Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1891 — DON’T BORROW TROUBLE. [ARTICLE]

DON’T BORROW TROUBLE.

‘■Sufficient Unto the Day Is the Evil ThftTpnf.” Borrowing Trouble Like Debt, Don’t Fay I —lt Bring* Sorrow# Instead of Happiness—Dr. Talmage'g Sermon. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached *st Brooklyn last Sunday. Text: Matt, vi., 34. He said: _ZZ_ Tbe life of every man, woman and child is as closely under the divine care as though suph person were the only man. woman or child. There are 10 accidents. As there is a law of storms in the natural world, so there is a law of trouble, a law of disaster, a law of misfortune: but the majority of the troubles of life are imaginary, and the most of those anticipated never come. At any rate there is no cause of complaint against God. See how much He hath done to make thee happy. His sunshine filling the earth with glory, making rainbow ior the storm and halo for the mountain, greenness for the moss, saffron for the cloud, and crystal for the billow, and procession of bannered tiame through the opening gates of the morning, chaffinches to Sing, rivers, to glitter, seas to chant and springs to blossom, and overpowering all othor splendor with his triumph, covering up all other beauty with its garlands, and outflashing all other thrones with its dominion—deliverance for a lost world through the Great Redeemer. I discourse of the sin of borrowing trouble.

1. Such a habit of mind and heart is wrong, because its puts one into a despondency that' ill fits him for duty. I planted two rose bushes in my garden; the one thrived beautifully, the other perished. I found the dead one on. the shady side of the house. Our disposition, like our plants, need sunshine. Expectancy of re»uls&4s- the-ca,u.sß of manvsecitE iar and religious failures. Fear of bankruptcy has uptorn many a fine business, and sent the man dodging among the note-shavers. Fear of slander and abuse has often invited ill the long-beaked vultures of scorn mfl back biting. Many of the misfortunes of life, like hyenas, flee if you courageously meet them. How poorly prepared for religious luty is a man who sits down under the gloom of expected misfortune! If Re pray, he says. “Ido not think I shall be answered. " If he give, lie says, “I expect they will steal the none;/. ” Helen Chalmers told me that her father, Thomas Chalmers,in the darkest hour of the history of the Free Church of Scotland, and when the woes of the land seemed to weigh iipon his heart, said to the children, ‘‘Come, let us go out and play ball or 3y kite,” and the only difficuh.y in the play was that the children could aot keep up with their father. The M’Cheynes and the Summerfields of the Church who did the most good, mltivated sunlight. Away with the jorrors! they distil poison; they dig graves; and if they could climb soligh they would drown the rejoicings >f heaven with sobs and wailing, ifou will have nothing but misfortune n the future if you sedulously watch for it. How shall a man catch the right kind of fish if he arranges his ine and hook and bait to catch ITzirds and water serpents? Hunt for oats and hawks, and bats and hawks irou will find. Hunt for robin-red-jreasts, and you will find robin-red-arcasts. One night an eagle and an )wl got into fierce battle; the eagle, unused to the night, was no match for the owl, which is most at home :n the darkness, and the king of the tir fell helpless; but the morning rose, and with it rose the eagle, and ihc owls, and the night-hau’ks, and She bats came a second time to the ;onibat. Now the eagle in the sunlight, with a stroke of his talons and i great cry, cleared the air, and his ;nemies, with torn feathers and inla.shed with blood, tumbled into the thickets. Yeacethe chiidreßsof; tight. In the night of despondency you will have no chance against your enemies that flock up from beneath, hut, trusting in God and standing in the sunshine of the jwomises, you shall ‘‘renew vour youth like the eagle.” Again: The habit of borrowing trouble is wronjr, because It has a make us overlook present blessing. To slake man's thirst, the rock is cleft, and cool waters leap into his brimming cup. To feed his hunger, the’fields bow down with bending wheat, and cattle come down with full udders from the clover pastures to give him milk, and the orchards yellow and ripen, casting their juicy fruits into his lap. Alas! that amid such exuberance of bless-

ing man should grow] as he was a soldier on half rations, or a sailor on short allowance; that a man should staged neck-deep in harvests looking forward to famine; that one should feel the strong pulses of health marching with regular dread through all the avenues of life, and not tremble at the expected assault of sickness; that a man should sit in his pleasant home, fearful that ruthless want will some day rattle the broken window-sash with tempest, and sweep the coals from the hearth, anu pour hunger into the bread-trav; that a man fed by him who owns all the harvests should expect to starve; that one whom God gives and surrounds with benediction, and attends with angelic escort, and hovers over with more than motherly fondness, should be looking for an heritage, of tears! Has God been hard with thee that thou shouldst be foreboding? Has He stinted thy bourd?, Has He covered thee with rags? Has He spread traps for thy feet, and galled thy cup and rasped thy soul, and wrecked thee with storm, and thundered upon thee with a life full of

caiamity? If yqur father or brother cume lulu your bank where gold and silver are lying about you./to rvt yUil KUOW they Sr 6 honest; out if an entire stranger come by the safe you keep your eye on him, for you do not know his designs. So some men treat God; not as a father but a stranger, and act suspiciously toward Him. as though they were afraid he would steal something. It is high time you began to thank God for present blessing. Thank Him for your cihldren —happy, buoyant and bounding. Praise Him for vour home, with its fountain of song and laughter. Adore Him for the morning light and evening shadow. Praise Him for fresh, cool water, bubling from the rock, leaping io the cascade, soaring in the midst, falling in the shower, dashing against the rock and clapping its hands in the tempest. L*>ve Him for the grass that cushions the earth and the clouds that curtain the sky and the foliage that waves in the forest. Think Him tor a Bible to read, and a cross to gaze upon and a Savior to read. Many Christians think it is a bad sign to be jubilant,and their work of self-examination is a hewing down of their brighter experiences, Like a boy with a new jack knife, hacking every thing he comes across, so their self-exammation~is ar religious cutting to pieces of the greenest things they can lay their hands on. They imagine they are doing God’s service when they are going about borrowing trouble, and borrowing it at 30 per cent., which is always a sure percursor of oankruptcy.

Again; the habit of borrowing trouble is wi-ong, because the present is sufficiently taxed with trial. God sees that we all need a certain amount of trouble, so He apportions it for all the days and years' in our life. Alas for the policy of gathering it all up for one day or year. --Gruel thing to put upon the boefcof one camel all the cargo intended for the entire caravan. I never look at my memorandum book to see what engagements and duties are far ahead. Let every week bear its own burden. The shadows of to-day are thick enough, why implore the presence of other shadows? The cup is already distasteful, why halloo to disasters far distant to coine, and wring out more gall into the bitterness? Are we such champions that, having won the belt in former encounters we can go forth to challenge all the future? Here are business men just able to manage affairs as they now are. They can pay their rent, and meet the notes, and manage affairs as they now are, but what if there, should come a panic? Go to-morrow and write on your day-book, on your ledger, on your money-safe,'““Sufficient pnto the day is the evil thereof.” Do not worry about notes that are far from due. Do not pile up on your counting-desk the financial anxieties of the next twenty years. The God who has taken c4re of your worldly occupation,guarding your store from the torch of the incendiary and the key of the burglar, will be as faithful in 1891 as in 1881. God’s hand is mightier than the machinations of stock-gamblers, or the plots of political demagogues, or the red right arm of revolution, and the darkness will fly and the storm fall dead at His feet. So there are persons in feeble health, and they are worried about the future. They make out very well-now, but they are bothering themselves about future pleurisies, and rheumatisms, and neuralgias and fevers. Their eyesight is feeble, and they are worried lest they entirely lose it. Their hearing is indistinct, and they are alarmed lest they become entirely deaf. They felt chilly to-day, and are expecting an attack of typhoid. They have been troubled for weeks with some perplexing malady, and dread becoming life-long invalids. Take care of vour health now, and trust God for the future. Be not guilty of blasphemy of asking him to take care of you while 'you sleep with your windows ‘ tight down, or eat chicken salad at 11 o’clock at night, or sit down on a cake of ice to cool off. Be prudent and then be confident. Some of the sickest people have been the most useful. It was so with Payson, who died deaths daily, and Robert Hall, who used to stop in the midst of his sermon and lie down on the pulpit sofa to rest, and then go on again. Theodore Frelinghuysen had a great horror of dying till the time s came, and then went peacefully. Take care of the.present and let the future look out for itself. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Again: The habit of borrowing misfortune is

wrong, because it unfits us for it when it actually does come. We cannot always have smooth sailing. Life’s path will sometimes tumble among declivities, and mount a steep and be thorn-pierced. Judas wiH kiss our cheek and then sell us for thirty pieces of silver. Human scorn will try to crucify us between two thieves: We will hear the iron gate of the sepulcher creak and grind as it shuts in our kindred. But we cannot get ready for these things by forebodings. Those who fight imaginary woes will come, out of breath, into conflict with the armed disasters of the future. Their ammunition will have been wasted long before they come under the guns of real misfortune. Boys in attempting to jump a wall sometimes go so far back, in order to get impetus, that when they come up they are exhausted; and these long races, in order to get spring enough to vault trouble, bring us up at last to the dreadful reality with our strength gone. ’Finally: The habit of borrowing trouble is wrong because it is unbe•lief. God has promised to take care

of us. The Bible blooms with assur ances. Your hunirer will be fed; voui wifi be aiieviatea; yrrd. Yuirows will be healed. God will sandu 1 your feet and smooth your path, and along by frowning crag and opening grave sound the voices of victory anc good cheer. The summer clouds* that seem thunder-charged really carry in their bosom harvests of wheat, and shocks of corn, and vineyards purpling for the wine press. The wrathful wave will kiss the feet of the great storm-walker. Our great Joshua will command, and above your soul the sun of prosperity will stand still. Bleak and wave-struck Patmos shall have apocalyptic vision and you shall hear the cry of the elders, and the sweep of wings, and trumpets of salvation, and the voice of Hallelujah unto God forever. Your way may wind along dangerous bridle paths, and amid wolf's howl and the scream of the vulture, but the way still winds upward till angels guard it, and trees of life over arch it, and thrones line it, and crystalline fountains leap on it. and the pathway ends at gates that are pearl and streets that are gold, and temples that are always open, and hills that quake with perpetual song, and a city mingling for every Sabbath, and jubilee, and triumph and coronation. Courage, my brother! The father does not give his son at school enough money to last him several years, but, as the bills for tuition and board, and clothing and books come in, pays them. So God will not give you grace all at once for the future, but will meet allr your exigencies as they come. Through earnest praj’er, trust Him. Put every thing in God’s hand, and leave it there. Large interest money to pay will soon eat up a farm, a store, an estate,and the interests on borrowed troubles, will swamp any body. “Sufficicient unto the day is the evil AhcrcaLY—--V ; ■ -