The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1883-01-03

wealth. The majority of greatly sue
cessful men are flung Of arrogance or
worldliness or dissipation. Their sue
cess was their temporal calamity and
their eternal ruin. Concerning thOus-
ands of men it seems pity they could
not have embarked from this world at
twenty or thirty years of age. l think
that the reason the majority OF the hu-
man race do not reach thirty is because
they have not the moral endurance for
what is beyond thirty and God in his
mercy will not put them to the strain.
Again, a short earthly existence takes
man the sooner off the defensive.
From the time a man is old enough to
take care of himTelf he is on guard; puts
bolts on the door to keep out robbers;
fireprOOf safes to keep off the flames; re-
ceipts to keep from second payment of
debts; insurance on property lest 1t be
cOnsumed; life boats in case of ship
wreck; Westinghouse air brake in case
of collision; the world full of people
who would like to OVerreach him or take
that which he has; ;.defense against cold.
deOense against heat, defense against
sickness, defense against the worlds
abuse, defense all the way down to his
grave, and even the tombstone is not
always a sufficient barricade. Now if
night, shivering and stung with cold,
pacing the parapet with shOuldered
musket, is glad when some one comes to
relieve guard, and he can go into the
fortress to warm, certainly man ought
to shout for Joy when he can ground his
weapon. of defense and go into the Kings
castle. Which is most fortunate, the
soldier who has to stand guard for six
hours, or one who is compelled to stand
guard for twelve hours?
Again, an abbreviated earthly exist
ence is best in the fact that 1T escapes
so much trouble. The longer one lives
the more attachments, the more kindred,
the more cords to be wounded or rasped
or sundeTed. Let man live sixty or
seventy years of age and how many
graves he has left open at his feetl
During that long reach of time his father
and mother go, his brothers and sisters
go, his children go, his grandchildren
go and personal friends outside the cir
Gle, to whom he is ardently attached as
were David and Jonathan. Perhaps he
has for fifty or sixty years had ma ural
trepidatiOn about his own demise,
natural horror of dissolution ever and
anon shuddering through body and soul.
If the light goes out at six he escapes
fifty hearses fifty exits, fifty Obsequies,
fifty wrenchings of the heart. WemOurn
over his departure than that he should
have tarried and mOurned over fifty de-
partureSp Can we not by the grace of
God rally ourselves into a generosity of
bereavement that shall make US say,
"Well, this grief is hard for me to bear;
/ am glad he will never have to go
through it," You remember that David
lost his son. Though David was a king
he was so completely prOstrated that he
lay all night on the earth and would eat
nothing. Now, at this distance of years
as you look at it, which was the more
fortunate, the ShOrt-liVed child or the
IOng-Ifved fatherP If David had died as
young as that child died he would have
escaped first the bereavement of this
child, then the worse bereavement of
AbsalOm, the recreant son, the pursuit
of the Philistines, the long fatigues of
his military campaign, SauPs jealousy,
perfidy of AhithOphel, the churlishness
of Nabal, the destruction of the family
at Ziklag, the curse OF Shimel, and,
above all, his own two great crimes of
uncleanness and murder. Though he
lived to be of such vast service to the
world, as far as his own happiness was
concerned, would it not have been an es-
cape far him to have died early? This
is the explanation of the fact that in the
vast majority of cases where children
are taken, the most VivaCiOus, the most
hearty, the most generous, the most
sympathetic of the family are removed.
1t is because that kind of nature suffers
the most and is most liable to tempta-
ton. God sees the tempest sweeping
from the Caribbean and puts the delicate
craft into the first harbOr.
Again, there is a blessing in an alb
breViated earthly existence because it
puts one sooner into the center Of things.
All astronomers, Christians and intidels,
agree that the universe swings around
one great center. Anybody that has
studied the world and studied the heav-
ems knows that Gods favorite figure in
geometry is a circle. 1t is evident that
when God put forth his hand at the be-
ginning to start the universe, he did not
give angular motion to that hand, but
that He waved it in a circle and kept on
waving 1t in circle until consultations
and galaxies and all worlds took that
movement. The planets swung around
the sun and other planets swung arOu nd
other suns, but there is one great hub
round which all the great wheel of the
universe turns. No doubt that Is heaven,
| the great metropolis of immensity. Now
what Incompatible advantage has a soul
| moving out from that center, compared
with a soul clear out on the rim of the
universe, as in our world. We are like
a man standing on the Atlantic beach
trying to study the American continent.
The way to study it is to cross it and go
into the center of it. Our standpoint in
this world is defective. We are at the
wrong end of the telescope. The place
to study great piece of machinery is
not to stand on the doorstep and try to
look in, but to go with the engineer and
take your place amid the saws and cyl
inders. We wear our eyes out and wear
our brains out because of our disadvan.
tageous position. Millions of dollars
for observations to find things about the
moon, about the sun, about the rings OF
=. Saturn, about transits and OceulatiOns
eelipses, simply because our studio and
observatory are poorly situated. We are
trying to study the palace of the. uni
verse from the cellar, while our departed
Christian friends have gone up stairs tC
study it among the skylights. Are moi
those who get the soonest into the best
position for studying everything to bC
congTatulatedp Who wants forever tC
stay in the freshman class? Here we
study God by the Biblical photograph Of
him. You know that in five minutes OF
personal contact with friend you gel
more accurate notion of him than by