Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1898-11-30
SERMONS OF THE DAY

TEXT: "To this end was 1 born."-John
xviii, 81.
After PLATE had suicided, tradition says
that his body was thrown into the Tiber,
! and such storms ensued on and about that
river that bis 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 a deeper pool, which
Immediately became the centre of similar
atmospheric and aqueous disturbances.
Though these are fanciful and false
traditions, they show the execration with
which the world looked upon PLATE. 1t
was before this man when he was in full
life and power that Christ was arraigned
as in a court OF oyer and terminer. Plate
said to his prisoner, "Art thou king,
them" and Jesus answered, ITO this end 1
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 year, OF age the question
Is on the child's lips: "What shall do?
What am going to be? What was made
for2" It is a sensible and righteous ques-
tion, and the youth ought to keep asking
1t until 1t 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
I born"
There is too much divine skill shown In
the physical, mental and moral ,onstitu-
tion OF the ordinary human being to sup
pose that he was constructed without any
divine purpose. If you take me out OF
some vast plain and show ms pillared
temple surmounted by dome like st.
Peters, and having a floor OF precious
stones and arches that must nave taken the
brain OF the greatest craftsman to design
and walls scrolled and niched and paneled
and wainscoted and painted, and 1 should
ask you what this building was put up for,
and you answered, "for nothing at all,
how could believe you? AMI 1t 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 a way that it
shall last long after st. PauPs Cathedral is
as much a ruin as the Parthenon-that
such u being was cons ructed for no other
purpose and to execute no mission and
without any divine intention towar1 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
i
First, 1 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 the cranks that may have lived
in your ancestral line and who, 100 years
before you were born, may have lived a
style OF life that more or less affects you
to-day. You are not responsible for the
fact that your temperament Is sanguine or
nosapeholi siiisas OF lympbatss or
nervous. Neither are you rsspons BILE 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 safelyt to
say, ITO this end was l born.'' How will
you decide 1t? By direct application to
the only Being in the universe who is COM
petent 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 and 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 ances-
trail line of 5000 years but has somehow uf-
fected 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 considI
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 chill dren them
selves wrought on by some whim or fancy,
decide for themselves, without any i'm
ploration 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 hindrnnces
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 rem odeling constitutions or showing
planes who ought to be Transforming litera-
lures. Ask God about what worldly busi-
ness you shall undertake until you are so
positive you can in earnestness smite your
hand on your plow handle, or your car
penter's bench, or your Blackstone's Com
mentaries," or your medical dictionary, or
Z.
Ing, For this end was l born" There are
children vino early develop natural aslni-
ties for certain styles Of work. When the
father of the astronomer Forbes was going
to London he asked his children what
present he should bring each one Of them.
The boy who was to be an astronomer cried
out, Bring me telescope
And there are children whom you find all
by themselves drawing on their states, or
on paper. ships, or houses, or birds. and
YOU know they are to be craftsmen or archi-
tects OF some kind. And you find others
ciphering out difficult problems with rare
interest and success, and you know they
are to be mathem.ticians. And others
making wheels and strange contrivances,
and you know they are going to be mach
inists. And others are found experiment
ing with hoe and plow and sickle, and you
know they will be farmers. And others
are always swapping jackknives or balls or
bats, and making something by the bar
gain. and they are going to be merchants.
When Able de Rance had so advanced In
studying Greek that he could translate
Anacreon at twelve years OF age, there was
no doubt left that he was intended Tor
scholar. But in almost every lad there
comes a time when he does not know what
he was made for, AMI his p, 'ents do not
know, and 1t Is n crisis that Z only can
decide. Then there are those born for
some es ".ial work, and their fitness
does not urvelop until quite late. When
Philip Doddridge. whose sermons and
books have harvested uncounted souls
for glory, began to study for the min
istry, DR.. Calamy, one OF the wisest
and best men, advised him to turn his
thoughts to some other work. Isaac Bar
row. the eminent Clergyman and Christian
scientist-his books standard now, though
he has been dead over 200 years-was the
disbursement of his father, who used to
say that II 1t pleased God to take any OF his
children away he hoped it might be his sor
isaac. so some o! those who have been
characterized for stupidity in boyhood OF
gfrlhood have turned out the mightiest
benefactors or benefactresses Of the human
race. These things being SO am not right
in saying that in many cases God only
knows what Is the most appropriate thing
for you to do, and He is the one to ask?
And let all parents and all schools and all
universities and all colleges recognize this,
and n larga number OF those who spent