Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1898-12-10
lIFE,s MINOR CHORD.
DIR. TALMAeE TALKS OF MANS COM
PENsATloN FOR SUFFERING.

e
The Philosophy That Comes of Faith.
Characters Must Be Tempered by
Firc-Sin No Accident In GOd's Plan.
BiessinEs In Disguise.
copyright, 1885, by American Press Asso-
ciation.l
WASHINGTON, Dec. TN this dis
course DR.. Talmage takes an optimistio
view of many things that are usually
accounted as inexplicable in human ex-
perisnce and shows us that even trouble
and affliction 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 inexplioable,
the impossible, tho unfathomable, the
insurmountabls. We cannot 90 three
steps in any direction without coming
up against hard wall of mystery, rid
dies, paradoxes, profundities, laby-
rinths, problems that we cannot solve.
hieroglyphics that we cannot decipher.
anagrams we cannot spell out, sphiuxes
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. J"
So 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 right to ask,
Why is this? Why is that? and | think
I 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 cues
tions that have often been asked me, or
that we have all asked ourselves while
| try to set these mysteries to music
md open my dark sayings on harp.
Interrogation the first Why does God
take out of this world those who are
useful and whom wo cannot spare and
leave alive and in eoOd health go many
who are only nuisance to tie world!
l thought ! would begin with The very
toughest of oil the seeu,jng inscru;abies
Many of the most usstal inen and WON
Ell die of 80 or 40 years OF age, willie
you often find useless ren:!e alive at 6O
and 70 and SO ,Ichn Careless wrote to
Bradford, who was socu to be put to
death, saying "Why dutL God suffer
me aud such other caterpillars to live,
that can do nothing but consume the
alms of the church, and take away so
many worthy workmen i'll the Lord S
vineyard?" Similar questions are often
asked. Here are two men. The one is
noble character and q Christian man.
He chooses for lifetime companion one
who has been tonderly reared, ana ne
is worthy of him and ne is worthy OF
her AS merchant or farmer or profess
sional man or mechanic or artist he
tolls 20 educate and rear his children.
He is succeeding, but he has not yet
established for his family a full corr
uetenoy. He seems Indispensable to that
household; but one day, before he has
paid off the mortgage on his house. ne
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 go into struggle for shelter
and food. His next door neighbor is
man who. though strong and well, lets
his wife support him. He is around at
the grocery store or some general ioat-
ing place in the evenings while his vile
sews. His boys are initiating his exam
pie, and lounge and swagger and swear.
All the use that man is i'll that house Is
TO rave because the coffee is cold when
he comes to a late breakfast, or to say
cutting things about MS 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 Oh 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 tho vortex Of worldliness
which every year swallows up 10, 600
households And SO he went while he
was humble and cousecrated. 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 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 longevl-
ty. liz all the ages there has not sin
gle loafer ever entered heaven. There
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