? Why it that? and 1 think
1 will be doing a good work by trying
to explain some of these strange things
and make You more content with your
lot, and / shall only be answering ques-
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 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?
I thought 1 would begin with the very
toughest of all the seeming inscrut-
ables. Many of the most useful men
and women die at 80 or 40 years of age,
while you often find useless people
alive at 60 and 20 and 80. John Care
less wrote to Bradford, who was soon
to be put to death, saying, why doth
God suffer me and such other caterpil-
lars 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 ques-
tions are often asked. Here are two
men. The one is a nOble character and
a Christian man. He chooses for a life
time companion one who has been ten
derby reared, and she is worthy of him
and he is worthy of her. AS merchant
or farmer of professional man or me-
chanic or artist he tolls to educate and
rear his children. He is succeeding,
but he has not yet established for his
family a full competency. He seems in
dispensable to that household; but one
day, before he has paid off the mort
gage on his house, he is coming home
through a strong northeast wind, and
a chill strikes through him, and four
days of pneumonia end his earthly ca
reer, and the wife and children go into
a struggle for shelter and food. His
next door neighbor is a man who
though strong and tall, let's his wife
support linn. He is around at the gro
Gerry store or some general loafinG
place in the evenings while his wife
sews. His Boys are initiating his ex-
ample, and lounge and SWagger and
swear. All the use that man is in that
house is to ave because the coffee is
cold when he comes to a late break
fast, or to say cutting things about his
wife's looks, when he furnishes nothing
IoI IcI uIoDe. IL DtSl III lila
could happen to that family would be
that mans funeral, but he declines tc
die. He lives on and on and on. So we
have all noticed that many of the use
full are early cut off. while the para
sites have great vital tenacity.
THE DARKER WAY.
l take up this dark saying on my
harp and give three or four thrums or
the string in the way of surmising an6
hopeful guess. Perhaps the useful mar
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 beer
just ahead, and they altogether might
have gone down in the vortex OF
worldliness which every year swallows
up 10, 600 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 use
fulness here and high seats in heaven
and when they meet at last before the
throne they will acknowledge that
though the furnace was hot, it purified
them and prepared them for an eter.
nal career Of glory and reward fol
which nc other kin of life could have
fitted them. On the other hand, the
useless man lived on to so or 50 or II
years because all the cas- he ever car
have he must ave in this world, AND
you ought not, therefore, begrudge
him his earthly longevity. In all the
ages there a not a single loafer ever
entered heaven. There is no place FOL
him there to hang around; not ever
in the temples, for they are full OF
vigorous, alert and rapturous worship
If the good and useful go early, re.
tjoice for them tina they have so soor
got through with human life, which
at best is a struggle. And if the use.
less and the bad stay, rejoice that they
may be out in the worlds fresh all
"a good many yean5 before their fina
incarceration
Interrogation the second: Why de-
good people ave SO much trouble
sickness, bankruptcy, persecution, tn
three black vultures sometimes put,
ting their fierce beaks into one set o
tangled nerves? I think now of a good
friend I once had. He was a conse'
Grated Christian Man, an elder in the
church. and as polished u Christian
gentleman as ever walked Broadway
First his general health gave out and
he hObbled around on a cane, an ole