Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1911 — Is Life Worth j Living? [ARTICLE]

Is Life Worth j Living?

By REV. F. M. HUBBELL

Pertor of ChWdi May Till*» N. D.

TEXT—My soul Is weary of life.—Job X, ft At one time Job, with a large happy family, had lived jfn comfort surrounded by flocks and herds and great abundance. But calamity after calamity fell upon him. The Sabeans carried off his oxen; the lightning fell upon his sheep; the Chaldeans took away hij camels; a storm buried his sons under a fallen building; he himself was smitten from head to foot with loathsome sores. And Job began to wish that he was dead —perhaps he even thought of committing suicide. But calamity stricken Job is only one of a vast multitude who, crushed to earth by the relentless weight of adversity, have eked out a miserable existence, while perhaps the mind has been crowded with thoughts of selfdestruction. We are moved therefore to aßk, with Job of old I 'and with the poor wretch, the tragical ending of whose life is noted in last night’s paper. Now one’s answer to this question depends, not so much upon the experiences, painful and pleasurable, through which he passes, as upon the significance which he attaches to those experiences. This is conclusively shown from the fact that from no quarter are the answers uniform. Out of conditions one bewails existence while another rejoices in it From the fires of persecution there comes tfock to our question, now a positive negative, now as possible an affirmative, and again a mere question point Such different estimates of life grow out of a man’s fundamental beliefs —they seem often to depend absolutely upon his experiences —the experiences often affect the beliefs; but a man’s philosophy of life la the determining factor. One man declares there is no God; another believes in the Christ revelation of God —and they reach different conclusions as to whether life is worth living. Take the first man who denies the existence, of a personal God. Then, for him, there’s no conscious, intelligent volitional cause for his existence. His own mental add heart powers are simply unique products of such materials and forces as food, water, light, air, heat and electricity. He is but a creature of circumstances, developed from a material thing—call it a protoplasmic germ—into a sentient being that hungers and thirsts, suffers physical pain, writhes in mental agony. Moral responsibility is excluded; there’s no moral source for it—no higher moral to be held responsible to. Ti.en there’s no obligation resting upon the strong to regard the weak; the midnight ruffian is as innocent as the babe he murders, groveling millions must suffer to no purpose, for no directing God means no directing purpose. To endure for a time is of no avail, for immortality has no mean. The soul is but a figment of the imagination; Imagination is but a bubble oozing out of brain tissue; human love merely the effervescence which passes off from chemical reaction. The bald pessimlnism of Von Hartman and Schopenhauer 1b a widely accepted doctrine of life today. Von Hartman finds no purpose in history; progress simply increases ffian’s consciousness of the vanity of life. Schopenhauer says: “To live is to desire, to desire is to Want, to want is to suffer; hence, to live is to suffer.

But the average man cannot escape the conviction that God lives and reigns. What answer, then, does the man make who knows only the stern, relentless God discoverable from nature? This man admits a controlling pnrpose. The apparent invariableness of natural law seems Bhut out the possibility of special Providence. Though his whole nature cries out to God in prayer, he has ho assurance of being heard. And he feels the burden of sin with no hope of mercy. Conscience cries out his guilt; swift panalties falling when physical law is violated suggest dire consequences for the violation of moral law.

To square himself with an angry God he mutilates his body, consigns his children to the flames, expects to become an Ixyon bound to a revolving wheel, a Tantalus with an insatiable thirst. To drown the voice Of conscience he plunges into dissipation or throws himself into the turmoil of Grade, and yet conscience speaks. 'He tries to fulfill its behests, but the man, tempted in all points like as he, yet without compass or rudder. he struggles in turbulent waters to enter x harbor of safety. And that harbor' may be the very vortex of a whirlpool, for he knows not his own destiny. To this man who knows not Jesus Christ, it is a real queetlon whether lifer’ be worth living. Job never doubted the existence of God, but he knew him not as a father, and in the hour of calamity he cursed the day of his birth. To the Christian man, however, there can be only an affirmative anew er to our question. Qod Is Christ revealed to him; and he is borne irresistibly onward through all circumstances, murmuring: ‘All things work together for good,; ’Not a sparrow falleth,’ ‘Whom the. Lord loveth he chastcneth,' ‘Adversity yleldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness,' 'Surely he' hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.* ,