Norwich bulletin., 1920-04-27
SERMON LESSONS FROM
 sAMsoN's WASTED LITE

, - Y <
 The standing example of what a life ought not to be was the way Rev. Dr. S. H. Howe spoke of the life, of Samson in his sermon at Park Congregational church Sunday morning from the text: He wist not that the spirit of God had departed from him.
 In part pr. Howe said:
 This was said of Samson, a grotesque, abnormal figure of early Jewish history We ask why give such men space in sa- cred books. Why not reserve these scanty spaces for better men. We have outgrown them. We imagine these to be far away ideals and remand them to the legendary lumber lofts. Why not dis miss them and replace them with the fine Greek legends? And yet when we have reasoned the story out we have way of fishing out these rejected traditions and asking their fresh interpretations. We rather unconsciously find ourselves mir rored in them.
 Now here is huge, grotesque, ele- phantine, mountainous man, a veritabie mastadon. Behenoth who can trample province under his feet, who can play with his countries enemies and dance them on his knees and then devour them Great athletic power mated to the intel tual and spiritual inmaturity of child Possessing brute strength of whose uses he seems ignorant and showing how with ! great opportunity great soul may go astray. Useful as a warning hoy the true end of life may be missed a great career declined. a great destiny thrown away, all of which is the common place of 1 modern life. i9.
 Here was a man of vast physical forces who did not know their best uses He had tremendous equipment but did not know their best uses. He had tre- | mendous equipment but did not know what he was in the world for. . Lavish l ing Herculean strength of triviafities rending lions, snapping5 withes; catching foxes. burning barley fields, staying Phil istines with jawbones of asses. He did not know what he was in the world to do, had no definite plan. never inquirine at headquarters of the divine plan for | his life and spending life funbfing and | blundering and playing the mischief witf | his designated vocation and reaping the whirlwind for his wild oats sowing. Bu1 l there is nothing ancient about this sort l of thing. Half of us never raise the question what are we sent into life for what our real business in this hard vfsaged world is. Tackling no grea task. doing no great and noble thing | but absorbing ourselves with triviaiitiel or worse and ending life in self defeat AICAO Wdo q iIletti lOSI in d Id0BIeQ IOreS of trifes. making of life Ian excellen fooling," losing himself in things tha were not on the original program for heaven-designated life. But we see rnel losing themselves in the same way The, may be making a sensation but are no the men and women God intended then to be. They have lost their way enc We may lose our way We may be los in these most respectable grooves of so ciety We are not the men and wome1 God intended us to be. We are not hal the Christian men and women we shoul be and no one is so conscious of this a those who have done fair days work. This man is a standing example 0 . what a life ought not to be. He starte from angel visions, Nazarite vows.
 praying household. and from this he wen off in self-glorious self-exp1oitation. H used all his heaven bestowed gifts t
 draw the wonder of the nations to hin
 self and he came to the loss of every
 thing. slave to grind in the mills of hi
 enemies. Was there ever tragedy Iik | this? Shakespeare never painted the fo,
 and the harlequin so close to life an
 yet it is the picture of much twentiet
 century life. We can find his replica a
 every street and in every conlniun it,
 He was called to walk the shinin
 heights and he took his plunge in tf
 inky river of foul corruptions. We ca
 all decline our vocation and take up vii
 lower standards and ideals. TheStrage6
 of life Is to live for less than the fiigl
 est. to give away the great secret of 0,
 strength and go down to: the levels
 weak and fruitless life
 And so we read that when Samson .le
 God God left Samson. He would not <
 Gods work and God left him to do de
 il's work, left him to blindness and sla
 cry, the blindness of not being able to S
 his vocation or the reason for which
 was sent into life. To walk about he
 in life with the divine light of the e
 tinguished. We think this man was
 fool but we can duplicate him and we s