The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1883-01-03
SHORT LIFE A BLESSING
The Horrors Of Long Life, and a
Short One Desirable.
Rev. TaImage Says We Look Through the
Wrong End Of the Telescope and See
Our Blessings Inverted.

BROOKLYN, N. Y, December 31.-The
following was the sermon of Rev. T..
Dewitt Talmage, d. D., preached in the
Brooklyn Tabernacle Sunday morning.
He took for his subject "The blessings
of short life"
TEXT: Isaiah Ivii., 1: "1he righteous
is taken away from the evil to come"
We all spend much of our time in a
panegyric of longevity. We think it is
a great thing to live to be octogenarlans.
If one die in youth OF mid-life we say,
what a pityl' and if one is ordinarily
pFOspered he never desires to go. DR..
Muhlenburg in his last days regretted
having written his famous hymn Il
would not live alway." VIM. c. Bryant,
the poet, at eighty two years Of age, i'll
my house, amid festal group, reading
''ThanatOpsis" without spectacles, was
Just as desirOuS of living as when at
81 ihteen years Of age he wrote that i'm
mortal threnody. ThurlOw Weed at
about eighty-six finds life as much of a
desirability as when he snuffed out the
first politician. Albert Barnes, so we'll
prepared for the next life, expressed
during the seventies his preference to
stay here. Cato, at eighty years of age,
was afraid he would die before he learn
ed Greek. MOnaldescO, at 115 years,
writing the history of his time, is eau
tiOus lest he collapse before he complete
it. TheOphTastus, beginning to write a
book at ninety, wants to live till he can
finish it. have no doubt that Methus-
aleh the last time he was out in storm,
was afraid of catching cold and short
ening his days. Indeed, as have shown
in other sermons there are blessings in
longevity, but as this is the last day of
1882, and sadness is apt to OVertake al
most everyone at the thought that an
other chapter of his lifetime has closed
l. l. n,.s AsnwVa kgZ
pose to show you also that there are
blessings in an abbreviated earthly eX-
istence, and then bring out the practi-
cal, healthful and joyful application of
such theory. If 1 were an agnOstic
would say that man is blest in pro-
portion to the number of days he can
stay on terra firma, because when he
dies he falls off the docks, and if he is
ever picked out of the depths at all it
will be only to be set up in some NOR
que of the universe to see IL anyone
will claim him. If God made man only
to last forty or fifty or eighty years, aGd
then he is to go into annihilation, l
would say that man had better spend
the most of his time in trying to keep
alive, never walking out even in dry
weather without umbrella and over
shoes and life pTeserver and braZen ar
NOR and weapons of defense, since in
any unguarded moment he might fall
off into nOthingness and Obliteration.
But taking it for granted that you are
not agnostics but believe in immortali-
ty and future residence in heaven for
the righteous, first remark that a short
earthly existence is blest in the fact
that it makes life's work more compact.
Some men 90 to business at o'clock in
the morning and stay until 6 in the
evening. Others go at 10 and stay till 3.
Others go at 8 in the morning and get
oh nf nf
who are ten hours a day at business,
others five and others seven, and they
are all faithful and do, some in longer
and some in shorter time, all the work
required of them. Which man would
you rather be? well" you say, "Other
things being equal, would rather have
thlSbusihess that requires the shortest
time. Now apply the same good sense
to the matter of transference from this
world. When one dies in childhood he
gets through his work at 8 o'clock in
the morning. If he die at f0rty-flve
years of age he gets through at IL
O'Clock at noon. II he die at seventy he
gets through at 8 o'clock in the even
ing. If he die at ninety he works on
till about III o'clock at night. tell you
that provided ones work iS done the
earlier he goes the better. We often
see good men in middle life flash out of
earthly existence. Whyp They got
through their work and went home.
The harvest all in the barn, the farmer
does not sit down amid the stubble of
the field. He shoulders his scythe and
takes his pitcher from under tree and
strikes straight from the farmhouse.
Again a short earthly existence is
bIest in the fact that mortal disasters
might OVertake one if he tarTy longer
Last week man who had been prOmi-
nent in churches and universally adj
Inired for generosity and kindness
through forgery was sent fifteen years
10 State prison. Twenty years ago there
was no more probability that he would
do financially wrong than that you or
would do financially wrong. Between
fifty and seventy years of age more men
go down than you could count in a long
while, IL these men had gone out OF
life at thirty or forty years of age il
fWOuldthaYe been better for them anC
their families. The shorter the voyage
the Less chance for cyclones. There is
wrong theory which teaches that If &
mans youth is right his old age will b(
right. You might as well say all yoT
need for the safety of ship is to get il
we'll launched on the Atlantic ocean.
have often asked those who were school
mates of some great defaulter, wha
kind of a boy or young man the unfOr
tunate was2 get the answer, He wa
a splendid fellow; l never wOulC
80 far astray." Sometimes the grea
pressure of temptation does not COM
until mid-life or old age. At abOu
fOrty-ive years Of age there comes |
change in the nervous system. Some
one tells the'man he must take stimu
lants to keepup. He takes it to keel
up till 1t keeps him down. A man ha
been trudging along in business 70
twenty or thirty years. He sees {
chance by one unreputable move t
emaneipate hiLiseif and family from
financial embaT :assfnent. In attempt
ing TO leap toe ehasm he falls into il
Then, after fOrty-livsyears of age come tn
most of the Temptations of success.
man make fortune by thirty years O
age he generally gets rid of it by forty
The most of the solid and permanen
RDaesses of life do not reach their eli
"a ntil after fifty years. Bank pres
RriRN3FNHP have white hail
es are gathered ur
N Afhen come all th
uI, |YN NI,N AatiOna of faIna q