The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-06-14
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
sY rAg REV. FRANK DE WITT TALMAeE. ?. ?.

life of consecrated usefulness. The text
 is sams xvi. six The lines are fallen
 unto me in unpleasant places
 Different occupations often imply diff
 ferent enjoyments All varieties of flow
 CTS do not thrive equally well under the
 same colored glasses The amusements
 which would be exhlaration and restful
 relaxation for the physician may be
 drudgery and irritation for the merchant.
 The owls and the bats turn their days into
 nights and their nights into days The
 eagles and the hawks do not circle about
 in the heavens unless they heat their
 feathers by the flaming fires of the The inhabtant of one home may be deaf and blind to the pleasures surrounding
 another freside
 In the baclzwoods best learned this in- teresting lesson. With my family, was spending a summer vacation in the coun- try In a rowboat, far from railroad station l was tracing the bendings and windlngs of a little river. Suddenly, at a turn of the stream, we came 10 small house nesting under the protecting branches of the tall trees. I found there
 woman living practically alone She
 had no children. All day long her hus-
 band was off to work. l said to her;
 This is an awful place to livel You must
 be lonely and heartscE with no compan-
 ionship." "Oh no" she answered. T am
 never alone l have hundreds of friends
 who call and talk to every day Do
 you that little nest just at the end of
 my porch? Well, last spring the mother
 bird came here a bride and asked me
 if she could build her home there, and l
 said Yes Then she talked and chat
 tered on all the time she was building 1t. She brought me her husband and intro duced me to him. She tod me when the | eggs were layed and when the eggs were hhtched. She is one of my friends. Then just over there under the bank a musgrat | has his home and is raising his family. | He comes out every little while and blinks at and talks in the sign language. | Then there are my friends the wild flow CTS and my friends the chickens and my | friends the fish. which feed at the dock. Then the river itself Is a friend of mine. IL has a language of murmurs and gur- gles to which I listen. and when get | tired and weary l am soothed by It's sym pathy. Oh, no: do not pity me for being | alone. My enjoyments are perhaps not your enjoyments but they are many. very | many I would not exchange my life for
 that of anyone l know Happy woman
 that. Happy because she was in the place
 where she could the qualities with |
 which God had endowed her Happy be- cause, like a bee. she was able to find |
 every flower filled with nectar for her
 lips. Happy because every tree branch
 was to her 6 choir loft in which a master soloist singing the sweetest song In all his repertoire.
 The Happiest Life.
 We'll my friends, as 1 needessly pitied | that poor woman living in the backwoods } there are hundreds and thousands of peo- l pie commiseratng the supposed unhappy lot of a gospel minister These sympa- thetic commiserations have become wide ; spread. There are hundreds-aye thou sands-of young men who might otherwise
 have volunteered for service in the Chris tian pulpits, have been deterred on ao- , count of them. from consecrating them- r selves to the gospel ministry. Now | : want to speak specially this morning to 3 the young men who are graduating from our colleges and schools, and if they have [ adopted this view of the Christian minis try being a joyless, gloomy life l want | to set them right. I make direct appeal | to the young men to enter the gospel pull l pit because it offers the happiest, the most blessed and the most exharating : life on earth l am going to make thls
 plea with autobiogra phical authority by , showing the kindnesses and the sympa- thes which have surrounded me from the day of my ordination down to the present , time.
 The first objection generally made to
 the occupation of a minister is that it
 
 is true. but it does offer something far
 better in the joy of noble consecration.
 We have all at some time proved the
 truth of Chrsts words, that 1t Is better
 to give than to receive. When the bower , bird of love buded her home for the first time In hearts immedlatey tried to manifest that love in many different ways. We laid at the feet of our lady love our gifts, as the wise men of the east came 10 the manager with their presents of gold and franlSlncense and myrrh. We manifested our love in the little atten- tions daily bestowed and in the letters we would write. As time passed on we again manifested that love in the engage ment ring which tremhlingly placed upon the finger of our future bride. Has any money we have since earned ever l given such Joy as that which came in the happiness of her smile in the welcome of her voice and in the knowledge that we were winning her directions in return for our affections? My young friend did you ever stop to consider that the Christian minister has such joys these which |
 make the acquisition of a fortune appear
 In comparison low and sordid? Apart from the rewards that God gives to the faithful | minister. there is a joy in the self-sur- | render. In the consecration of our whole l lives to Christ. who laid down hls life | for us
 Not Measured by Money. The true artist has q deep sense of the |
 inspiring exhlaration when he surrenders
 his life to his art. Only the other day a |
 young man left my Chicago church to go
 to Europe and study in the foreign art
 schools. l said to him: Why do you fol-
 low this professional In all probability
 you will only eke out of it bare living.
 You will have years and years of finan-
 cia struggles ahead" "I know it." he
 answered, with smiling face, but
 though I may not make much money I
 shall have higher reward than money.
 would be willing to live all my life in
 poverty if l only could continue to know
 the joy of trying to interpret the higher
 message of the soul in the language of
 coors."