Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1898-12-23
WHAT WE LIVE FOR.
Dr.. Talmage breaches on What Our
Lives Should Be.
The object of Our Existence Down
to the End should lie Action
Paradise Is only for
the Workers.

ullHSlOl III NllN hOiANt 'i'AS 80 -
DR.. Talmage win come as cheering
revelation; text, John xviii, 81: "To
this end was born"
After PLATE has 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 into deeper pool which immedi-
ately became the center of similar at
mospheric 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 Cnrist
was arraigned as in the court of oyer
end terminer. Plate said to his prison.
er; "Art thou a king, then? and
Jesus answered: ''To this end was |
born" Sure enough, although all earth
and hell arose to keep him down, lie is
to-day empalaced enthroned and coro-
reted king of earth and king Of Heav-
en-. 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 Is years of age, the ques-
tion is on the child's lips; What shall
do? What am going to beP What
was made for?' 1t is n sensible and
righteous question, and the youth ought
to keep asking it until it is so fully an
swered that the young man or young
woman can say with as much truth as
its author, though on less expansive
scale: TO this end was born"
There Is too much divine skill shown
H. the physical, mental and moral con-
| stitution of the ordinary human being
TO suppose that he was constructed
without any divine purpose. IL you
| take me out on some vast plain and
show me pillared temple surmounted
by dome like st. Peters an0haying a
floor of precious stones and arches that
must have taxed the brains of the great
est draughtsman to design, and walls
scrolled and niched and paneled and
wainscoted and painted, and should
tsk you what this building was put up
| for and you answered For nothing at
| ell" how could believe you? And it is
| impossible for me to believe that any
ordinary human being who has in his
muscular, nervous and cerebral or2ani-
| zation more wonders than Christopher
| Wren lifted in st. Paul's, or Phidias
ever chiseled on the Acropolis, and built
in such way that il shall last long
after ST. Paul's cathedral Is as much a
| ruin as the Parthenon-thats such be-
ing was constructed for no purpose and
TO execute no mission, and withou. any
| divine intention toward some end. The
object of this sermon is TO help ynu to
| 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 enthusi-
Gsm and triumph: ITO this end was
| born"
First, discharge you from al; re-
sponsibility for most of your ENVIRON
ments. You are not responsible for
your parentage or your grandparent-
age. You are not responsible for any
of the cranks that may have lived in
| your ancestral line and who hundred
| hofnra hnrr ho,
lived a style Of life that more or less
effects you to-day. You are not re-
sponsible for the fact that your temper
ament is sanguine, or melapcholic, 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 ir-
religion. 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: "To this end / was
born" 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
knew 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 80
years off. 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 or
fancy, decide for themselves, without
any imploration of Divine guidance.
So we have now in pulpits men MAX
ing sermons who ought TO be in black
smith 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
artists trying to paint landscapes who
ought to be whitewashing board fences,
while there are Others making bricks