The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1898-11-24
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
OUR BIRTHRIGHT LAST SUN
J DAYS SUBJECT.

From the Following Text: "ro This
End Was I Born.''-John, Chapter
xviii, Verse 37-The Manifold Re-
sponsibilities of Parontage Set Forth.
After PLATE had suicided, 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 disturbances swept that
river and its banks. Then the body
was taken out and moved to Lausanne,
and put in deeper pool, which imme-
dlately became the center of similar
atmospheric and aqueous disturbance.
Enough these are fanciful and false
traditions, they show the execrat1on
with Which the world looked upon Pr
late. 1t was before this man when he
was IN full life in court of Oyer and
Ierminer. PLATE said to his prisoner:
Art thou a king, then?" and Jesus
answered: ITO this end was born. :"
Sure enough, although all earth and
nell arose to keep him down, he is to-
day empalaced, enthroned and coronet-
ed 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 l do? What am going to be?
What was made for?" It is a sensi-
pie and righteous question, and the
youth ought to keep asking it until it
is so fully answered that the young
man, or young woman, can say with as
much truth as its author, though on a
less expansive scale; ITO this end was
born"
There Is too much divine skill shown
In the physical, mental and moral con-
stitution of the ordinary human being
to suppose that he was constructed
without any divine purpose. If you
take me out on some vast plain. and
show me pillared temple surmounted
by dome like St. Peters, and having
a floor of precious stones and arches
that must have taxed the brain Of the
greatest draughtsman to design, and
walls scrolled and niched and paneled,
and wainscoted and painted, and I
should ask you what this building was
put up for, and you answered: For
nothing at ALL" how could l believe
you! And it is impossible for me to
believe that any ordinary human be-
Ing who has in his muscular, nervous
ana cerebral organization more won
ders than christopher Wren lifted in
ST. Pauls, or Phidias ever chiseled on
the Acropolis, and built in such a. way
that it shall last long after St. Paul's
catnedral is as much ruin as the
Parthenon-that such being was con.
ssructed Tor no purpose, and to execute
no mission, and without any divine in
tentlon toward some end. The object
~ OF this sermon is to help you to find
out what you are made for, and help.
you md your sphere. and assist you
INTO that condition where you can say
with certainty and emphasis and en-
thuslasm and triumph; ''To this end
was 1 born.'' '-'
First, discharge you from all re-
sponslb1l1ty for most of your environ
ments. You are not responsible for
your parentage or grand-parentage.
you are not responsible for any of the
cranks that may have lived in your an
cestral line, and who a hundred years
before you were born may have lived
style of life that more or less affects
you today. You are not responsible for
the fact that your temperament is san
gulne' or melancholic, or bilious, or
Vmphat1c, 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 irreug-
ion. Do not bother yourself about
what you cannot help, or about circum-
stances THAT you did not decree. Take
things as they are, and decide the
question SO that you shall be able
safely to say: ITO this end was
Dorn. How will you decide it? By
direct application to the only Being In
the universe who is competent to tell
you-the Lord Almighty. Do you know
the reason why He is the only one
who can tell? Because he can see
everything between your cradle ana
your grave, though the grave be eighty
years OF. And besides that, He is the
only Being who can see what has been
happening in the last 500 years in your
ancestral line, and for thousands OF
years clear back to Adam, and there is
not one person in all that ancestral
line Of 5000 years but has somehow
affected your character, and even old
Adam himself will sometimes turn up
in your disposition. The only Being
who can take all things that pertain
to you into consideration is God, and
He is the one you can ask. Life is SO
short we have NO time to experiment
with occupations and professions. The
reason we have SO many dead failures
is that parents decide for children
what they shall do, or children them
selves, wrought on by some whim OF