Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-01-05
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON.
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.

Subject: "Life's Minor Chord"-Trials and
Tribulations Arc Necessary For the
Proper Development of Character
Mans Compensation For Suffering.
TEXT: "I will open my dark saying upon
the harp."-Psalm xix, 4.
The world is full OF the inexplicable, the
impossible, the unfathomable, the insur-
mountable. We cannot go three steps in
any direction without coming up against a
hard wall of mystery riddles, paradoxes,
profundities, labyrinths; problems that We
cannot solve, hieroglyphics that we cannot
docipher, anagrams we cannot spoil out,
sphinxes 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. II
will open my dark sayings on harp"
So look off upon society and find people
in unhappy conjunction OF circumstances,
and they do not know what 1t means, and
thew have right to ask, Why is this? Why
is that? and think will be doing good
work by trying to explain some of these
strange things and make YOU more content
with your lot, and shall only be answer
ing questions thar have often been asked
me, or that we have all asked ourselves,
while try to set these mysteries to music
and open nv dark savings on a harp.
Interrogation the first: Why does God
take out of this world those who are use
full and whom we cannot spare and leave
alive and in good health so many who ARE
only nuisance to the world? 1 thought
would begin with the very toughest of all
the seeming inscrutables. Many of the
most useful men and women die at thirty
or forty years of age, while you often find
useless people alive at sixty and seventy
and eighty. John Careless wrote to Brad
ford, who was soon to be put to death,
saying: "Why doth God suffer me and such
other caterpilllars to live, that can do
nothing but consume the aims of the
church, and take away so many
worthy workmen in the Lords vine
yard?" Similar questions are often
asked. Here are two men. The one is
noble character and Christian man.
He chooses for a lifetime companion one
who has been tenderly reared, and she
is worthy Of him and he is worthy of her.
As merchant or farmer or professional man
or mechanic or artist he tolls to educate
and rear his children. He is succeeding,
but he has not yet established for his family
a full competency. He seems indispensable
to that household; but one day, before he
has paid off the mortgage on his house. he
is coming home through a strong north
east wind and a chill strikes through
him, and four days of pneumonia end
his earthly career. and the wife and
children go into a struggle for shelter
and food. His next door neighbor is
man who though strong and well, lets his
grocery store or some general loafing place
in the evenings while his wife sews. His
boys are initiating his example, and lounge
and swagger and swear. All the use that
man is In that house is to rave because the
coffee is cold when he comes to late
breakfast or to say cutting things about
his wifes looks. when he furnishes nothing
for her wardrobe. The best thing that
could happen to that family would be that
mans funeral, but ne declines to die. He
lives on and on and on. So we have all
noticed that many of the useful are early
cut off, while the parasites have great vital
tenaety.
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
80 constructed that they could not have
endured some great prosperity that might
have been just ahead, and they altogether
might have gone down in the vortex of
worldliness which every year swallows up
1000 households. And SO he went while
he was humble and consecrated, 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 &c.
knowledge that, though the furnace
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
fifty or sixty or seventy years because all
the ease he ever can have he must have in
this world, and you ought not, therefore,
begrudge him his earthly longevity. In
all the ages there has not single loafer
ever entered heaven. There is no place for
him there to hang around; not even in the
temples, for they are full of vigorous,
alert and rapturous worship. II the good
and useful 60 early, rejoice for them that
they have so soon got through with human
life, which at best is q struggle. And II
the useless and the bad stay, rejoice that
they may be out in tho worlds fresh air
good many years before their final incar-
ceration.
Interrogation the second: Why do good
people have so much trouble, sickness,
bankruptcy, persecution, the three black
vutures sometimes putting their fierce
beaks into one set Of tangled nerves?
think now OF a good friend 1 once had. He
was consecrated Christian man, an elder
In the church, and as polished a Christian
gentleman rs ever walked Broadway. First
his general health gave out and he hobbled
around on cane, an old man at forty
After awhile paralysis struck him. Having
by poor health been compelled suddenly to
quit business, he lost what property he
had. Then his beautiful daughter died:
then son became hopelessly demented.
Another son, splendid of mind and COM
manding of presence, resolved that he
would take care of his fathers household.
but under the swoop OF yellow fever at
Fernandina, Fla, he suddenly expired So
you know good men and women who have
had enough troubles, you think, to crush
fifty people. No worldly philosophy could
take such trouble and set it to music, or
play it on violin or flute, but dare to open
that dark saying on a gospel harp.
You wonder that very consecrated people
have trouble? Did you ever know any
very consecrated man or woman who had
not had great -troublep Never! 1t was
through their troubles sanctif1ed that they
were made very good. II you find any
where in this city man who has now, and
always has had, perfect health, and never
lost child, and has always been popular
and never had business struggle or misfor-
tune, who is distinguished for goodness,
pull your wire for a telegraph messenger |
boy and send me word, and I will drop
everything and go right away to look at |
him. There never has been man like that |
and never will be. Who are those arro-
giant, self conceited creatures who move
about without sympathy for others and
who think more of st. Bernard dog