Vermont telegraph. [volume] (Brandon [Vt.]) 1828-1843, 1840-03-18
Religious Miscellany.
THE ARITHMETIC OF LIFE.
Computed By The late Req. Dr.. Neolh

The theoretical part Of the business, the
science of numbering our days, is by 40
means very difficult, 1t is not hard,
with all the facts we have, to come 10
correct estimate Of human life.
/. Let as odd t4cm up md find the sum
Of them.
the term of human life has been short /
ened at successive times, until fixed at its !
present Limitation. The days of the years
of man were once nearly thousand years. (;
But God, for reasons not at all honorable |
TO man. viz. because the wickedness of !
man to plot and execute purposes of mis-
chief, aud perhaps to prevent the necessity
of second deluge, cut short his days. .
The process of shortnlng the term Of Or
binary living was gradual. NOab with
his antedi1viar constitution, lived to the
perod of his fathers $50 years. .SheDp,
who had on y the advantage OF an antedlu
vi1nb birth, was cutshort, perhaps by the cIi-
mate after the food, $50 years; 200 years
were taken from the lives of his Immediate
descendants, & the average age ofthe three
succeeding generations was about 440.
The next change was in the time Of Peteg
who, with his descendants for several gen
crations, lived about 24O years. And so
the diminu.ion went gradually on. Yerah,
the father Of Abraham lived 205 wears.
The three Patriarchs reached the age Of
about $50. When Israel was pas sing
Ithtough the wilderness, the boundary
was fixed at three score years AMI ten :;
and now, when we speak Of human life In
the alb Stract, this is the amount at which it
is recEoned 70 years; thus is the first num-
Der III our calculation; the short year that
] is gone seventy times repeated and 40 more.
= | know that when one looks forward from
o childhood, through youth aud manhood,
: 10 old age, the term seems long, and the
: heart is ready to say at IS enoagh."
+ Hope is in the future, and in the souls
: earnest aspiring after it, time seems to
: move but tdrdiiy. The foreground is full
o of goodly prospects, aud in the eagerness
ot to enjoy, the space looks long to pass over
But when allthat was in prospect has been
seen and tasted, and hope has been attain
ed or disappointed, and when the eye, from
the other extreme of life, and with eterni
Z ty full and near before it, casts a returning
I'd look, how short aud diminishing appears
Y, the distance between this day, and the frs
lie remembered day; and who of the aeet
,e will not excIaim with good old jacob fea
TT. hare been the days Of tie gears Of my pill
it. grimage" !
ot But let your seventy years be as mucl
IN as your imagination can make them.
On will not try to make the small numberes>
in Think the term long,i YOU will But vo
St. have not vet numbered your DAYS Fo
Ter 2. III the true arithmetic ofl1fe there
1g, subtraction to be made. There is
by great deal of existence which YOU mu
as not count life There are the days Of il
ION fancy of which there is no memory lei
, IN There are the hours Of sleep, which a
Ca as if they were not; those intermcdia
ell deaths they may be called, in which v
'od, do not so much live as prepare to liv,
sri, and there are those many days and hou
ned in which, from a great variety OF cause
With the mind is not fitted for exerton, nor
she hand for labor they must all be dedu
en-. ed. They are nothing in the correct ez
and mate of life, and then how diminished
will remainder of The hours OF thought and ;
oy- Iivily. which alone deserve TO be call
axe life. is left to you. Greater, far grea
ions are the intervals, than the actual, cnrr'
her life But we have not made GU: our 6
fee mate vet. We have spoken OF the
in stract amount. We have been cal'
YER Iating the absolute of human life. Blu
tion. does not stand unconnected and let US
king 5. LGok at IL as 1t stands related
reii- that a0tich Sb@U come after IT, We IN
ver- state the proportion between this lie q
xpe- the life beyond it; and ascertain the
most tic Of this part 10 mans entire eXlsten
n, in The terms long and short are refatl
esg- and if We would know which OF these
but long to our life. we must compare
ct of seventy years with the hereafter, ctern
.edto There can be no comparison, There
lends lists no proportions Who can comp
leav- the ratio of the finite TO the infinite
r her it is in this view that the Bible tells u:
NJ life, that it is vapor, a morning fio'
ID his handbreath, span, vanity, are
with tale, nothing. A single gram OF 5
d I'M bears some proportion to The sum OF
al in drifts of the desert. a drop, nay, tie !
10 be PARTICLE of exhaled vapor has calcul;
with relation to the aggregate waters oil
aayengI ocean, that has scarcely a souhd'ho
lence, shore. A moment, the present n
: love might be multiplied into the lie OF
o. sic earliest made angels, but no inultlP
,rld Of ton OF time can make elefnny ~
world can be no measure Of me iiie - Io'n'
life.-l however long it may be, yet place.
earth side the line Of eternity, it dininlsbes
leniion point, and the point itself is lost. : :
81 ser. would YOU think Of seventy years u