The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1876-09-06
WHAT rs YoUR LIFE.

ton Of General Clusters little band. They
were warriors ALL trained to the art of war,
and they persisted by the bullet, tho arrow
and the sword. It is sounded anew from a
southern village, where the blood shed in
heated passion cries out for retribution upon
the guilty agents in = horrible and needless
massacre. 1t Is echoed from the streets and
river Of northern city where three brutal
murderers met their swift doom at tho hands
ola great throng Of men, who avenged the
slaughter of their comrades and neighbors
and saved the laws delay. 1t echoes in the
war of the tempest that sEnotc the most SPLEEN
did of pleasure yachts with sudden destruc-
ton, and made 1t the tomb of its rich owner
and his wife and their guests. More fcarfully
still does the old question come back to us in
the mortuary lists of our cities during this
heated term-and specially in the death rate
among children. During the past four weeks
between two and three thousand little ones
have died in this city alone. If cholera, or
scarlet fever, or typhus had done this, the
whole country would be in panic.
In addition to these more prominent calami-
ties, we must remember that it is the season
Of increased mortality upon the water and the
land. The risks of travel arc shared by
greater multitudes. Sports and recreation
often end in tragedies. Sudden tempests,
lightning, accidents and human violence arc
constantly swelling the numbers of those who
die by the ordinary diseases of the Summer |?
Dangers stand thick around. Miasma poisons
the air and steels away precious lie. Modern
houses propagate sewer gas and local infec-
tions with the steadiness of machines that
work day and night. Modern life carries the
instruments of its own destruction in its
hands. Our Sanitary Congresses are more than
matched by the evils and excuses of the civil
lization of which they are the offspring.
We do not lay these things to heart until
some calamity forces them upon our reluctant
and careless minds But what is life? And
what is your life2 The light torch may soon
be blown out or it will die out of itself ;
swifter than a weaver's shuttle, it shoots
back and FORTH working into its fabric every
shape and color that we give it. It flies like
the post-rider on his daily journey. 1t is as a
shadow and we flee away.
But life is Gods great gift to every man
that cometh into the world. Its sacre dness
is cardinal fact in the Divine government.
No man has right to take it by his own
hand, and every man is bound by the laws OF
his being to respect, preserve and ennoble his
own life that by it he may accomplish his own
high destiny, and love God and his neighbor
by fulfilling the law to both. Willful suicide
is worse than madness, it is the crime of self
murder. Brutal violence against the person
and the life is the resort only of those who
forget and defy God and dishonor man. Hu-
mainly never stops her outcry against those
whose I" feet are swift to shed blood" Plhian-
thropy devises all that sympathy and inge-
nuity can invent to relieve human suffering
and to prolong life and help the helpless.
Heathenism has no pity for the aged and the
sickly /; the modern thought Of some men APP
proves and sings its enthanasa over the sui
cide's grave and the destruction Of the weak
est, that the fittest may survive. 1t is part Of
this new philosophy that hospitals and asy-
lums of all kinds arc worse than useless, as
they only offer premiums to perpetuate dis
ease and feebleness, and it were better to rid
the race of the helpless ones by letting them
"de in their nests. i"
But Christianity measures man by the
worth of his soul and life by its prime objects
and its capacities, and makes its philanthropy
as necessary for the woes of the world, as its
great redemption for its lost souls. What was
the life of the "man Christ Jesus !" worth to
all the world? What is any good, pure, gen.
tie, noble life worth WHO can estimate
such problems? Not only so, but who can
tell the value Of some life that is at this very
moment sunkcn in sin and degradation and
that shall yet be rescued, sanctiied and con-
secrated to the welfare Of man and the glory
of God? Was there ever apparently more
dangerous and hopeless man in the world than
was Saul of Tarsus in the eyes of the perse-
cuted Christian, up to the moment when he
was smitten to the ground at the gates of
Damascus?
Facts like these throw new light upon the
question, What is your life? They elevate
and glorify it in the shadow of the Cross of
Him who is the Life and the Light of men,
Over agadst its frailty is set its Immortality |;
over against its sins and woes it's redemption
and sanctitication and opposite its accidents
and trouble appears the earthly discipline for
the better and higher life of heaven.
The obvious lessons Of the life that now is
were taught by Him who said, " A mans life
consistent not in the abundance of the things
which he possesseth = Man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God - ~
am the Way and the Truth and the Life ("
!" am the Resurrection and the Life. He
that belieycth in Me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live, and he that liveth and be-
lieveth in Me shall never die. Believest thou
this - Christian Weekly.
-e.--z0ss--.>------
Mrs. Darlington laments that the college
commandments have slipped by without her
hearing a single bacchanalian sermon.