The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-05-20
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE BY THE
REV. Or, HOWARD DUFFIELD.

subj Get " FOotmen and Horses "-Every
Man Hears at Times In His Soul u
Resembling Cry which Beckons Him
to His Highest Destiny.
New YorK CRY. - DIR. Howard Duf-
Church, Fifth avenue and Twelfth street,
preached Sunday on "Footmen and
Horses" He took his text from Jeremiah
Xii:5 DR.. Dufield said:
1t is healthful for us to test our hopes
to-day as experience shall test them for lls
tomorrow. Squarely, individually and i'm
mediate'y let lis face the challenge of Jer-
envy. the prophet: IF thou FUNNIEST with
the footmen. and they have wearied thee,
then how canst thou contend with horses"
Let us first study the pursuit of happi-
ness. The pursuit of happiness is intense
and universal and rightful The pursuit
of happiness has enlisted the unwearied
energy of the most of men throughout all
time. Pleasure surely cannot be a very
hard problem to solve. Certainly it can be
no difficult thing to win happiness. Brave
and bonny is this pleasure house of an
earth IN which we live. Dazzling bright is
this Vanity Fair of world in which the
lot of mortals is cast. Its booths are most
alluring. Its wares are most seductive;
slxiilful are it's traders. and eager faced It's
throngs of buyers. Behold the simmer
ing flash of its gems and the rich rustic of
its soft silksi Hearken to the sweet notes
of its music and the golden chnk of its
coin! Lend your ear to the rhythmic beat
of it's dance and the gladstone rapture o.
it's revel. Mark the CLEAN of its flashing
eyes! Heed the spell of its silvery laugh-
teri The idea that this world is not
minister of happiness is hermit logic; is
the grabbed fruit of clustered seclusion; is
the harsh inference Of Puritanic prejudice.
The siren voices of the world are ever
summoning men to a wealth of pleasures
pleasures of the palate, pleasures of the
passions, pleasures of the intellect. The
blaring trumpets Of the world are ever
heralding the triumph of its votaries as
crowned with laurels and clasping the
trimming cup of its satisfaction, one and
another ascends the throne of its dominion.
Very well, point me out the happy ones.
Those smile wreathed lips repress rising
sigh. Those ughter-lighted eyes but mask
a wearied heart. The glitter is tinsel. The
trappings are fustian. The ornament is
stucco. The mirth is hollow hearted. DO
you not know that those men who have
filed all of fortunes Golfers are the most
brain wearied and heart burdened of the
children of the earth, in their effort to fill
one more? Have you never learned that
the man who has climbed the throne is
smitten with heart sickness because there
is some Naboth's vineyard unpossessed?
Has it never been told you that man may
wear the jeweled tokens Of kings favor
and yet writhe under the pang of disap-
pointment because some beggar Mordecai
stands in the palace gate? Ii not, let me
put in evidence the testimony OF competent
witnesses. Listen to that pampered pet of
fortune, bedecked with the insignia of
English nobility, and standing upon the
pinnacle of earthgiven happiness. In the
swiftest swing of pleasures whirlpool, in
the very heyday of life, upon his thirty
sixth birthday. Lord Byron wrote:
"My days are in the fellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone,
The worm, the canker end the grief
Are mine alone"
Recall the words of Chesterfield, who
reduced the pursuit of happiness to fine
art, and had taken every degree in the
freemasonry of human pleasure: Il have
been behind the scenes, have seen all the
coarse pulleys and the dirty ropes which
move the gaudy machinery, and l have
smelled the tallow candles which illumn-
ate the hollow decorations to the astonish-
ment OF an ignorant audience" Listen to
the peevish wall of Heine, that richly
gifted poet, critic and master thinker who
wrote in his diary: What lists it 20 me
that at banquets my health is drunk out of
golden Spblets and in the best Of wine, if
l, myself, separated from all the Joy of the
world, can only moisten my lips with the
physicians potion? What lists it to me
that enthusiastic youths and damsels
crown my marble bust with laurels. when
on my real head blister is being clapped
by my old sick nurse? What lists it to me
never so sweetly? Alas, Shiraz is 900 miles
from Rue pAmsterdam, where | get moth
ing to smell in the melancholy solitude of
my sick room but the aroma of warm pou.-
tees" Behold the trophies of the world
are wetted with a rain of tears The re-
verberating plaudits which greet the
worlds successes only serve to waken the
wailing echo, Vanity of vanity, it ali il
vanity"
lose their fire. The luster of its gold will
tarnish. Its garlands will wither and their
bloom and fragrance will vanish away.
What shall that man do who cannot taste
delight in the midst Of his pleasures, when
the lights of the reve begin to grow dim,
and sorrow as with harpy's hand, sweeps
bare the banquet board, and amid the
gathering shadows the fingers of destiny
begin to write doom sentences upon the
pack single hour with unalioyed pleasure,
when he crosses the threshold of long,
long etlrnity, Do not blink the question.
Meet its thrust fairly. IF you cannot run
Nth footmen how will you contend with
horses?"
Apply another test. There is a deeper
longing in many minds than the thirst for
pleasure. 1t is the craving for truth.
There is genuine grandeur in the achieve
ments of the intellect. The coronet of cul-
ture is brighter far than kings diadem.
The robes of mental royalty are more i'm
perial than the mantle OF Caesar
1t would seem as though the mind mon
archs of the present age had realized that