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6
LIFE’S BRIGHT SIDE.
DR. TALMAGE SEES SUNSHINE ON
EVERY CLOUD.
God'« terming AffllrHon* on I’M Are
Inflvrncfß For Gootl- (irnndenr of
Character Im Achieved by C<»n«(uer
; IDK EMI.
ICopyriffht, 18S8, by Atnerfcan Press Asso
cfatHn.J
Washington, Dec. 4.—ln thia discourae
Dr. Talmage takes an optimistic view of
many things that are usually accounted
as Inexplicable in human experience and
shows us that even trouble and affliction
may not be wholly without their brighter
side; tert, Psalm xlix, 4, “I will open
my dark saying upon the harp.”
The world is full of the inexplicable, the
impassable, 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 crfnnot
decipher, anagrams we cannot spell out,
sphinxes that will not speak. For that
reason David in my text projwaed to take
up some of these somber and dark things
and try to set them to sweet music. “I
will open my dark sayings on a harp.” So
I look off upon society and find people in
unhappy conjunction of circumstances,
and they do not know what it means, and
they have a right to ask: Why is this? Why
is that? And I think I will be doing a
good jgork by trying to explain some of
these strange things and make you more
content with your lot, and I shall only be
answering questions that have often been
asked me or that we have all asked our
selves while I try to set these mysteries to
jsusio and open my dark sayings on a harp.
Why Are the Vsefvl Taken?
Interrogation the first: Why does God
take out of this world those who are use
ful.-and whom we cannot spare and leave
alive end in good health so many who are
only nuisance to the world? I thought I
would begin with the very toughest of all
the seeming iriserutables. Many of the
most useful men and women die at 30 or
40 years of nge, while you often find use
less people alive at €0 and 70 and 80. John
Careless wrote to Bradford, who was soon
to bo put to death, saying, ‘‘Why doth God
suffer me and such other caterpillars to
live that can do nothing but consume the
alms of thechurch and take away so many
worthy workmen in the Lord's vineyard?”
Similar questions are often asked. Here
are two men. The one is a npble character
and a Christian man. lie chooses for fl
lifetime companion one who lias been ten
derly reared, and she is worthy of him and
he is worthy of her. As merchant or farm*
et or professional man or mechanic or ar
tist he toils to educate and rear his chil
dren. Ho is succeeding, but he has not
yet established for his family a full com
petency. He seems indispensable to that
but one dav. before he has paid I
the intiHguge oh Klw house, ho is com
ing holbh thfough a strong northeast wind,
and a chill strikes through him, and four
days of pneumonia end his earthly career,
and the wife and children go into a strug
gle for shelter and food. His next door
neighbor is a man who, though strong and
well, lets his wife support him. He is >
around at the grocery store or some gen
eral loafing place in the evenings, while
his wife sews. His boys are imitating his
example and lounge and swagger and
•wear. All the use that man is in that
house is to rave because the coffee is cold
when he comes to a,' late breakfast or to
say cutting things about his wife’s looks,
when he furnishes nothing for her ward
robe. The best thing that could,happen to
that family would bo that man’s funeral,
but he 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 tenacity.
I take up this dark saying on my harp
and give three or four thrums on the string
in tho way of surmising and hopeful
guess. Perhaps the useful man was taken
out of the world because he and his family
were so constructed that they could not
have endured some great prosperity that
might have beeu just ahead, and they all
together might have gone down in the
vortex of worldliness which every year
swallows up 10,000 households. And so
he went while he was humble and conse
crated, and they were by the severities of
life kept close to Christ and fitted for use
fulness here and high seats in heaven, and
when they meet at last before the throne
they will acknowledge 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 j
hand, the useless man lived on to 50 or 00 '
or 70 years because al! the ease he ever can
have ho must have in this world, and you ■
ought not therefore begrudge him his [
earthly longevity. In all the ages there j
has not a 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 raptur
ous worship. If the good and useful go
early, rejoice for them that they have so
soon got through with human life, which
at best is a struggle. Amt if the useless
and the bad stay rejoice that they may be
cut in the world's fresh air a good many
years before their final incarceration.
Trotiblew of the Good.
Interrogation tho second: Why do good i
people have so much trouble, sickness,
bankruptcy, persecution, the three black
vultures sometimes putting their fierce
beaks into one set of jangled nerves? I
think now of a good friend I once had.
’He was h consecrated Christian man, an
rider tn the church, and as polished a
T'hristian gentleman as evet walked
Broadway. First his general health gave j
out, and he hobbled around on a cane, an
old man at 40. After awhile paralysis ;
struck him. Having by poor health been j
compelled suddenly to quit busin ass, he
lost what property he had. Then his beau- J
Aiful daughter died; then a son became
hopelessly detaented. Another son, splen
did of mind and commanding of presence,
resolved that he would take care of his fa
ther's household, but under the swoop of
yellow fever at Fernandina, Fla., he sud
denly expired. So you know good men and
women who have had enough troubles,
you think, to crush 50 people. No world
ly philosophy could take such a trouble
•nd set it to music or play it on violin or
fiute, but I dare to open that dark saying
qn a gospel harp.
You wonder that very consecrated peo
ple have trouble? Did you ever know any
very consecrated man or woman who had
not had great trouble? Never! It was
through their troubles sanctified that they
were made very good. If you find any
where in this city a man who has now and
always has had perfect health and never
lost a child, and has always beeu popular,
and never had business struggle or mis
lortune, who is distinguished fcr good
ness. pull your wire for a telegraph mes
senger boy and send me word, and I ill
drop everything and go right away to look
at him.. There never has been a man like
that and never will be. Who are those ar
rogant, self conceited creatures who move
about without sympathy for others and
who think more of a St. Bernard dog, or
an Alderney cow, ora Southdown sheep,
ora Berkshire pig than of a man? They
never had any trouble, or the trouble was
n?ver sanctified. Who arc those men who
listen with moist eye as you tell them of
suffering, and who have a pathos in their
voice, and a kindness in their manner, and
1 an excuse or an alleviation for these gone
astray? They are the men who have grad
uated at the Royal Academy of Trouble,
and they have the diploma written in wrin
kles on their own countenances. My! my!
What heartaches they had! What tears
they have wept! What injustice they have
suffered! Tho mightiest influence for
purification and salvation is trouble. No
diamond fit for a crown until it is cut.
"No wheat fit for bread till it is ground.
There are only three things that can break
off a chain—a hammer, a file or a fire—
and trouble is all three of them. The
greatest writers, orators and reformers get
much of their force from trouble. What
gave to Washington Irving that exquisite
tenderness and pathos which will make
his books favorites while the English lan
guage continues to be written and spoken?
An early heartbreak that he never once
mentioned, and when, 30 years after the
death of Matilda Hoffman, who was to
have been his bride, her father picked up
a piece of embroidery and said, ‘‘That is a
piece of poor Matilda’s workmanship,”
Washington Irving sank from hilarity in
to silence and walked away. Out of that
lifetime grief the great author dipped his
pen’s mightiest re-enforcement. Calvin’s
“Institutes of Religion,” than which a
more wonderful book was never written
by human hand, was begun by the author
at 25 years of age because of the persecu
tion by Francis, king of France. Faraday
toiled for all time on a salary of £BO a year
and candles. As every brick of the wall
of Babylon was stamped with the letter
N, standing for Nebuchadnezzar, so every
part of the temple of Christian achieve
ment is stamped with the letter T, stand
ing for trouble.
All Im For the Best.
When in England a man is honored with
knighthood, he is struck with the flat of
the sword. But those who have come to
knighthood in tho kingdom of God were
first struck, not with the flat of the sword,
but with the keen edge of tho scimeter.
To build his magnificence of character,
Paul could not have spared one lash, one
prison, one stoning, one anathema, one
poisonous viper from the hand, one ship
wreck. What is true of individuals is true
of nations. Tho horrors of thcvAmerican
Revolution gave this country this side of
the Mississippi river to independence, and
the conflict between England and France
gave the most of this country west of the
Mississippi to the United States. France
owned it, but Napoleon, fearing that Eng
land would take it, prftotlcally made a
present to the United states, for he receiv
ed onlv 115,000,000 for Louisiana, Mis
souri, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, lowa,
Minnesota, Colorado. Dakota, Montana,
Wyoming and the Indian Territory. Out
of the fire of th© American Revolution
camo this Country east of the Mississippi,
out of the European war came that west
of the Mississippi river. The British em
pire rose to its present overtowering gran
deur through gunpowder plot, and Guy
Fawkes’ conspiracy, and Northampton in
surrection, and Walter Raleigh’s behead
ing, and Bacon’s bribery, and Cromwell’s
dissolution of parliament, and the battles
of Edge Hill, and the vicissitudes of cen
turies. So the earth itself, before it could
become an appropriate and beautiful resi
dence for the human family, had, accord
ing to geology, to be washed by universal
deluge and scorched and made incandes
cent by universal fires, and pounded by
sledge hammer of icebergs, and wrenched
by earthquakes that split continents, and
shaken by volcanoes that tossed mountains
and passed through tho catastrophes of
thousands of years before Paradise became
possible, and the groves could shako out
their green banners, and the first garden
pour its carnage of color between the
Gihon and the Hiddekel, Trouble a good
thing for the roots, a good thing for na
tions as well as a good thing for individ
uals. So when you push against me with a
sharp interrogation point, Why do the good
suffer? I open the dark saying on a harp
and, though I can neither play an organ or
cornet or hautboy or bugle or clarinet, I
have taken some lessons in the gospel harp,
and if you would like to hear me I will
play you these: “All things work together
for good to those who love God.” “Now
no chastening for the present seemeth to
be joyous, but grievous nevertheless after
ward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of
righteousness unto them which are exer
cised thereby.” “Weeping may endure
for a night, but joy cometh in the morn
ing.” What a sweet thing is a harp, and
I wonder not that in Wales, the country
of my ancestors, the harp lias become the
national instrument, and that they have
festivals where great prizes are offered in
the competition between harp and harp, or
that weird Sebastian Erard was much of j
his time bent over thischorded and vibrat- I
ing triangle and was not satisfied until he 1
had given it a compass of six octaves, from I
E to E with all the semitones, or that I
when King Saul was demented the son of
Jesse came before him and, putting his
fingers among the charmed strings of the
harp, played the devil out of the crazed
monarch, or that in heaven there shall be
harpers harping with their harps. So you
will not blame me for opening the dark
saying on the gospel harp:
Your harps, ye trembling saints,
Down from the willows take;
Loud to the praise of love divine
Bid every string awake!
Conquering Evil.
Interrogation third: Why did the good
God let sin or trouble come into the world
when he might have kept them out? My
reply is. Ho had a good reason. He had
reasons that he has never given us. He
had reasons which he could no more make
us understand in our finite state than the
father, sterling out on some great and
elaborate enterprise, could make the 2-
year-old child in its armed chair compre
hend it. One was to demonstrate what
grandeur of character may be achieved on
earth by conquering evil. Had there been
no evil to conquer and no trouble to con
sole, then this universe would never have
known an Abraham or a Moses, or a
Joshua, or an Ezekiel, or a Paul, or a
Chirst, or a Washington, or a John Mil
ton, or a John Howard, and 1,000,000 vic
tories which have been gained by the con
secrated spirits of all ages would never
have been gained. Had there been no bat
tle there would have been no victory.
Nine-tenths of the anthems of heaven
would never have been sung. Heaven
could never have been a thousandth part
of the heaven that it is. I will not say
• that 1 am glad that sin and sorrow did
j enter, but I do say that I am glad that
i after God has given all his reasons to an
’ assembled universe he will be more honor-
ed than if sin and sorrow had never enter
ed, and that the unfallen celestials will be
outdone and will put down their trump<?ts
to listen, an 1 it will ba in heaven, when
those who have conquered sin and sorrow
MACON NEWS MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 5 iSO.
shall enter, as it would be in a small sing
ing school on earth if Thai berg and Gott
schalk and Wagner and Beethoven and
Rheinberger and Schumann should all at
once enter. The immortals that have
been chanting 10,000 years before the
throne will say as they close their librettos, I
“Oh, if we could only sing like that!” J
But God will say to those who have never
fallen and consequently have not been re- f
deemed: “You must be silent now. You
have not the qualification for this an
them.” So they sit with closed lips and
folded hands, and sinners saved by grace
take up the harmony, for the Bible says .
“no man could learn that song but the
hundred and forty and four thousand
which were redeemed from the earth.”
A great prima donna, who can now do
anything with her voice, told mo that
when she first started in music her teacher i
in Berlin told her she could be a good j
singer, but a certain note she could never |
reach. “And then,” she said, “I went to
work and studied and practiced for years
until I did reach it.” But the song of the
singer redeemed, the Bible says, the exalt
ed harmonists who have never sinned
could not reach and never will reach.
Would you like to hear me in a very poor
way play a snatch of that tune? I can give '
you only one bar of the music on this gos
pel harp,/‘Unto him that hath loved us
and washed us from our sins in his own
blood and hath made us kings and priests
unto God and the Lamb, to him be glory
and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
But before leaving this interrogatory,
Why God let sin come into the world? let
me say that great battles seem to be noth
ing but suffering and outrage at the time
of their occurrence, yet after they have
been a long while past we can see that it
was better for them to have been fought—
namely, Salamis, Inkerman, Toulouse,
Arbela, Agincourt, Trafalgar, Blenheim,
Lexington, Sedan. So now that the great
battles against sin and suffering are going
on we can see mostly that which is de
plorable. But 20,000 years from now,
standing in glory, we shall appreciate that
heaven is better off than if the battle of
this world’s sin and suffering had never
been projected.
Favorites Disciplined.
But now I come nearer home and put a !
dark saying on the gospel harp, a style of
question that is asked a million times ev
ery year. Interrogation the fourth: Why
do I have it so hard while others have it
so easy? Or, Why doT have so much diffi
culty in getting a Jmdihopd while others
go around with a fuli porteinonnaie? Or,
Why must I wear these plain clothes while
others have to push hard to get their ward
robes closed, so crowded are they with
brilliant attire? Or, Why should I have to
work so hard while others have 365 holi
days every year? They are all practically
one question. I answer them by saying it
is because the Lord has his favorites, and
he puts extra discipline upon you and ex
tra trial because he has for you extra glory,
extra enthronement and extra felicities.
That is no guess of mine, but a divine
fays so: “Whom the Lord loveth he ohas
teneth/; “Well,” says some one, “I would
rather have a little less in heaven and a
little more here. Discount my heavenly
robe 10 per cent and let me now put it on
a fur lined overcoat; put me in a less gor
geous room of the house of many mansions
and let me have a house here in a better
neighborhood.” No, no; God is not going
to rob heaven, which is to be your resi
dence for nine hundred quadrillion of
years, to fix up your earthly abode, which
you will occupy at most for less than a j
century, and where you may perhaps stay '
only ten years longer, or only one year, or j
perhaps a month more. Now, you had bet
ter cheerfully let God have his way, for,
you see, he has been taking care of folks
for near 0,000 years and knows how to do
it and can see what is best for you better
than you can yourself. Don’t think you
are too insignificant to be divinely cared
for. It was said that Diana, the goddess,
could not be present to keep her temple at
Ephesus from burning because she was at
tending upon the birth of him who was to
be Alexander the Great. But I tell you
that your God and my God is so great in
small things as well as large things, that
ho could attend the cradle of a babe and
at the same time the burning of a world.
And God will make it all right with
you, and there is one song that you will
sing every hour your first ten years in
heaven, and the refrain of that song will
be, “I am so glad God did not let me have
it my own way!” Your case will be all
fixed up in heaven, and there will be such
a reversal of conditions that we can hard
ly find each other for some time. Some of
us who have lived in first rate houses here
and in first rate neighborhoods will be
found, because of our lukewarmness of
earthly service, living on one of the back
streets of the celestial city, and clear down
at the end of it at No. 808 or 909 or 1505,
while some who had unattractive earthly
abodes, and a cramped one at that, will in
the heavenly city be in a house fronting
the royal plaza, right by the imperial
fountain or on the heights overlooking the
river of life, the chariots of salvation
halting at your door, while those visit you
who are more than conquerors, and those
who are kings and queens unto God for
ever.
You, my brother, and you, my sister,
who have it so hard here, will have it so
fine and grand there that you will hardly
know yourself and will feel disposed to
dispute your own identity, and the first
time I see you there I will cry out, “Didn’t
I tell you so when you sat down there in
the pew and looked incredulous because
you thought it too good to be true?” And
you will answer. ‘ You w6re right; the
half was not told me I” Sol open your dark
saying of despondency and complaint on
my gospel harp and give you just one bar
T)f music, for I do not pretend to be much
of a player. “The Lamb which is in the
midst of the throne shall lead them to liv
ing fountains of water, and God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes.” But, I
must confess, I am a little perplexed how
some of you good Christians are going to
get through the gate, because there will be
so many there to greet you, and they will
all want to shake hands at once and will
all want the first kiss. They will have
heard that you are coming, and they will
all press around to welcome you and will
want you to say whether you know them
after being so long parted.
Adjourned, to Eternity.
Amid the tussle and romp of reunion I
tell you whose hand of welcome you had
better first clasp and whose cheek is en
titled to the first kiss. It is the hand and
the cheek of him without whom you would
never have got there at all, the Lord Jesus,
‘ the darling of the skies, as he cries out,
, “I have loved thee with an everlasting
love, and the fires could not burn it, and
the floods could not drown it.” Then you,
• my dear people, having no more use for
; my poor harp on which I used to open
your dark sayings, and whose chords some-
I times snapped, despoiling the symphony,
i you will take down your own harps from
the willows that grow Ly the eternal water
courses and play together these celestial
airs, some of the names of which are en
titled “The King In His Beauty,” “The
Land That Was Far Off.” And as the
last dark curtain of mystery is forever lift-
ed it will be as though all the oratorioe
that were ever heard had been rolled into
one, and “Israel In Egypt,” and “Jeph
i thah’s Daughter,” and Beethoven’s ‘‘Over
ture In C,” and Ritter’s first “Sonata In
I D Minor,” and the “Creation,” and the
“Messiah” had been blown from the lips
] of one trumpet or been invoked by the
sweep of one bow or had dropped from the
' vibrating chords of one harp.
But here I must slow up lest in trying
i to solve mysteries I add to the mystery
that we have already wondered at —name-
ly, why preachers should keep on after all
the hearers are tired. So I gather, up into
one great, armful all the whys and hows
and wherefores of your life and mine
I which we have not had time or the ability
to answer and write on them the words,
“Adjourned to Eternity.” I rejoice that
we do not understand all things now, for
if we did what would we learn in heaven?
If we knew it all down here in the fresh
man and sophomore class, what would be
the use of our going up to stand amid the
juniors and the seniors? If we could put
down one leg of the compass and with the
other sweep a circle clear around all the
inscrutable?, if we could lift our little
steelyards and weigh the throne of the
Omnipotent, if we could with our seven
day clock measure eternity, what w’ould
be left for heavenly revelation? So I move
that we cheerfully adjourn what is now
beyond our comprehension, and as, accord
ing to Rollin, the historian, Alexander
the Great, having obtained the gold casket
in which Darius had kept his rare per
fume, used that aromatic casket thereafter
to keep his favorite copy of Homer in and
called the book therefore the “Edition of
the Casket, ” and at night put the casket
and his sword under Lis pillow, so I put
this day into the perfumed casket of your
richest affections and hopes this promise,
worth more than anything Homer ever
wrote or sword ever conquered, “What I
do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt
know hereafter, ” and that I call the “Edi
tion Celestial.”
His Life Was Saved.
Mr. U. E. Lilly, a prominent citizen of
Hjannibal, Mo., lately had a wonderful de
liverance from a frightful death. In tell
ing! of 'it he says: “I was taken with ty
phoid fever, ithat' tran into pneumonia.
My lungs became hardened. I was so
waaty’l couldn’t even sit up in bed. Noth
helpedl me. I expected to soon die of
dohisumption, when I heard of Dr. King’s
New Discovery. Nine bottles gave great
rel|idf. I continued to use it, and now am
wtell and strong, I can’t say too much in
its praise.” This marvellous medicine is
the surest and quickest cure in the world
fo'r lai throat and lung troubles. Regular
sizes 5 cents and SI.OO. Trial bottles
free at H. J. Lamar & Sons’ Drug Store;
every bottle guaranteed,
Star
Clothing
Co.
Dave Wachtel, Mgr.
Come With
Your Wife
Today if you can; but
come and select your Fall
Suit and Overcoat.
You can do it more
profitably of us. And
more to your satisfaction
than in any other store in
Macon. Real Clay Worst
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Covert Cloth Overcoats,
any shade. Our own
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Do You Know
Dear Public,
You’re slippery? Not
you, sir. Oh, no, nor
you, nor any one in par
ticular. But the very day
after we say to you that
we have everything worn
by boy or man. In comes
a man asks where's a good
place to buy Hats, Cloth
ing and Furnishings.
When told they.’re here
says, “If yotir Hats, etc.,
are as good, as your Over
coats let’s see them. Now
this week we’re going to
tell you and show you as
hard as we can that we
keep Hats—the good sort,
just like our Clothing.
We’ll say just what is
good for you to know.
AT RETAIL W,
Wool Blankets
At Manufacturers’ Cost.
RidiculDuslu Hot
LOW Stuff!
For Cold Days,
Mackintoshes - Mackintoshes
Almost at your own price.
Never has such an opportunity been offered in
Macon.
Remember, we are selling these at retail.
,J. R. FRIED & CO., Cherry Street.
$5.00 for $3.50
This is literally what the MIX SHOE
CO. is giving you in
Men’s Shoes.
The advertisement speaks the truth;
it is no catch; we are selling out.
Mix Shoe Co.
• *
107 Cotton Avenue.
Wb hib Better Prepared Than Ever
To take care of the building trade of Macon
and tributary points. Our facilities for prompt
ly filling orders are unexcelled. If you are go
ing to build a house it will save you money to
see us before buying your material. If you
desire to build by contract, we are contractors
and builders and take any house, large or small
by contract.
Macon, Sash, Door and Lumber Co.
Office, Fourth Street, Phone 416.
Factory Enterprise, South Macon, Phone 404
_ Beauty-Loving
people go into raptures over our latest de.-
signs in parlor and sitting-room furniture.
■^/7/1 _n| They have as good cause for delight on
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Jf A X We Don’t
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Fastest Trains inJOhio.
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Everybody will be there this summer. For information inquire
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