The Progress., 1898-11-26
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF THF DlVINE'S SUN.
DAY DISCOURSE.
Subject: "Divine Direction" - Advic,
= Aimed to Cheer Those Who Feel They
! Have No Especial Mission in the Worlt

cuOJtCG DiVlno DlreCtlOn' - HuFlC'
= Aimed to Cheer Those Who Feel They
Have No Especial Mission in the World
Follow Gods Guidance.
TEXT: "To this end was l born. John
xviii, 81.
After PLATE had suicidel, tradition SAYS
that his body. was thrown into the Tiber,
and such storms ensued on and about that
river that his body was taken out and
thrown into the Rhone, and similar dis
turbances swept that river and its banks.
Then the body was taken out and moved to
Lausanne, and put In deeper pool, which
Immediately became tho centre OF similar
atmospheric and aqueous disturbances.
Though these are fanciful and false
traditions, they show tho execration with
which the world looked upon Plate. 1t
was before this man when he was In full
Lille and power that Christ was arraigned
as in court OF oyer and terminer. Plato
said to his prisoner, cart thou king,
them" and Jesus answered, ITO this end
was born" Sure enough, although all
earth and hell arose to keep Him down,
He Is to-day empalaced, .enthroned and
coroneted King Of earth and King OF
heaven That is what He came for, and
that Is what He accomplished.
BY the time child reaches ten years OF
age the parents begin to discover that
child's destiny, but by the time he or she
reaches fifteen years OF age the question
is on the child's lips: "What shall do?
What am going to be? What was 1 made
for?" 1t is sensible and righteous ques-
ton, and the youth ought to keep asking
it until it is so fully answered that the
young man, or young woman, can say
a rnt no tfn fhN,,
On less expansive scale, ITO this end was
I born"
There is too much divine skill shown in
the physical, mental and moral constitu-
ton OF the ordinary human being to sup
pose that he was constructed without any
divine purpose. II you take me out of
some vast plain and show ms a pillared
temple surmounted by dome like st.
Peters, and having a floor of precious
stones and arches that must have taken the
brain OF the greatest craftsman to design
and walls scrolled and niched and paneled
and wainscoted and painted, and l should
ask you what this building was put up for,
and you answered, "For nothing at ALL"
how could believe you? And it is impos-
sible for me to believe that any ordinary
human being who has in his muscular,
nervous and cerebral organization more
wonders than Christopher Wren lifted in
st. Paul's, or Phidias ever chiseled on the
Acropolis and built In such way that it
shall last long after st. Pauls Cathedral Is
as much ruin as the Parthenon-that
such being was constructed for no other
purpose and to execute no mission and
without any divine intention toward some
end. The object Of this sermon is to help
you find out what you are made for and
help you find your sphere and assist you
into that condition where you can say with
certainty and emphasis and enthusiasm
and triumph, "To this end was ! born"
First, discharge you from all response
bility for most Of your environments. You
are not responsible for your parentage or
grandparentage. You are not responsible
for any OF tfe cranks that may have lived
In your ancestral line and who, 100 years
before you were born, may have lived
style OF life that more or less affects you
to-day. You are not responsible for the
Tact that your temperament Is sanguine or
melancholic or bilious or Emphatic or
nervous. Neither are you responsible for
the place OF your nativity, whether among
the granite hills Of New England or the
cotton plantations OF Louisiana or on the
banks Of the Clyde or the Dneiper or the
Shannon or the Seine. Neither are you
responsible for the religion taught in your
fathers house, or the irreligion. Do not
bother yourself about what you can
not help or about circumstances that you
did not decree. !:
Take things as they are and decide the
question so that you shall be able safely to
say, "To this end was born" How will
you decide it? By direct application to
the only Being In the universe who Is COM
pstent to tell you-the Lord Almighty. Do
you know the reason why He is the only
,ne who can tell2 Because He can see
everything between your cradle and your
grave, though the grave be eighty years
of, and besides that He is the only
happening in the last 500 years in
Of years clear back to Adam. and
there is not one person In all that ances-
trail line OF 5000 years but has somehow af-
lected your character, and even old Adam
himself will sometimes turn up In your dis
position. The only Being who can take
all things that pertain to you into consid-
grafton is God, and He Is the one you can
ask. Life Is so short We have no time to
experiment with occupations and profess
sions. The reason We have so many dead
failures Is that parents decided for chill
dren what they shall do, or children them
selves, wrought on by some vhim or fancy,
decide for themselves, without any i'm
plorstion Of divine guidance. SO we have
now in pulpits men making sermons who
ought to be in blacksmith shops making
plowshares, and we have in the law those
who instead OF running the cases of their
clients ought to be pounding shoe lasts,
and doctors who are the worst hindrances
to their patients convalescence, and ar-
lists trying to paint landscapes who ought
TO be whitewashing board fences, while
there are others making bricks who ought
to be remodeling constitutions or showing
planes who ought to be Transforming litera-'
lures. Ask God about what worldly bust
ness you shall undertake until you are so
positive you can In earnestness smite your
hand on your pillow handle, or your car,
penter's bench, or your Blackstone's Com
mentaries," or your medical dictionary, or
your DR.. Dicks "Didactic Theology" say
Ing, "For this end was born" There are
children who early develop natural aAlni-
ties for certain styles OF work. When the