The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-01-10
THE TABERNACLE SERMONS.
a Discourse Suggestive of Increased
Longevity for the Human Race.
How Christian People Shorten Their Lives by
Disobeying Natural Laws-The Religion
of Health-Christian Hygiene.

At the Brooklyn Tabernacle, on Sunday morn
ing, the Rev 7. Dewitt Talmage, D. D., gave
notice that he would shortly begin series of
Sabbath morning discourses on the Marriage
Ring" treating from a religious standpoint the
following topics: THE Choice of Husband and
Wife, 'Clandestine Marriages and Escapades,
s'Duties of Husbands, TO Wives" Duties of
Wives to Husbands" 'srhe Wrong Ways OF
Women Costume and Morals" Competent
Housewifery," Sensible Young Womanhood, -
women Who Will Pass Life SINGLE. "Infu-
ence Of Sisters Over Brothers," 1.-THE Modern
Novel and Woman clearinghouse and
Hotel Life" and 1.-THE Treatment of Man
servant and Maidservant."
DR.. Talmage's sermon to-day was on 'Long
Life and the text was:
That thy days may be long upon the land which the
Lord thy God giveth thee.--Exodus XXX, II.
Following is the sermon in full:
JAM 3, 1886! The old almanacs and the old
Temorandums flung aside. Everything to re-
mind US of the fact that another volume in the
history of time has begun, and every thoughtful
man and woman at such time discusses the
length or the shortness of human life. Faithful
discharge Of duty is in my text set forth as hav-
ing much to do with the length Of our earthly
stay. Through the mistake of its friends re-
ligion hasUeen chiefly associated with sick beds
and grave-yards. This whole subject to many
people is odorous with chlorine and carbolic
ACID. There are people who cannot pronounce
the word religion without hearing in it the
clipping chsel Of the tombstone cutter 1t is
high time that this thing were changed and
that religion, instead of being represented as
hearse to carry out the dead, should be repre-
scented as chariot in which the living are to
triumph. Religion so far from subtracting from
ones vitality is glorious addition. 1t is sana-
tive, curative hygienc. 1t is good for the eyes,
good for the ears, good for the spleen, good for
the digestion, good for the nerves, good for the
muscles. When David in the Psalms prays that
religion might be dominant, he does not speak
OF it as a mild sickness, or an emacation or an
attack of moral and spiritual cramp; he speaks
OF it as the saving health of all nations" while
God pronounces long life to the pious, saying:
with long life will satisfy thee"
The fact is that men and women die too soon.
It'll high time that religion joined the hand of
medical science IN attempting to improve human
longevity Adam lived $50 years Methuselah
lived 969 years. AS late in the history
of the world as Vespasan, there were at
one time in his empire forty-five persons 1876
years old. So far down as the sixteenth century
Peter Tartan died at 1876 years of age / do not
say that religion will ever take the race back to
antedluvian longevity, but do say the length
OF human life will ba greatly improved. 1t is
said in Isaiah XIV, 20: 1.-THE child shall die an
hundred years DID," Now, if, according to the
Scriptures. the child is to be a hundred years
and 400 and 5009 The fact is that we are mere
dwarfs and skeletons compared with some of the
generations that are to come.
Take the African race They have been under
bondage for centuries; Give them a chance and
they develop Frederick Douglass or a Touis-
saint fOuverture. And if the white race shall
he brought out from under the serfdom of sin,
what shall be the body9 What shall be the
soulf Religion has just only touched our world.
Give it full power for few centuries, and who
can tell what will be the strength of man and
the beauty of woman, and the long life of ALL
My design is to show you that practical relig-
Ion is the friend of long life. and prove it, first
from the fact that it makes the care of our phys
ical health positive Christian duty Whether
we shall keep early or late hours, whether we
shall take food digestibe or indigestible wheth-
er there shall be thorough or incomplete mastica-
ticn, are questions very often deferred to the
realm of whimsicality but the Christian man
lifts this whole problem Of health into the
countable and the divine. He says: "God has
given me this body, and he has called it the tenn
pie of the Holy Ghost. and to deface its affairs,
or mar its walls, orcrumble its pillars is a God
defying sacrilege." He sees Gods calligraphy in
every page. anatomical and physiological. He
says: God has given wonderful body for
noble purposes That arm with thirty-two
curious bones, welded by forty-six curious
muscles, and all under the brain teleg-
raphy: $50 pounds OF blood rushing through
the heart every hour; the heart in
twenty four hours beating 100, 900 times during
the twenty four hours overcoming resistance
amounting to 224 00o 900 pounds weight; during
the same time the lungs taking in ffty-seven
hogsheads of air; and all this mechanism not
more mighty than delicate, and easily disturbed
and demolished. The Christian man says to
himself IF | hurt my nerves, if hurt my
brain, il hurt any of my physical faculties, /
insult God and call for dire retribution." Why
did God tell tho Levites not to offer to him in
sacrifice animals imperfect or diseased He
meant to tell us in all the ages that we are to
offer 20 God our very best physical condition;
and a man who through irregular or gluttonous
eating, ruins his health. is not offering to God
such a sacrifice. Why did Paul write for his
cloak at Troasl Why should such great man
as Paul be anxious about thing so insignificant
as an overcoatl 1t was because that he knew
with pneumonia and rheumatism he would not
be worth half rs much to God and the church as
with respiration easy and foot free.
An intelligent Christian man would consider it
an absurdity to kneel down at night and pray,
and ask Gods protection, while at the same time
he kept the windows Of his bedroom tight shut
against fresh air. He would just as soon think
of going ont on the bridge between New York
and Brooklyn leaping off. and then praying to
God to keep him from getting hurt. just as
long as you defer this whole subject of physical
health to the realm of whmsicality, or to the
pastry-cook, or to the butcher. to the baker,
or to the apothecary. or to the clothier, you are
not acting like Christian. The care of all your
physical forces-nervous, muscular, bone, brain,
cellular tissue-for all you must be brought to
Judgment Smoking your nervous system into
fdgets; burning out the coating of your stom-
ach with wine logwooded and strychninei; walk
ing with thin shoes to make your feet look deli
cate; pinched at the waist until you are nigh cut
In two, and neither part worth anything groan-
ing about sick headache and palpitations of the
heart which you think come from God, when
they come from your own folly! What right has
any man or any woman to deface the temple of
the Holy Ghostf
What Ia tho aar9 Whv II ia tho ,rb;srar;nc
Cutlery of the human soul What is the eye2 1t
is the observatory God constructed, its telescope
sweeping the heavens. What is the handl An
instrument so wonderful that when the Earl of
Bridgewater bequeathed in his will $40 900 for
treatises to be written on the wisdom, power and
goodness of God, Sir Charles Bell, the great
English anatcmist and surgeon found his great
est illustration in the construction of the human
hand, devoting his whole book to that subject
So wonderful are these bodies that God names
hia attrihntas altar tho diffaroxt x,autn